Call me a nationalist...

...but this is bollocks.

Said Stephen Waddell, ACTRA's national executive director, in a statement: "Last year we were shocked that so-called Canadian private broadcasters spent four times more on U.S. rogramming than they did on original Canadian drama. Now we're appalled to learn that in 2005, they spent almost five times more. The system is clearly broken."

What, you think? Why is there so much resistence to the idea of supporting Canadian Acting and, more generally, culture? It's not like we invented the frigging idea or anything. The whole thing is so internally self-consistent, it drives me nuts. Canadian movies get 3% of screen time in their own countries. (This is not to say that our movies are any great shakes, but if we have to watch bad movies anyway, they might as well be ours.) This means that the film industry can't afford to make movies that no one will watch and which occupy a tiny little avant garde niche in their own country. Everyone else goes to the United States or works on American productions. No screen time = no audience = no money = no industry.

This is very simple. Mandating quotas for music means we got a Canadian music industry. Exactly the same thing ought to happen with the movie industry. Why don't we? Because Canadian companies don't invest in and promote Canadian film on their own. Instead, it is all about "the market." Everything has to be competative, pay its own way and the best will get screen time. (Oh man, are we STILL funding the CBC? Jeez, the free market is going to get mad and destroy us any freaking minute now.)

If Hollywood wants to bail because we reserve OUR screens for OUR bad movies instead of theirs, let them. They'll be back. Our crappy dollar means too much to their bottom lines. They're bluffing us out, and we're falling for it. Have, say a 30% quota, and Canadian film will expand to meet that limit. Not what consumers want? Our films make 7/10ths of 1% of the box office in our own country. How many of us have ever seen a Canadian film? You there in the back? Yeah, that's what I thought. How do we know what we want to see when there is nowhere to see it?

Post Script (Apr 4): According to Vinay Melon at the Star, the Juno's outdrew the Grammy's this year in Canada. While this may be because everyone is waiting for movie releases to go to DVD these days, it does go to show you that we can and will watch Cancon, given a decent industry and performers behind it.

Juno Jump: Last night's Juno Awards broadcast is credited with pulling in an average 1.7 million viewers on CTV, more than the Grammy Awards in February, and behind only the Oscars and Golden Globes in award show viewership. The show, broadcast from Halifax Metro Centre, peaked with 2.1 million viewers and attracted almost 30 per cent more viewers than last year, making it the second-most watched Juno Awards, according to a news release. CTV says its eTalk Daily preshow, with Tanya Kim and Ben Mulroney, attracted its biggest audience ever with 1.04 million viewers.