When our biggest private broadcasters spend a significant amount of their budgets on foreign content (Bell Media, Rogers) and our own Comedy Network (owned by Bell Media) broadcasts almost entirely American content how is this not a betrayal of Canada’s artists and creators? Check out the Comedy Network’s latest line-ups and it’ll literally hurt your soul. To be fair they are making some comedy but if you take a look at Rogers and Corus, they currently make no comedy at all. The only broadcaster making comedy in a meaningful way right now is the CBC. We are a comedy nation. We always like to brag about it but what are we doing about it?

Sorry to be so extreme but I can find no other way of describing what’s going on in our country. When I first wrote a letter to the Prime Minister two years ago about the state of Canadian comedy, I would never have dreamed I would uncover such a broken state of affairs. What a mishigas! The business and bureaucracy of art and entertainment in Canada is absolutely absurd and dysfunctional. These past two years have been like finding out someone cheated on you and discovering all the ways in which they have.

The most chilling example of this is when I discovered one of the federal government’s findings in a study they conducted called Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians.

38. …In general, many English-speaking Canadians choose to watch U.S. programming, with certain exceptions, such as sports and news. It is less expensive to acquire American programming (which has already covered its costs in its domestic market) than to produce Canadian programming. Moreover, Canadian programming is less profitable for Canadian broadcasters than U.S. programming. Without regulatory intervention, market forces thus tend to focus English-language private broadcasters in Canada on the acquisition and exhibition of American programming. This programming also benefits from Hollywood’s promotional power and its well-established star system-by comparison, both relatively lacking in English-language Canada.



So you see, it’s less ‘profitable’ for our Canadian broadcasters to create Canadian programming. Outrageous! Less profitable for them. Impoverishing for us. Why the hell then do we have Canadian broadcasters if all they’re going to do is buy American content? What’s the point? And to add insult to injury, the CRTC has all but abandoned a quota system in favour of encouraging ‘quality programming’. Quota systems are the hallmark of many industrialized nations, which is why countries like Australia and the United Kingdom have such robust industries. They are mandated to do so.

We are in the midst of a monumental crisis in our culture and identity. If our own regulatory body is disappearing quotas then what chance do we have at preserving our stories and sharing our unique perspectives to the world?

42. For decades, the Canadian broadcasting system was a relatively closed system in which it was possible to limit the supply of foreign programming in an effort to create a demand for Canadian programming through exhibition quotas. Today, with the emergence of new broadband platforms, the supply of foreign programming is seemingly limitless. This situation has rendered it difficult to sustain a quota-based approach to creating domestic demand for Canadian programming. Moreover, domestic demand is no longer sufficient for the production industry to continue to thrive when it is faced with content offerings from around the world. In order to adapt to this new configuration of supply and demand, Canadian programming must seek out and develop international audiences. Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians.

If we’re not legislating minimum CanCon quotas then what content will we have to share with the world? When I spoke to the CRTC a couple of weeks back I was told this; American TV costs $10 million/hour, Canadian TV costs $1 million/hour. So Canadian broadcasters say, ‘Well we just can’t compete with those economies of scale. Instead we’ll take that $1 million and buy American shows like Seinfeld, Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, und so weiter. Just think about all the millions of dollars our broadcasters spend to purchase ready made content from our neighbours that they could be granting to our comedy creators. I’ll take a poll right now and ask my comedy pals what they would do with $1 million. Yup. Just got the poll results back. They’re passing out from the possibilities.



This is why our artists and especially our comedians are all leaving Canada. We are experiencing a mass exodus unlike anything this country has ever seen. It is oddly similar to what the Massey Report described when it reported its findings and recommended the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts because:

No novelist, poet, short story writer, historian, biographer, or other writer of non-technical books can make even a modestly comfortable living by selling his work in Canada. No composer of music can live at all on what Canada pays him for his compositions. Apart from radio drama, no playwright, and only a few actors and producers, can live by working in the theatre in Canada." Gifted Canadians "must be content with a precarious an unrewarding life in Canada, or go abroad where their talents are in demand." - The Massey Report

Perhaps our curse is bordering this Leviathan. An unrelenting beast that is the envy of everyone. Instead of being inspired by America’s unwavering commitment to tell their stories, Canada gave up.

40. Rather than closing off Canadians from the content of another country and using technology to build a closed Canadian broadcasting system, the Commission responded in another way: it developed regulations so that Canadians could enjoy foreign content while building the domestic industry to ensure a space for Canadian creativity, storytelling and perspectives... This approach has created a system that is the envy of the world - Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians.

It’s very nice of them to to leave us a ‘space.’ Whose envious of this? Corporate big wigs? For Canadian creators, it’s a death knell.