DGC congratulates the Minister on today’s first step

Toronto – DGC National Executive Director Brian Baker congratulated Heritage Minister Melanie Joly this afternoon on unveiling the Government’s new cultural policy for the digital age while also responding to today’s announcement from Netflix Canada on future production.

“It’s great to see the Minister embrace the principle that every player in Canada has to be producing Canadian content and investing in Canadian creative talent. It’s great to hear her commit to maintain full funding for the CMF. And it’s great to hear Netflix plans to keep shooting in Canada,” Baker said. “This could be the first step towards modernizing our cultural policy for the digital age, but the devil’s in the details.”

Baker laid out the key elements for such policy including the Minister’s Order-in-Council instructing the CRTC to review the issue of regulation for the digital sector:

"Of course, we’re always glad to hear about more productions coming to Canada, we’re a great place to shoot, but the Minister and the CRTC will have some big questions to answer. Are we talking about Canadian programming, or American shows shot in Canada with American talent in all the top creative functions? How much will be in French? Is this Netflix announcement a one-off, or the first step towards a real policy?”

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For More Information Contact:

Ian Gillespie, Director of Communications, 416-459-5932, igillespie@dgc.ca

The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) is a national labour organization that represents over 5,000 key creative and logistical personnel in the screen-based industry covering all areas of direction, design, production and editing. The DGC negotiates and administers collective agreements and lobbies extensively on issues of concern for members including Canadian content conditions, CRTC regulations and ensuring that funding is maintained for Canadian screen-based programming.