President Donald Trump's film tariff threat adds to stress for those in B.C.'s flagging film business
U.S. President Donald Trump's recent threats to put a 100 per cent tariff on films made outside the U.S. was not the news the lagging B.C. film business wanted to hear.
Article content
'The pandemic, the strike, the reduction in productions all over North America, and now Mr. Trump. To say that the cumulative effect has been less than positive is an understatement,' said veteran location scout Tonya Hartz. Hartz, who worked on productions such as Watchmen, See, So Help Me Todd, counts herself among the lucky ones working consistently since the strikes.
Article content
Article content
But that hasn't been the case for many others in her field.
Article content
Article content
'Scouts are paying bills instead of buying groceries,' said Hartz. 'The only ones that can survive an enduring cycle like this one are the highest-paid categories, the most senior members with deep savings, or members who have side hustles.'
Article content
Film and TV production business is down 20 per cent across the globe. The lingering effects of major strikes, budget cuts by streaming services, and studios shifting toward more conservative, share-price positive, business models have led to a major industry contraction.
Article content
Here in B.C., the industry expects about 30 productions to be rolling during its usual peak summer season. In good years, that number would easily be double.
Article content
According to Creative B.C., the province's TV and film industry, the third-largest production hub in North America after Los Angeles and New York, contributed $2 billion to the provincial GDP in 2023, employing around 26,000 full-time workers. Those numbers are down substantially from 2022, when the industry employed close to 50,000 full-time workers and contributed $2.7 billion.
Article content
Article content
'We've got 15 signed productions under our agreement,' said business representative Crystal Braunwarth. That number would have been double in 2020, Braunwarth said.
Article content
Article content
With production numbers already down, Trump's Truth Social statement spread further unease across the industry. Braunwarth said she fielded over 50 calls from members after Trump's post went up.
Article content
'Our members have been through a lot over the last four years,' said Braunwarth. 'So it's another thing that we are going to face — whatever it is.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Edmonton Journal
25 minutes ago
- Edmonton Journal
'Major threat' to trade: U.S. Congress Republicans call for Canada to rescind Online Streaming Act
OTTAWA — Republicans on an influential House committee are pushing top Trump administration officials to pressure Canada to kibosh its controversial Online Streaming Act, which they describe as a 'major threat' to the trade relationship. Article content In a July 31 letter obtained by National Post, 18 Republican members of Congress on the powerful House ways and means committee ramped up pressure on White House officials to get Canada to dump the 'discriminatory' Act the same way it ditched the Digital Services Tax in late June. Article content Article content 'The fact that the Online Streaming Act already imposes discriminatory obligations and threatens additional obligations imminently is a major threat to our cross-border digital trade relationship,' reads the letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Article content Article content Greer, Bessent and Lutnick are at the forefront of negotiations with Canada for a new trade deal that Mark Carney's government hopes will eliminate a host of new U.S. tariffs against key Canadian industries. Article content The letter sheds light on how a growing number of influential U.S. politicians are using ongoing trade negotiations with Canada to push back against Canadian digital policies that impacts American companies. Article content Article content It also comes amid a growing trade war between both countries in which Republicans and President Donald Trump have been vocal about a plethora of commercial irritants with Canada. Article content Article content The Online Streaming Act is a hotly contested law implemented by the Liberals in 2023. It brought online streaming platforms under Canadian broadcasting laws and regulation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Article content Under the new law, the CRTC ruled last year that streaming services such as Spotify, Netflix, Amazon and Apple will have to pay five per cent of their annual Canadian revenue into a fund dedicated to creating Canadian content. Article content The decision — which is estimated to cost the platforms $1.25 million each yearly — is currently being challenged by Apple, Amazon and Spotify at the Federal Court of Appeal. Article content While members of the prestigious U.S. House committee have previously raised concerns about the Act, it's the first time a significant number of members have called for Canada to rescind it completely.
Calgary Herald
25 minutes ago
- Calgary Herald
'Major threat' to trade: U.S. Congress Republicans call for Canada to rescind Online Streaming Act
Article content OTTAWA — Republicans on an influential House committee are pushing top Trump administration officials to pressure Canada to kibosh its controversial Online Streaming Act, which they describe as a 'major threat' to the trade relationship. Article content In a July 31 letter obtained by National Post, 18 Republican members of Congress on the powerful House ways and means committee ramped up pressure on White House officials to get Canada to dump the 'discriminatory' Act the same way it ditched the Digital Services Tax in late June. Article content Article content Article content 'The fact that the Online Streaming Act already imposes discriminatory obligations and threatens additional obligations imminently is a major threat to our cross-border digital trade relationship,' reads the letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Article content Article content 'As bilateral trade negotiations continue, we urgently request that you engage with your Canadian counterparts to share our concerns and rescind the Online Streaming Act,' they added. Article content Greer, Bessent and Lutnick are at the forefront of negotiations with Canada for a new trade deal that Mark Carney's government hopes will eliminate a host of new U.S. tariffs against key Canadian industries. Article content The letter sheds light on how a growing number of influential U.S. politicians are using ongoing trade negotiations with Canada to push back against Canadian digital policies that impacts American companies. Article content Article content It also comes amid a growing trade war between both countries in which Republicans and President Donald Trump have been vocal about a plethora of commercial irritants with Canada. Article content Article content The Online Streaming Act is a hotly contested law implemented by the Liberals in 2023. It brought online streaming platforms under Canadian broadcasting laws and regulation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Article content Under the new law, the CRTC ruled last year that streaming services such as Spotify, Netflix, Amazon and Apple will have to pay five per cent of their annual Canadian revenue into a fund dedicated to creating Canadian content. Article content The decision — which is estimated to cost the platforms $1.25 million each yearly — is currently being challenged by Apple, Amazon and Spotify at the Federal Court of Appeal. Article content While members of the prestigious U.S. House committee have previously raised concerns about the Act, it's the first time a significant number of members have called for Canada to rescind it completely.
Vancouver Sun
25 minutes ago
- Vancouver Sun
The redcoats are coming — but this time the Americans invited them
America's most prestigious lawyers' group is gathering in Toronto Monday, ironically to be greeted by an honour guard of redcoats from the War of 1812 in which American troops sacked the city. As Canada and the United States are embroiled in a trade war, more than 1,700 people are expected to attend the American Bar Association's meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. On the agenda is tackling U.S. President Donald Trump's law firm intimidation tactics. But first, their house of delegates will be greeted by two members of the Fort York Guard, student re-enactors wearing the historic red uniforms of America's former enemy. The fun part: the association's house of delegates specifically asked to be greeted by the former-enemy redcoats. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'The American Bar Association, like so many professional associations in the United States, leans left. So, they're going to come up with a plan there that maybe makes a statement to maybe twist Trump's nose, as it were, the way the Americans used to twist the British alliance's tail. So, that doesn't surprise me at all that they would find a way of making a statement to show that they do not approve of his trade war,' said Donald Hickey, a retired Wayne State College history professor The New Yorker dubbed 'the dean of 1812 scholarship.' He suspects the two countries will eventually resolve their differences. 'I'm sure they'll work it out. This is just a little blip, I think, in Canadian-American relations. Although Trump didn't help at all when he said Canada ought to be a 51st state. That was, I think, ill-advised,' Hickey said in an interview from Omaha, Nebraska. Don Cranston heads the Friends of Fort York, an organization that promotes the protection of the Fort York National Historic Site, a 43-acre archeological park, where the bloody Battle of York took place more than two centuries ago. He was thrilled the American Bar Association asked for the pretend redcoats to form an honour guard at its meeting. 'Their membership is very appreciative of the past relationship with Canada, and I think they are, in a way, trying to say, 'Hey, we've never had a closer friend. Why are we alienating our closest friend?'' said Cranston, a senior investment counsellor with Fiera Capital. He points out that, in retaliation for burning and looting Fort York in 1813, British forces marched on Washington, D.C., the following year and burned down the White House and other public buildings. Cranston hopes playing nice with the visiting American lawyers will help convince them our two countries are better off standing together than not. 'But, in my mind, the guard also signifies that if we have to fight, we will.' While he's aware of the role soldiers from Fort York played in the War of 1812, Jonathan Cole, who heads the American Bar Association's house of delegates, downplayed any suggestion that inviting redcoats to Monday's session is meant as a commentary on Trump's trade war or his musings about annexing Canada. He noted the ABA's Toronto session has been years in the planning, pre-dating the recent friction between two countries that share the world's longest international land border. 'It's a good chance to work together despite political issues,' Cole said in an interview from Nashville, Tennessee. Fort York's history is a reminder of how 'the two countries have worked together since and have been such great allies,' Cole said. He's excited the honour guard from Fort York is participating. 'They'll present both the American flag and the Canadian flag, and we'll have the national anthems sung for both countries as well before we begin our proceedings.' American forces captured Fort York in the spring of 1813. 'They essentially conquered Fort York and they burned some of the buildings,' Hickey said. 'It was an unpleasant business for people in and around York at the time.' Hickey argues the War of 1812 was 'essentially Canada's war of independence — and they won, so it is far better remembered in Canada than in the United States.' There are several ways to see the conflict, he said. 'If you look at what happened on the battlefield and in the peace treaty (of Ghent) it looks like a draw because it was very hard to wage offensive warfare in the North American wilderness and when the United States was on the offensive early in the war they failed to make much headway in Canada,' Hickey said. 'And when the British were in the driver's seat in the last year of the war, they didn't make much headway either.' But overall 'it's a clear British and Canadian victory because the United States went to war to force the British to give up the orders in council, which restricted American trade with the continent of Europe, and also to end impressment — the removal of seamen from American merchant vessels,' Hickey said. 'And neither of those issues was mentioned in the peace treaty' signed in December of 1814. The only way to argue the U.S. benefitted from the conflict is, 'the British had a real problem after the war was over; nobody knew that was going to be the last Anglo-American war. And how were they going to defend Canada next time around from this growing expansionist colossus to the south?' Hickey said. 'They decided that their best tack was to accommodate the United States. And they pursued that policy in the course of the 19th Century, and ultimately it worked. There was a genuine Anglo-American accord by the 1890s. Then it turned into co-belligerency in World War One, and full-fledged alliance in World War Two that continues to this day. So, in the end, the United States got a little more respect for its sovereignty from the British.' Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
