With the pandemic putting the film and television industry in a tight bind, the provincial government of Quebec has announced a new $51 million financial assistance program for entertainment producers.
According to an announcement by Quebec Minister of Culture and Communications Nathalie Roy, the new program was created to resolve a deadlock between entertainment production companies and their insurers, CTV News reported.
The program goes live today, the minister’s office said in a statement. Administered through the Societe de developpement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), the program will finance filming in order to keep the film and television industry’s production capacity. It will also compensate producers for business interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Quebec Association of Media Production welcomed the plan’s announcement. Helene Messier, president and CEO of the association, said in a statement that the program will relieve some of the pressure, especially when “the budgets of French-language productions are already suffering from significant underfunding.”
Quebec’s stimulus plan is separate from another backstop plan by the federal government.
In June, the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) requested the federal government provide about $100 million to top up a backstop program pooled from the sale of pandemic-specific insurance policies. This reserve pool program would allow media producers to pay a premium to obtain pandemic insurance coverage from their insurers – with the payouts coming directly from the reserve.
CTV News said that the government has earmarked $91.5 million to support film and television production.
