After Getting Bill C-11, Canadian Animation Fell Into Crisis

Bill C-11, now the Online Streaming Act, was supposed to revive Canadian storytelling. Now, one sector is in crisis.

During the Bill C-11 debates, one tired trope supporters kept pushing regarding this then bill was that this was supposed to support those telling Canadian stories. It was obviously a bullshit lie especially given that, during the debate, Bell argued for changes so that they can more cheaply rebroadcast American programming. That move alone made it crystal clear that the debate had nothing to do with “telling Canadian stories” and more about legacy media players getting a free money stream. Hell, Bell even went so far as to slash their workforce with layoffs and raise dividend payments after getting Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 as they basically told the Canadian government, “Haha, suckers!”

Of course, both bill passed and unleashed a torrent of cultural destruction on Canada. The CBC said that they were slashing 10% of its workforce in response to getting their massive financial windfall. The Canadian government then worked out a deal where they would bail out the CBC in exchange for the layoffs not happening. The CBC then took that money and showered its CEO with bonuses, showing that there was never any financial hardship for the corporation in the first place, just extortion.

Corus, for their part, slashed 25% of their workforce in response to both bills passing as well, showing that this whole affair of massive layoffs after finally getting their bailout money over top of the two bills they claimed would save Canadian jobs.

Of course, the shedding of jobs never really stopped. More recently, Corus halted production efforts at Nelvana Production, a Canadian animation studio. Indeed, Bill C-11 was passed in 2023 and ever since, according to recent reports, the Canadian animation sector has fallen into crisis. From the Globe and Mail:

For decades, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have tried to forge reputations as crucial hubs in the global animation and visual-effects economies. The burst of pandemic productivity brought their work into full view. In 2023, the sector drew in $1.9-billion across the country, according to Statistics Canada figures released last October – nearly triple 2015’s revenue.

Yet the numbers belied the true state of the sector. By 2023, the market for animated and digitally designed work – and workers – was starting to crash. Studios across Canada began shedding jobs by the thousands.

“There was a lot of fear and hopelessness,” says Jackson, a mother of three who was laid off twice that year – forcing her, like many others she knows in the field, to sell her home.

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Jackson is the chair of Toronto Animation Arts Festival International. When the industry-event organizer invited studios and animators to a job fair in June, 2024, the studios that showed up had maybe 20 total jobs on offer, her team estimated; there were more than 900 attendees. In Quebec, the sector’s full-time employment has fallen by two-thirds since 2022. While some studios have slowly begun hiring again, the jobs are often for short-term contracts.

Fear and hopelessness? That’s not supposed to happen! According to lobbyists pushing for Bill C-11, the passage of that bill would bring about a new golden age of Canadian story telling! The Online Streaming Act would be the cure-all solution for all of Canada’s entertainment sector woes. There was supposed to be a flood of job opportunities and a full blown revival and a new golden age for Canadian programming. Heck, even the added bailouts over top of everything else didn’t seem to do a damned thing at stemming the flow of pink slips. It’s almost as if they were lying all this time, imagine that!

Yet, despite the obvious evidence that both bills did nothing to “save” anything, lobbyists are continuing to demand that the government keep both bills… you know, just because. I mean, they clearly did nothing to accomplish their alleged goals, but the lobbyists want to keep those bills in there just for the lulz. The reality is that these laws are still on the books for no reason other than making it a free money making scheme for shareholders and wealthy CEOs while producing nothing of value. With American lawmakers pushing to bring this bill to an end, Canada has no actual reason to keep this particular law on the books.

(Via @Fagstein)

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.