Polley attacks Bill C-10

Some of the biggest guns in Canada’s creative community – including Oscar-nominated actor/writer Sarah Polley – are heading to Ottawa tomorrow to protest against a controversial provision on film and TV tax credits now before the Senate banking committee.

The high-profile group of writers, producers, directors and actors say they will take the federal government to task for trying to push through an amendment to the Income Tax Act that could cripple the financial foundation that supports Canadian-made film and television.

“This legislation threatens freedom of expression as well as the very financial foundation upon which this industry was built,” Polley said yesterday. “Take that away, and many of us would be hard-pressed to understand the motivation to stay here.”

“The main reason that I choose to make films in Canada, and act in Canada, is because public funding allows a level of creative freedom that is simply not possible with private money,” Polley added, whose feature-film directorial debut, Away from Her, was nominated this year for two Academy Awards.

Rogers slams ‘overpaying’ for TV broadcast time shifting

The nasty battle over television fees shifted to a new front yesterday, with Canada’s largest cable company telling the federal broadcast regulator it is “overpaying” broadcasters for “time shifting,” or the ability to carry channels from other time zones.

The popular practice, which allows viewers to catch up on missed shows by watching them on stations from across the country, is the latest flashpoint in the feud between cable companies and broadcasters over higher fees.

Rogers Communications Inc., which is also fighting on the thorny “fee-for-carriage” issue, said at hearings convened by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that current time-shifting charges unfairly penalize the cable industry.

Cable companies currently pay broadcasters 50 cents per subscriber to carry those distant domestic signals and list them higher up on the dial. Satellite companies, however, can carry those signals free and group them together on listing guides.

Calgary-Bonnyville flights return

CALGARY – InfinitAir is banking on a bustling oilpatch in northeastern Alberta to fill the plush leather seats on its new, scheduled service flight offering from Calgary to the Bonnyville-Cold Lake area.

Infinity Flight Services Ltd. this week launched the first ever scheduled service from the Bonnyville Municipal Airport to Calgary, a move that also means the return of regular service for the nearby city of Cold Lake.

Bonnyville, 537 kilometres northeast of Calgary, and Cold Lake, 588 km away, were left without scheduled air service in May 2007, when Peace Air, one of Alberta’s oldest airlines, went out of business.

Pistilli scores twice, Olympiques take 3-0 lead over Remparts

Matthew Pistilli scored twice in the first period, and the Gatineau Olympiques moved a win away from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League semifinals after beating the Quebec Remparts 6-2 Tuesday.

Claude Giroux had a goal and two assists for the Olympiques, who took a 3-0 lead of the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal. Nicolas Boyer, Darryl Smith and Michael Stinziani also scored for Gatineau.

Elsewhere in the QMJHL it was: Rouyn-Noranda 4 Rimouski 3; Acadie-Bathurst 4 Saint John 2; and Halifax 4 Cape Breton 3 (2 OT).

At Quebec City, Christophe Poirier and Felix Petit replied for the Remparts.

Ryan Mior made 17 saves for Gatineau, while Kevin Desfosses and Mickael Audette combined for 20 stops for Quebec.

Game 4 is Wednesday in Quebec City.

McCartney rumours confirmed

In a city where concert rumours are known to spread like wildfire, and officials want to keep a possible show under wraps, the last thing they should do is wear a jacket around town emblazoned with the star’s name.

But that’s exactly what led Harold MacKay of Power Promotions Concepts to confirm yesterday Sir Paul McCartney is considering gracing Halifax with his presence this summer.

MacKay says he had planned to remain tight-lipped about the possible concert, which is planned for late June or early July.

In Tibet, ‘educating the heart’ is key to peace

There are times when it is appropriate to turn the other cheek in the pursuit of peace, but it is never a good option to turn a blind eye – to stand mute in the face of injustice or ignore an act of aggression against the innocent. And so we, the trustees of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, feel compelled to speak up about what is happening in Tibet.

We have hesitated to do so precisely because some people will find it predictable. Some may even accuse us of being part of what certain Chinese politicians are cynically deriding as the “Dalai clique.” But it would be wrong to assume that we care about Tibet only because of the Dalai Lama’s link to that region. In establishing the Vancouver-based DLC, we have been careful to create an organization that is apolitical and secular.

The intent is not to laud one political position over another. It is to honour the Dalai Lama‘s universal teachings – in particular, his insistence on nonviolence. We are speaking out against the use of force and urging the parties to this and other conflicts to choose dialogue as the first step toward resolution.

Lantos gets the cold shoulder

A decision by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to sell the international rights to some of Canada’s best-known films and television shows to a U.S. buyer has upset at least one domestic distributor who wanted in on the bidding.

Canadian producer Robert Lantos, who launched Maximum Film Distribution last year, said yesterday his company was one of a few local distributors interested in buying the international rights to the former Alliance Atlantis library, which Goldman Sachs bought last year.

However, Mr. Lantos, who backed several films and TV programs contained in that library, said Canadian companies were told by Goldman they were ineligible to bid because it saw them as potential rivals to its Alliance Films division in Canada.

“I was obviously a motivated buyer,” Mr. Lantos said yesterday. Canadian distributor Entertainment One Ltd. also said it was interested in bidding.