Heritage Minister James Moore finally pulled the trigger on naming a new Executive Director for Telefilm Canada late yesterday.
To the surprise of the cognoscenti, he didn’t pick Michel Roy, who was considered a lock for the position until he offered up a kinda dumb idea I talked about a little further down this page.
I’m not going to claim any credit for Monsieur Roy’s loss in this affair. That should go to the members of ACTRA and other like minded believers in Canadian talent who made it clear they just weren’t gonna co-sign his brand of Bullshit anymore.
I’ve always believed that given enough time, enough room or enough rope, those who pretend to know what’s best for artists will always reveal their true colors and do to themselves what they’d intended for somebody else.
Petard, hoist away.
Not many of us know much about Telefilm’s new ED, Carolle Brabant, the first woman to head the agency. But I have a sense that she’s now well aware that the talent portion of her programs has a dedication to their industry and their country that deserves to be listened to more than it has in the past.
Whether this is a watershed moment in Canadian film may not be determined for a while. But it seems like we’ve taken a turn in a better direction.