The Trump Threat: Ottawa Must Fortify Production Credits to Save Film Sector

As first reported by CBC News, the stability of Canada's film and television industry is facing a direct challenge from south of the border. U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a federal tax incentive specifically designed to keep film productions within the United States, explicitly naming Canada as a destination that has drawn projects away from Hollywood.

According to reporting from CBC News, Trump has dubbed this prospective legislation the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act. The proposal follows a meeting with actor Jon Voigt, during which Trump characterized the current state of Hollywood as a "Complete and Total Disaster" and claimed the industry is being "dissipated in its entirety" due to a lack of domestic incentives.

For Ottawa, the stakes are high. CBC News notes that around 50 per cent of Canada's total film and TV production consists of foreign projects, the majority of which are backed by U.S. companies. While Canada has long been a preferred filming destination, the competitive landscape is shifting. Data from FilmLA cited by CBC News reveals that in 2024, the U.K. outperformed Canadian provinces as a filming jurisdiction for theatrical movies, cable TV series, and streaming TV series. In fact, while British Columbia captured 8.4 per cent of U.S.-scripted TV series distributed in 2024, the U.K. secured 12.5 per cent.

This is not a new rivalry, but the scale of the proposed federal intervention is significant. Canada established its federal tax credit in 1997 to attract foreign productions, a move that Jade Miller, an associate professor in communication studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, told CBC News was large enough to cause Hollywood productions to migrate to Vancouver in the late 1990s. This shift previously sparked intense backlash, including a 2001 call from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) for countervailing tariffs against subsidized Canadian productions.

The risk of losing these productions is tangible. Tom Cox, an Alberta producer, told CBC News in 2006 that the film *Brokeback Mountain* was originally intended for Wyoming, but moved to Alberta because Wyoming's infrastructure and financial incentives could not compete.

While current trends show that production is also moving to other U.S. states—and that Los Angeles County has seen film and TV employment drop roughly 26 per cent by the end of 2025 compared to 2010, per Otis College of Art and Design—a federal U.S. incentive would create a systemic disadvantage for Canadian sets. If the U.S. successfully implements a national program to stop productions from moving to "Canada and other Countries," Ottawa cannot afford to be complacent. To maintain its industry profile and protect the thousands of jobs tied to foreign shoots, Canada must act decisively to ensure its production credits remain competitive against a newly aggressive U.S. federal strategy.