Friday, January 08, 2010

[Canadian Politics] Canadian Business has an article about Ontario's new tax credit for intellectual property development. Another "handout" to the arts? Here's the nugget at the end of the story:

As to the worthiness of film and TV in Ontario, Thorne-Stone has no doubt. She estimates Ontario sees an ROI of $10 to $12 for every $1 in tax-credit redemption.

For some reason, arts subsidies are tagged as handouts. But aside from whatever cultural value they have, they promote business. There is hardly a major industry in Canada that the government doesn't support, from logging to steel to cars. Why not promote the arts? You get your money back!

Which raises the question: why won't the Conservatives support the business of show business? Don't they want people to get rich?

Labels: Cancon

10:19 AM

6 Comments:

Fight these idiots Canada. We let them run wild here in the States. Now the only people who get government funding are big banks!

By  GoldenAgeofGeek, at 10:34 AM  

Great blog man. Love the Canadian perspective.

By  Anonymous, at 1:59 PM  

I've often wondered the same thing. Last I checked, the Pennsylvania Film Office touted a $6 ROI on every $1 in incentives it provided, yet those funds are usually near the top of the chopping block when budget-cutting season comes around.

By  Terry Hart, at 2:00 PM  

If $10 to $12 dollars is the ROI they pulled out of their nether regions for a perennial money losing operation like the arts... can you imagine how much more it would be if that dollar went to an actual money making endeavour like Walmart!

I wonder what kind of ROI would come from just leaving that $1 where it came from? Then again, the cost of paying and collecting tax means that it was probably more like $2 to wrangle that $1 from the taxpayer.

Hey, maybe if their taxes weren't so high, more people could afford to go out to a movie or pay to stream a TV show?

This is the same voodoo economics that NASA is continuously using to try and justify the money that they spend.

If I won't tow that line for expanding us into a space going civilization, the single most important thing that it is possible for the human race to do, I sure ain't going to do it to protect the entertainment industry.

Even if that is the industry I'm working in.

By  Clint Johnson, at 7:14 PM  

Although... being a tax rebate... this is more along the lines of "leaving that $1 where it came from". An example of the government picking "winners" by allowing them to keep more of their money - rather than giving them more of other people's money.

Although they do plenty of that as well.

I still stand by my statement that "Return On Investment" is empty rhetoric when used outside a limited arena. You can't count how it effects the community at large because EVERY dollar spent does that. If I were to spend a million dollars on hookers and blow, it would have an enormous ROI base on those silly metrics.

The only time that a dollar's ROI can legitimately used is when trying to establish a specific investment's return to the person or business that spent that dollar.

Some in the arts actually have an ROI that is in the positive range while many more do not.

The answer is to let the weeds die out and make way so that those in the arts who can make a positive ROI don't have to fight for sunlight with them.

By  Clint Johnson, at 7:43 PM  

Massive good catch, Alex. Thank god one of us is still reading.

By  DMc, at 10:39 AM  

Post a Comment

Back to Complications Ensue main blog page.