The Maple Leaf Lounge

I notice he was charged with driving without a license. I guess driver's licenses are an infringement of "freedom."

 

They are government tyranny.

Or maybe the true Queen of Canada issued him one.

 

My deposit was only $233, I get another in, I guess, 6 months.

 

three months then 3 after that.

The one today was a double payment (April and July) so the next two will be smaller.

depending on your income and if you rent there’s also a $500 one off boost from the feds coming as well. Supposed to help with the impact of inflation but for many more likes pissing on the great fire of London.

 

And I bet people are squawking about it because they have this circular notion that Canadian stuff is boring. Well, how do they know if there isn't enough of the good stuff available for them to have been exposed to it?

Modern audiences expect sex and violence. Well, if I recall (from the early-mid seasons of The Beachcombers), Hugh (Molly's grandson; he was written off the show early, to my disappointment; my tween-aged self thought Bob Park was really cute) experienced a couple of kisses on the cheek and a couple of episodes were violent in that he got in with a gang that trashed Molly's Reach, and there was another episode in which he was knocked out when a crook hijacked the Persephone. I haven't seen those episodes since the early '70s, but still remember them. They're tame by modern standards, but in the early '70s, they didn't seem tame... at least to me. Of course I was about 9 or 10 at the time.

I was just thinking about what the article said about Pat John's portrayal of an Indigenous person. Compare Jesse Jim to characters in The Forest Rangers (Joe Two Rivers and the old shaman whose name I know how to pronounce but can't for the life of me figure out how to spell). Both of them had some kind of "magic" thing going on (Joe could talk to bears).

Things got better in Adventures in Rainbow Country, since that show explored the cultural, political, and economic divide between indigenous and non-indigenous people (ie. the Dreamer's Rock episode in particular explored the jobs vs. traditional culture/spiritualism dilemma that's still going on now, but with railroads, pipelines, and in the '90s it was the Oka Crisis).

 

If they're watching a drama or something sure, but there are still millions of people who have relaxed in recent years to Young Sheldon and The Goldbergs and Superstore and The Good Place and Parks & Rec...

 

I prefer sax and violins for entertainment, and sax with condiments (usually some olive oil dressing but occasionally hot sauce) for my personal fun.

 

One issue with such content rules is the definition of what constitutes Canadian.

To given a foreign example, At one point Australia you can take overseas produced content. stick an Australian presenter in front of it and hey presto, Australian content.

What about something like Strange New Worlds? Filmed in Toronto, using local production staff, local actors as extra/minor roles/guest stars. Would they deem that as Canadian content or would it be seen as U.S content.

Perhaps a better way would be to promote Canadian content so people are aware of it but also consider that maybe people don't watch local content because what ever it is simply doesn't appeal.

(this might be in the stuff linked above but didn't fell like wading through all the stuff on a Saturday afternoon).

 

Most of the Canadian content I see on YouTube falls into either political stuff, hate speech (that awful Holocaust denier in Banff, for instance; I kept flagging that video and nothing was done until she was arrested in Germany), or the odd episode of The Beachcombers, Adventures in Rainbow Country, or the Irish Rovers. Obviously I'm delighted about the latter.

The only political stuff I like on YT are the anti-Harper videos. Plus Tony Turner ("Harperman") and his friends posted another song he wrote that isn't political, but it is quite a lovely song.

 

There are strict rules in what qualifies as Cancon. You have to have some level of Canadian financing, a Canadian producer, and either a Canadian writer or director, and/or I believe a certain amount of Canadian on screen talent/filming locations. I don't know the exact rules off hand.

There was a CBC article about it not long ago, arguing for an update to them, citing things like how Dune & the Deadpool movies don't count as Cancon at all according to current rules.

Edit:. Found the article. It's the same one talking about the legislation

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/streamers-required-to-feature-cancon-1.6415661

 

I don't think have a Canadian writer/producer/director should really count (to use Dune as example) but when larger use is made of Candian production facilities, film crew etc (using SNW from above) then I think it should

 

These requirements are ridiculous. The Handmaid's Tale is shot in Toronto, Margaret Atwood is one of the executive producers and has appeared in it as an Aunt at the Red Centre, and some of the best directors on that show have been Canadian women. I don't know how many of the actors and tech people are Canadian but there must be some.

It's so utterly galling that at first they weren't even going to make this show available for Canadians to see, since we don't have Hulu here. As it is, it takes a subscription to a non-basic channel to get it and what we get is often days or a week after the episodes the Americans get. The first season was delayed by 10 DAYS. The only way I was able to participate in discussions was to not mind the spoilers - easy enough in the first season since it was based (mostly) on the novel, and I've read that something like a couple of dozen times since 1985.

I think it should count. Margaret Atwood as an Executive Producer? Canadian. Kari Skogland has directed some awesome stuff during the last 25 years (I don't use that word lightly), from the first two episodes of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven to the Handmaid's Tale episode in which the funeral for the Handmaid victims of the suicide bomber was held. Skogland posted a video on YT doing a walkthrough of how she approached that episode in matters of lighting, background, the costumes the Handmaids were wearing (not the standard red dresses in this one), the form of the ceremony they did... it was fascinating.

If you only use the criteria of where the movie or show was filmed and what local people were used, that would mean the Lynch movie version of Dune is a Mexican production, since it was shot entirely in Mexico and used many Mexican craftsmen and laborers to build the sets and also to serve as extras.

 

It's not so much a streaming issue as it is a back-catalogue issue. Even with things broadcast on traditional networks, there are tons of stuff no longer accessible via any means. There was a fun CBC show called Seeing Things from back in the 80's, I think, but other than a few episodes I've seen, it's like it doesn't exist. It's one I'd like to see more of. There are tons of shows that end up forgotten like this. I don't know if we as a society has had the foresight to archive all of them.

 

My grandmother used to watch that show.

 

So, I'm not just 'seeing things' then


But yeah, I agree with @Avro Arrow that cancon requirements are not what's needed online, which is something that I don't think would necessarily change anything. What's needed is the actual content that we can dig into. When I see much of the back-catalogue available from the big American networks, it makes me rather sad that we don't have the same level of selection across Canada.

 

I won't even pretend to know the intricacies of the best ways to protect and enhance the Canadian film industry, but I do think it's unfair that projects headed by Canadians don't even have partial credit for Cancon. The Deadpool movies are produced by a Canadian. They star a Canadian. The character being portrayed is a Canadian. It's set in Canada. It was filmed in Canada. A Canadian helped write them. Yet, it's not considered Cancon

I think there should be a scale. So many points for each element.

 

I'm just going to pick Uganda as an example. (TBH I've been researching Uganda for various reasons that don't matter here.)

I'm talking me, or anyone from any country that wants to engage in Ugandan culture through their own media.
Not going to happen through some random Google or YouTube search, unless there is a dedicated, reliable channel for such a thing.

If I, or anyone else, want or need to look for Canadian content, it should be available through the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.

My position is that the CBC has an obligation to provide open and free Canadian content as per its reason for existence. I expect nothing less.

If they actually accomplish that, I don't have a problem supporting their work with my taxes. If they do not, why not?

I've loved the CBC for 6 decades. They are constantly challenged by a party that claims to be "Canadian" but really doesn't represent Canadian values or identity.

Shit, I could go on and on but I'm going to shut up now.

 

You'd be ok with it, a lot of people wouldn't. Not all Cancon is made by CBC, and those that are have partners involved. The government would have to up their budget massively to lease all the rights, as well as up the infrastructure and bandwidth requirements. The costs would be astronomical. And that's assuming everything would be made available as is, which would leave a good number of the programs virtually unwatchable due to degradation over the years and the advent of HD & 4k TVs. Not to mention music rights, which are usually a seperate licencing issue & expense/having to replace the music in the programs if the licensing is too much.

A good 3rd of the country doesn't think the CBC should even exist, that it's nothing more than a liberal propoganda machine cheating the free market at the expense of other stations. The CBC will never be able to be what you suggest it should be here.

I'm not saying I disagree with you in principle, just that it's not at all practical.

 

Unless I'm wrong, the CBC was was used as an example. There are other networks run by Bell and Rogers, along with CBC, or even TVO, that own their own content. But unless they're popular or already run repeats, they're usually not seen again. It's like the equivalent of the Disney vault, except that I'm not even sure how much of that legacy content has been preserved.