You can count on us

Dear friends,

Among all the challenges our industry has overcome, none has been as destabilizing as the one we currently face. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to a standstill most sectors of the economy, including ours.

It is not business as usual. The CMF will continue to be a reliable partner in service to our industry. We remain fully operational as does our Program Administrator Team at Telefilm Canada.

We are in regular communication with the government to look at added flexibility for our programs and funding, as well as what critical relief measures may be necessary. While the situation for our industry is dire, governments are rightly responding to front line priorities such as human resource support, food supply and health care.

More than 1500 projects supported by the CMF in 2019-2020 have been impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will work with our clients to ensure maximum flexibility as we consider relief measures, wind down and start-up costs.

While we work to address the impact of COVID-19, the CMF will continue to provide support to the industry through all our programs in 2020-2021.

The Performance Envelopes for 2020-2021 will be provided to each individual broadcaster early next week for the standard two-week review process before they are posted on the CMF website. The Program Budget and Guidelines for 2020-2021 have been approved. We will be releasing these on April 1. The program budget is comparable to previous years. We hope this will offer some predictability and stability at this difficult time.

The changes to the Guidelines are not extensive but we have done what we can to respond to the industry consultations and points of view we have received over the past year. We anticipate that as the COVID-19 situation unfolds, additional flexibility in the Guidelines may be required for the broadcast and production sector.

Thank you for doing your part. Our collective response will determine how quickly we recover from the crisis. We will work with you to mitigate the impact on our sector to the best of our ability. The world needs your stories now and especially when the focus on survival comes to an end.

Contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Valerie Creighton, C.M., S.O.M
President and CEO
Canada Media Fund