The Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit was back in the news this summer when a Sask filmmaker started a petition demanding it be brought back, and the provincial NDP have promised to resurrect the program if elected this month.
Since the Sask Party cut the long-running tax credit in 2012, a lot of ink has been spilled about the film industry’s decline. What these discussions miss is that the tax credit program never invested in independent filmmakers, and especially Indigenous filmmakers, telling their own stories. Do we risk re-entrenching inequities by bringing it back?