Why don't we get started? Welcome to the Communication and Cultural Policy in the
Age of the Platform Conference. I want to start by acknowledging that McMaster
is situated on the traditional territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations
within the lands protected by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum agreement. And right now I'm on the
traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin nation. I think it's also important for us to
acknowledge the roles that communication and cultural policy and technologies play in the
oppression and erasure of Indigenous peoples and also, as Jesse Wente pointed out Monday,
in creating both settler and also Indigenous nations. Jesse Wente invited us on Monday
to consider how we might further the goals of narrative sovereignty in Indigenous peoples for
Indigenous peoples of Indigenous peoples. I'm Sara Bannerman, Canada Research Chair in Communication
Policy and Governance at McMaster University, and I'm one of the organizers of this conference
with Tamara Shepard at the University of Calgary and David Ogborn here at McMaster,
along with a whole host of other people around McMaster and beyond who have been
crucial supporters of this conference. I particularly want to thank the Socrates
project funded through the generous donation of Chancellor Emeritus Lynton Red Wilson
for its support of our keynote speakers, and this conference along with the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council, McMaster's Faculty of Humanities, the Centre for Networked Media and
performance, along with the Networked Imagination Laboratory, the University of Calgary Faculty
of Arts, the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster, the
Indigenous Studies program at McMaster, McMaster School of the Arts, and McMaster's Department
of Political Science. This session is being recorded, and it will only be shared publicly
according new participants agreements with us, and most of those recordings will be made available
in an online conference archive, and we'll announce that to participants when it's ready.
We've got a number of different events ahead today. We're starting off the day
today with a keynote talk by Joan Jenkinson, the executive director of the Black Screen Office.
That will be followed after a short break by a keynote panel with all of our keynote speakers,
including Joan Jenkinson, Jesse Wente, Sharon McGowan and Susan Brinton. Unfortunately,
Edward Greenspon is not able to join us today. That will be followed by a closing session led
by Tamara Shepherd and Dana Kramer; Tamara and David will facilitate a discussion, resulting in
a set of policy recommendations that will emerge from the panels and keynotes that we've had
throughout the conference. We'll end the day at 3:50 when Darlene Laforme of the Cayuga turtle
clan will close off the conference for us with the travelling song and some words of encouragement
as we seek to capture the learnings from this conference and carry them forward.
It's now my pleasure to introduce Joan Jenkinson, the executive director of the Black Screen Office.
She works to support black Canadians and developing talent, accessing funding, and
in assuming decision making roles in television, film, and digital media. She fosters relationships
with federal funding agencies, broadcasters, and distributors to eliminate anti-black racism within
the screen industries. She's a founding partner and producer at Artemis Pictures,
which is focused on developing and producing high-end scripted content for television and
cinema and for international audiences. She was the vice president of independent production
at Zoomer media limited, the television division, where she commissioned, developed,
and executive produced hundreds of hours of award-winning creative content in all genres
for Vision TV. She spearheaded Vision TV's groundbreaking diverse TV NSI initiative,
which produced award-winning comedy and drama programmes, and which earned her a
visionary award from the Reel World Film Festival. For five years, Joan also served as the executive
director of Women in Film and Television Toronto, where she established professional development
training and networking opportunities for women in screen-based media. We'll have some time after
Joan's talk for, I think, a good session of Q&A. So do please think of your questions and comments,
and please do put those in the chat whenever you're ready, and we'll call on those after the
talk is finished. Joan, what a pleasure, and what an honour it is to have you here today.
I'm really looking forward to your talk, so thank you for being here.
Thank you so much, Sara, I really appreciate all the work that you and your team have done. Now,
it seems probably for many, many months to get us here. And I'm really delighted to be invited and
to be among so many interesting and distinguished guests. And I'm happy to be spending time with our
viewers today. For me, the heart of communications and cultural policy is storytelling.
My mother was a great storyteller; she could make the most mundane, incident spellbinding.
She instilled in me my love of story, and it stayed with me throughout my career.
After graduating from high school, I found that, even when it wasn't in my job description,
I always landed in a situation where I was creating screen content or helping
others to bring their stories to life. So it's been very much a through line for me.
And being at the Black Screen Office is certainly a continuation of that passion.
There have been some really informative and insightful talks this week about cultural policy.
And while I am thrilled to be invited to participate, I did have a moment of panic about
what it is that I would say. I felt that, I'm here to represent the Black Screen Office, I should
have something specific to say about the black community and cultural policy. But the fact is,
we've been advocating for policies within the screen industries to remove systemic barriers
for years and years. And now, finally, there's some movement in that direction,
but there's a long way to go. And we're still talking about what to do instead of actually
doing it. So for me, the end result that I want to see is that the black community would be on
the legislative agenda. And I personally feel that we should be coming together to create a national
policy for media arts, culture, and heritage. But before we can get there, I think we need to know,
I'd like to talk to you a bit more about what the current reality is.
And to do that, it goes way back, like the history of anti-black racism in Canada is unique
and extensive. Yet this history has been glossed over and largely erased. Many Canadians are
unaware that over 200 years of slavery have been woven into the fabric of this country,
and that it's significantly affected the quality of life of black Canadians.
Poverty rates in black Canadian families are 8 to 24%, higher than the national average.
Black women in Ontario earn 57 cents for every dollar that a white man earns,
and 44% of black children in Toronto live in poverty.
And let's not forget that black people are still 20 times more likely than white people to be shot
dead by police. So the global problem of racism is rooted in anti-black racism, which has resulted in
the worst outcomes for black Canadians. And we've seen time and time again that when black people
fall under the umbrella of visible minorities, or BIPOC, the assumption is that there'll be
equal opportunity for everyone within the group. But that's certainly not the case.
Under the catch-all label of BIPOC, black people get the least attention and resources and the
worst outcomes. So the current reality for black Canadians working in the screen-based media sector
is that there are unfair policies and practices that have disenfranchised and
discriminated against the community. And these practices and policies are deeply embedded.
So, black professionals have a desire to work within the screen industries at all levels,
from writing and directing to technical positions. There's an array of opportunities for financial
prosperity in this industry. And we're talking, like, a multi-billion dollar industry that
many racialized people have been locked out of for many reasons, which I'll get into later. But
one of the main reasons is that the gatekeepers, decision- makers, unions, and boards of directors
that head these organizations and institutions have virtually no black representation.
So in the history of Canada, only four
TV series made by and about black people have ever made it to air, and one comedy series.
And on the side of film, it's taken on average 10 years between feature films
for black filmmakers to make their next one. These films that you see on the screen,
were made 10 to 13 years ago, and it took 10 years later to actually make another film,
which I find a real shocking thing. In Quebec, it's far worse. Only two series about black
Canadians have ever made it to air, and those were web series that were seen on radio Canada.
So in July of 2020, a group of senior people, black people in the industry got together
around the time of the Black Lives Matters. Protest after the murder of George Floyd,
and we got together to talk about what our experience has been of anti-black racism,
as we've gone through the trenches in the film industries and have landed where we are today.
And at that time, there were a number of companies, organizations and
individuals making statements about what they were going to do to help eradicate
racism and particularly anti-black racism. So we thought to ourselves, well what do we want to do,
and what do we have to say? So we wrote a letter, an open letter to the Minister of Canadian
Heritage, asking him to meet with us to discuss how we can work together to eliminate anti-black
racism in the screen industries. And that did lead to a couple of meetings with the Minister,
and following that, we had a meeting with Telefilm Canada, where they pledged support
on an annual basis for the Black Screen Office. And it was through years and years of advocacy,
and these efforts over the last few months that has brought the Black Screen Office into being,
and that happened on November 2020. So we are all of five months old.
So our mission at the Black Screen Office is to support black Canadians working throughout
the screen industries. We want to help them build their careers, strengthen their networks,
but ultimately, it all comes back to story. We want to see our stories not only being made,
but exhibited here in Canada and internationally. And to do that, we feel that we have to work to
transform the policies and practices within the industry. And that starts with advocacy.
We've seen in the last couple of weeks that the government has really stepped up for the
Indigenous community, and as Jesse Wente spoke to us about on Monday,
their work for narrative sovereignty is now finally getting some attention.
And while the black community has no claim to sovereignty, we do want equity and inclusion.
And we feel that it has to be legislated for it to really have any effect.
So while the organization started in the midst of you know, the global
awakening about anti-black racism and anti-oppression,
moving forward, the Black Screen Office wants to be about hope and change. We want to work towards
long lasting equity and inclusion for black Canadians working in the screen industries.
We're also working on other issues like black ownership of intellectual property. For years
and years and years, black producers have had to give up the IP of their projects, because they
were told that they didn't have enough experience and that they didn't have the credibility to make
the shows that they had developed and produced themselves, and this is further exacerbated now,
with the streamers coming in, that it's not only black-owned companies and producers
that are having issues with IP, but also, but all producers now that streaming services are
coming in doing a lot of, bringing a lot of work here, but not allowing producers to keep their IP.
We're also really interested in exploring the issue of intersectionality for black women.
We've seen that, when there are initiatives that deal with racial equity,
black women fare the worst. And when we're dealing with gender equity and gender parity, black women
are barely an afterthought, and also have the worst outcomes. We're starting with
data. One of the first things we want to do is to do a market intelligence survey
of who the black people are within the industry. You know, where they live,
the kinds of jobs that they're doing, what levels are they at? Are they emerging,
mid or experienced? Are there some people who are trying to get in who are facing barriers?
We want to get a really deep understanding of that community that we're serving. Because if we don't
know who they are, then we won't know what they need. But once we started talking about doing this
market intelligence survey, other people started to say, well, we need that information as well.
There are different agencies and organisations within the screen industries that are developing
programmes for inclusion and representation. But if we don't know who the community and the people
in it are, then how are we going to make those programmes targeted and effective? This past week,
we launched a study called Being Seen: Directives for Creating Authentic and Inclusive content.
And we're going across the country doing consultations, and finding out from racialized
LGBTQ and people with disability communities, what their directives are for the industry.
For creators, producers, broadcasters, and funders, and the people who evaluate
whether projects should get made, we want them to tell us what is representative and inclusive
and respectful of their communities. And the third study, that we hope to launch in the not
too distant future, is one about the national, it's a national race-based audience survey. While
a quarter of the Canadian population, or close to a quarter, are racialized and Indigenous people
and in major urban centres, they are close to 50% in some and others more than 50%, we know
absolutely nothing about this audience. Advertisers are not aware of market,
people who market content, or don't know how to market to them. And our concern
is that now that there's some interest in creating black content and content for people of colour and
Indigenous people, that they'll be made in a vacuum. Marketers will not know how to find
those audiences, advertisers will have no incentive to buy airtime on those shows.
So we want to, through this study, really open up, and open up the eyes of the country,
basically, to these invisible communities when it comes to screen media. And we hope to
really make a dent in the ecosystem, like to bring the ecosystem actually together to make
really informed decisions based on real data so that the programmes that are being
made will have an opportunity for success. The Black Screen Office is also helping to
cultivate pipelines of talent to open up the doors and make connections for
black screen professionals to work with Canadian broadcasters, but also with American streamers,
studios, and networks, who now have their own inclusion and diversity departments who
tie to the creative side of the business who are looking to us to see how we can work together.
And then we want to connect our content creators to resources so that they can take advantage
of those opportunities. There's been a lot of talk this week about digital platforms.
And they do hold a lot of promise, especially those that are shooting content in Canada.
They're bringing a lot of opportunities and jobs to technical and crew people who work on sets.
And we're finding that the US producers are demanding that black, Indigenous
people of colour work on their shows. But well, you know, I think when Canada is being sold
to the US, and we're being talked about as this great multicultural country, which we are,
those producers are not able to find the crews that they need, because
there have been so many barriers to access in the system, among unions and, you know, guilds, that
everybody's scrambling right now to get people in and to train them up.
But it's an uphill battle. But the, again, the digital platforms are creating jobs, they're,
they're helping to actually push the agenda of inclusivity. And they're also creating jobs for
actors in minor roles. But with that comes a threat, that, of course, their
programmes are being made, but while they have Canadians in them, they're not Canadian content.
And if this continues, we won't be any further ahead, because
black-owned companies, but also all companies, will not be able to hold on to their IP,
which automatically flows to the streaming services if you want to work with them. So we
need, as an industry, to work together to come up with legislation that is going to clear the path
to helping us to build our own Canadian industry, and for us to have black companies flourish.
So the Black Screen Organization is working towards, you know, being a thriving national
organization. We want to be a unified force for black Canadians working throughout the industry to
build a community, a place where they feel safe, and where they'll be supported. We also want to be
a part of the ecosystem of black-led organizations and racial equity organizations within the sector.
Many people are doing a lot of good work, and we want to work together to make sure that we're
not duplicating efforts, but that we are really advancing the cause of equity and inclusion. And
we're also building strong networks of allies and advisors, industry partners,
including funders, unions, guilds and associations, because again, there's so
much work to be done, and we really need it, we need to do it together to really move forward.
We are unapologetically by and for black Canadians. We believe that there's a lot of power,
power of leadership and talent in this country. We're empowering. We recognize
that we need to nurture the power that's already there so that we can create opportunities and
shape our own destiny. And we're visionaries, we have a healthy disregard for the impossible.
We refuse to accept the status quo, and believe that there are no limits to what black Canadians
can accomplish in screen industries. With the few opportunities that we've had,
black- led companies have created opportunities that have launched the careers of actors who have
gone on, you know, to make programming and content not only in Canada, but in the United States.
And we've also produced some great directors like Steven Williams, who was one of the
directors of Lost and was the executive producer and director of Watchmen among many other
talented individuals who really got their start from black organizations.
So just in wrapping up, I'd like to say that, you know, right now there's,
we're part of a racial reckoning. Canada's cultural industries and
institutions have made a commitment to remove systemic barriers. The fact,
in fact, there are policies and practices that are being developed within the screen industries.
They're being designed through a lens of equity and inclusion. And there's a lot of money being
thrown around at the problem. And it's been exacerbated by COVID, which has also, you know,
created a need for money within the system to keep keep it flowing and rolling.
But we don't know if these things are sustainable. We don't know if they're being strategic. And what
the Black Screen Office is advocating for is a big picture of strategy that ensures sustainability.
It's a strategy that's embedded in our government and institutions and in legislation,
because we want to be a part of the cultural policy conversation. And I think this will mean
for the Canadian government that they can finally make good on the promise of multiculturalism,
and where they've promised that there would be equity for all Canadians, in their economic,
social, cultural, and political life. And I personally want to see a national policy that that
embraces culture, black culture, arts and heritage, and I would love to see us fulfil
the commitment to the United Nations International decade of people of African descent. So for me,
it all comes back to story. We want to tell stories, we want to entertain and inspire
audiences globally. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done for us to get to that place.
So again, thank you so much for your invitation, and for being here, and for Sara and her team
who have been very welcoming, and have made it possible for us to get our issues on the agenda.
Thank you so much, Joan. That was terrific. That was wonderful. I
loved especially how you emphasise the healthy disregard for the impossible, and the vision
of a national strategy of black culture, arts, and heritage. So thank you for a wonderful talk.
I want to invite people to put questions and comments in the chat or to put up your hand
if there's a question that you have on-- your virtual hand using the Zoom hand tool. I'll keep
an eye out for all of that and try to facilitate those questions and comments. Actually, there's,
there's two things I'm interested in. While we're waiting for some comments to come in,
Joan, two things I'm interested in kind of hearing you talk more about. One is the relationship and
the difference between the Black Screen Office and the Indigenous Screen Office. And another is,
I'm interested in hearing more about your thoughts and kind of strategies, or the specific shapes,
if it's possible at this stage to discuss, that of some of the IP ownership legislation
or provisions that you're thinking about. I'm really interested in learning more about that.
Okay. I'll start with the indigenous Screen Office. We're really thrilled to be here,
you know, in conversation with them. They work in solidarity and
Jesse and Carrie, who's the co-director of the black, the indigenous Screen office,
has been so helpful to us as we've started. The Indigenous Screen Office has been for years
advocating, obviously, for narrative sovereignty, and have come a long way. And in the last,
in the federal budget that was just passed, they were able to finally get the recognition and the
funding they need to establish narrative, I mean, narrative sovereignty. The Black Screen Office
in no way claims sovereignty in any way. But what we are demanding is equity and inclusion,
and we want to follow the path of the Indigenous Screen Office in terms of getting
on the legislative agenda and to be recognized as a community that needs the kind of support
that's different from the Indigenous Screen Office, but no less important.
And so your other question about IP, it's a huge issue right now. You know, as I mentioned,
for black creators in the past, it's just been impossible for them to hold on to their IP,
because they've been told that they don't have enough experience or that they don't have the
credibility to, you know, to run with the shows that they've developed and produced. And now with
the, sorry, my phone's going off, I should have turned it off, I will just ignore it. But with
the streaming companies, streaming services coming in, it's been a major issue because they,
they have so much money to spend, and so much content, but they want to make that
it's very attractive for Canadian producers to, you know, take the projects that they've
developed and produced, and have the IP flow to these streaming services. But in fact, what
it makes them is service producers for their own productions. And there's no opportunity to exploit
their content beyond that initial sale with the streaming service.
[Sara Bannerman]:Okay, thank you so much on such an
important issue, relating to the IP there and being able to
retain that. There's a few questions coming in now in the chat. Sharon McGowan has asked, so thank
you so much for your insightful, informative talk. Can you describe a little bit about the
funding of the Black Screen Office, and if it's enough to secure and accomplish your goals?
I think one of the reasons why we want to be on the legislative agenda is for one of those
reasons, that we don't have core funding. We don't have, we have some core funding from
Telefilm Canada, but it's certainly not enough to run an organization. And we do spend a lot of our
time fundraising to keep going. We're only five months in, but I've spent so much time
fundraising that it would be great just to spend time and do the work. So we are looking for,
for funding so that we can you know, move on with things. We certainly don't have enough right now.
Thank you. Another question has come in from Kathy Allison, who said
that she loved what you said about, if we don't know who they are, then we don't know
what they need. And she's asking, what stage is the BSO at in terms of creating a database
of artists and creators, as well as a catalogue of works that have been created by black
producers in Canada? And actually, there's a few questions about that. There's another one
that Daniel Keyes has asked. Thanks for talking about your inspiring and important work.
I was wondering if you could talk about the online database film in colour.ca
that has 4500 BIPOC industry members after launching last year, does your office support
this group's grassroots work? I noticed that you mentioned wanting to avoid duplicating efforts.
We're definitely not making a database. There are a few out there including HireBIPOC and
AccessReelWorld that are doing that. And also the Directors Guild and some of the unions have
really good databases. So we we will direct our community to those places. We don't
see the need to duplicate those efforts. But you know what, but what we are talking about in doing
our market intelligence survey is to find out, you know, where are the communities of black people
across the country. I did a talk for Manitoba All Access conference. And after the talk, I had about
six or seven producers in Winnipeg get a hold of me and say thank God you're there, because we've
been here so isolated, and it's just great to know that there's a national organization that we can
become a part of. And so that, I think is, you know, a really important function. The other thing
that we're doing is focusing a lot on research and advocacy. And on the other side of things,
there are a lot of professional development, training programmes, mentorships, networking
initiatives that are all fantastic. A lot of them are aimed at emerging content creators. So
emerging people are definitely part of the Black Screen Office community. But what we are hoping
to do is to create opportunities that are real world opportunities for mid level and senior
content creators to get real money to make real products. And we're having actually, Canadian
broadcasters and American streaming services, and networks and studios coming to us to say, how can
we work together? So those are the opportunities that we are looking to expand and explore, to,
you know, again, to get paid for your work and to recognise that, you know,
we can't be perpetually training, we actually need to be working.
I think there was another part of the question that I might have forgotten.
[Sara Bannerman]: Oh, okay. If there was, I've forgotten as well. But I thought that covered
it. If not, feel free to put in the chat or speak out, if those people who have put in these
questions. In the meantime, I'll just put another couple of questions that we've received out.
Paula Gardner at McMaster has asked about the size of the BSO and its funding
again, do you have enough staff? Or are you kind of limited in terms of the budget
restrictions? And you've certainly talked about a number of the pressing priorities that you've got
in front of you. And Paula is just asking about those, what are your next pressing priorities.
My colleague, Tamara Shepherd, who's one of the organizers has also asked, thank you so much,
Joan, for your talk. There's so much here to think about. I was wondering if you could
expand on the ideas you in the BSO have for improving some of the stats you mentioned, such as
the one where you said it takes 10 or more years for black filmmakers to make a second feature?
Okay, hopefully I remember all those. But the first one about, so I think
everyone has to remember that we're only five months old.
Although we have a big agenda and a lot of things that we want to do,
we certainly need to do more work in laying the foundation of getting core funding so that we can
move forward. We do have a big agenda. We think that it does start with data. So that's why
we're making a priority of the the three studies that we're doing, and they will pretty much be
overlapping, because we just think that it's urgent to first of all know who our community is,
and second to know who our audience is, and third, we don't, once we do get our content on air,
we want to make sure that it's authentic and inclusive and really representative of our
communities. Sorry, what was Tamara's question again?
[Sara Bannerman]: well, she was asking about
the sort of 10 plus years that it takes to get to the second film and the strategies
for, I guess, speeding that up.
Yeah. So it's, it's shocking, really, still, to me. But we are working with
Telefilm Canada to change some of their policies that they've had in place that really were,
had embedded in them some severe systemic issues. One of them was a success index that awarded
producers who had a certain amount of success like about 15 years ago, to continue to have access to
a pool of funding that would give them priority over anyone that was entering the system. So
over the past 15 years, these producers have made, you know, used millions and millions
of taxpayer dollars to continue to make their films and to build their companies, while others
have been locked out. So Telefilm has completely dismantled that system and is looking at
rebuilding it, but all of these things take a long time. We don't get to see these changes overnight.
But we do see at Telefilm, the, the recognition of the systemic barriers that there have been,
and really working towards bringing that, you know, gap down. And another thing that Telefilm's
done is they've created a racialized stream where black and people of colour can go to have
their projects developed. So it's an annual call for projects. And it's a start, I think. A lot,
a lot more needs to be done. But at least it's a foot in the door that we didn't have before.
And on the on the TV side, you know, it again, I'm always shocked by, you know, the, this, it's not
even a statistic, you know, because it's, you can count on one hand, the fact that there have been
four TV series, dramas, and one comedy series, in the entire history of Canadian television,
there is only room for improvement. And most of those were done by the CBC. So the other
broadcasters certainly need to step up. And we're hearing talk now about creating more content. I
know for a fact that, you know, the fourth TV drama that was made by and about black people,
is now on its third season with CBC and called Diggstown. And another one
is in production right now called the Porter, again, another CBC programme. So certainly,
more can be done at the CBC. But the other broadcasters are not even in the game yet.
[Sara Bannerman]: Another question that's been submitted, what are some things you'd like to see
other screen organizations do to support the BSO in the policy work and in the need for funding?
So we work with a number of different groups
who are part of what we call an industry transformation group
and the Indigenous Screen Office is part of that group, the racial equity media collective
impact, several organizations that are involved with racial equity,
and we work in solidarity with each other and really make an effort to not duplicate efforts.
One of the things that I hope to do soon is to collect all the, like, have a directory of all
the professional development programs and services that are being offered
across the country. Some of them are really excellent, and
we want to make sure that our our community has access to them,
rather than duplicating them, so there is a lot of talk I hear,
you know, why are, there are so many of you,
and my response is like, why are there so many white organizations?
And it's like, there's so much to be done and different people have different priorities,
and I think everybody has the right to you know, work towards
their objectives, so as far as the
legislative agenda and the advocacy that we want to see with a Black Screen Office,
we are not only working with the racial equity groups, but we're also working with the funders
like Telefilm and CMF and associations, like the Canadian Media Producers association
to have roundtables and focus groups and working groups where we can move the agenda forward.
[Sara Bannerman]: We've got another question here, thank you for the fantastic talk.
What is the reception of Telefilm changes to its
policies and its implementation of the stream for racialized persons?
Same question for the CMF pilot program for racialized communities,
are established white media producers pushing back, or are they embracing the change?
Well, the change at
Telefilm with the
success index: there was certainly a huge pushback on that with the claim that
these producers who have had these privileged positions are the ones who are making
films that travel internationally and they're the ones who know how to make the
business profitable, when in fact that isn't the case.
I mean, there are a few examples that are cited that are successful, but you know.
But, overall, we can't say that those films have made a return on on investment,
so there was a big push back when that was being discussed, and you know,
a conversation happening through the media.
As far as the other initiatives, the racialized stream at both
Telefilm and CMF I haven't really heard any pushback.
I'm expecting to at any point, but it really hasn't come to light. There's often,
you know, jokes about, it's not a great time to be a white man, right now,
because there is a lot of focus on equity and inclusion and.
But yes, so there we haven't heard much.
[Sara Bannerman]: I in some of the things that you're saying like I kind of hear
almost like two approaches or a mix of approaches. On one hand, there's the whole policy initiatives,
legislative policy funding and stuff, and then, on the other hand, you also talked about kind of like
marketing and knowing the audience and having that ability to market black and racialized content so.
Can you talk a bit about the mix of those two things?
Do you kind of lean one way or the other in terms of where you might place your emphasis?
Or is it really just full steam on both tracks, are they interrelated, or how do you see that?
We're trying to do both because both are really important.
I think for a lot of people, legislation is dry, advocacy is driving,
so you can be doing a lot, and nobody really appreciates what's
happening because you can't really see it, and it's a long term thing.
But I think the the black community, you know, is really hungry to have their stories made and seen,
and we, as I said, you know, there are people coming to us with opportunities. I should
mention that we're doing something with Bell media, which is one of their first projects
that are that dealing with working with French and English writers and one project coming together,
because one thing I haven't spoken much about is the dire straits that black francophone
content creators are in; they are 20 years behind anything that might be happening
here now, and there's still a denial that there's anti-black racism
there, and in such a divide between
what's considered the immigrant community and the mainstream community,
and I'm sad they have had nothing made that's gone to air on mainstream French broadcasters.
And there are other initiatives like Storyhive that's run by Telus who this year have decided
to have a black edition of Storyhive, and as I've said, I've been speaking to
studios and streamers like Amazon, NBC, Universal, Sony Warner Media who are coming to us and saying,
you know, we want to work with you, we want to, we know that there's talent in this country,
so let's bypass all the obstacles and let's just go right to making content
and we certainly don't want to pass up those opportunities.
[Sara Bannerman]: Tied to that question, I guess with the,
there's the policy side, and now I want to ask you about numbers
on the policy side.
One thing and Sharon McGowan and Susan Brinton we're talking about their
efforts under WIFT to kind of, or through WIFT to kind of create
that type of policy of transparency reporting and diversity reporting on the part of broadcasters,
so there's those kind of mandated numbers or numbers that are produced through policy efforts,
and then there's also the kind of audience metrics type of numbers,
and audience metrics and audience measurement done by Numeris and other companies like that.
How important are numbers to the whole project, and you've talked a
little bit about this already, but how do you see the importance of these different
kind of data efforts and efforts to use numbers to achieve better representation
in the screen industry for black people?
Well, first of all, we have no numbers look at all, and so.
You know, as I said, what we're talking about is audiences and we have, we have no numbers.
The Numeris system for collecting audience data doesn't capture anything by race. It's
gender and region, age, the usual demographics, but like literally
we have nothing we need to start from scratch, and that's why we've started with
research to start gathering those numbers,
and we're working with Telefilm and CMF to even come up with terms that
various communities are comfortable with in terms of how they will be categorized and
and we need to do that really, really basic, fundamental work before we can even start
gathering statistics of any kind, and
I know, you know, several months ago, Telefilm was was asked for numbers like how many of your staff.
are racialized people, how many projects have been
funded or made, and none of that information was available at all.
So we're starting from, you know, from ground zero, and there is again just
so much work to be done and without those numbers, it's really difficult
to make those policies because, again we don't know who we're making them for.
[Sara Bannerman]: I agree, and it's so interesting, and I, personally,
I don't think I have a full grasp on what Numeris is or how it's working or how, in the future,
it'll work; it sounds so complicated, with so many different screens and ways of measuring now.
So there must be so much going on there that I'm quite interested in.
Just to give you a couple questions as well that I'm also interested about,
and not that you have to answer both or anything like that, but whatever you're interested in:
Bill C-10, the new Broadcasting Act reform.
I am aware of draft policy direction to the CRTC that I guess was drafted to kind of,
accompany the new broadcasting revisions that would extend partly, that would send
the Broadcasting Act up into the Internet and the measures that directs the CRTC to
hold engagement sessions with racialized and ethnic, cultural groups, I'm quoting from here.
How optimistic, or do you have any thoughts, on C-10 and the policy draft, policy direction
that was put out a little while ago belatedly? And I was also kind of interested in the barriers
that you mentioned in unions and guilds and whether you could talk a bit more about that.
Well, as far as Bill C-10 goes, there are a lot of really great things
in it that will serve to modernize the whole system, I think.
Again, what they've been, the work that they've done with the Indigenous community
is really extraordinary to finally see all these years of advocacy, to
see the Indigenous Screen Office, particularly to be on the agenda and to get,
you know, $40 million of funding over the next three years to advance the their agenda of
narrative sovereignty, but the disappointing thing in Bill C-10 is that there really is
no legislative agenda for underrepresented groups, not only racialized groups, but LGBTQ
plus and people with disabilities. There are some soft suggestions,
but nothing that really has any teeth to it and so moving forward as the,
you know, as the the bill is being, leading up to being passed, where we're still having those
conversations, where we're saying you know, we need to do more, it's not enough to say,
well we've done the Indigenous now, so you wait your turn and next time around
we'll look at you, because that's what happens, that's what happens with them.
You know, black women when we look at the women in views study that Sharon McGowan mentioned,
I was shocked when I looked at those graphs that they had in the report, where the efforts.
that have been made for gender equity, you can see
there's, you know, they've gone a ways on the graph but
black, Indigenous, and people of color women are barely registering like between zero and 2% of
it, you know, in terms of getting positions and jobs on films and TV shows within the industry.
So again, those things are not really being addressed in a way that we feel
is fulsome and that will bring about
any significant changes in the short term. We are relying heavily on
Telefilm and CMF and other funding agent seeds to
filter what they're doing through the the lens of equity and inclusion
and, you know, working as closely as we can with them to ensure that there, there is.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the system.
As far as Numeris goes, I mean it's a mystery. I think, to everyone
here, it is a complicated business, and I think you know up to this point,--
[Sara Bannerman]: Do you mind just saying, for those who don't know what it is,
if you, would you mind just saying just an intro to what that is?
So, a Numeris is the
The organization that is responsible for
ratings data for TV shows. They basically measure the audiences for individual shows and.
So, as I said, they don't have any data that's related to.
racialized and Indigenous communities, so although they say that they are captured in the sample,
we don't know, you know, what the proportions are,
and you know, where are they counting and is it in the places where these communities
are centred, we don't have any of that information.
And the ratings data is just so critically important, because
that is what advertisers rely on when they're buying airtime, and broadcasters rely on that
airtime sale in order to make the programming and to, you know, be.
functioning companies.
So there is no real incentive right now in the system to make
any kind of racialized content, because there's no,
there's no connection to what Numeris will do and what content will be graded.
[Sara Bannerman]:
It sounds like your work is just happening on so many levels.
It sounds like there's so many different
paths to the work that you're doing and such a lot to do, I just want to.
I did want to just touch on unions and.
guilds, yeah.
One...
As you know, unions are tend to be very
nepotistic, and you know it's who you know, you know, who your father and grandfather were in
terms of your role and the work that you do in the jobs that are controlled by those unions,
and the barriers to access have been really significant, the first of all, just being...
people get hired because you know someone,
and if you're not a part of that network, then, then you don't get in.
And then there are also barriers to access in terms of how much it costs
to get into those unions and shockingly, I keep hearing from American
producers, we can't find a black makeup artist or hairstylist
who we can work with because they can only work with those who are in the unions,
and you can imagine how many black hair stylist
and makeup artists there are in this country who would love to work in the industry,
but it's made almost impossible for them to get in? And you know we are relying on those American
producers to really kick, keep putting the pressure on for the unions to find
ways to open the doors and create access and that's something that it's not even
on my list of to do's yet, but it's a huge important thing to do.
[Sara Bannerman]: So many systemic issues here
I find all at once. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and the Black Screen Office
is doing, and thank you so much for being here at McMaster virtually for this conference. It's just
a huge honour to have you here and to hear you
speak about the about the Black Screen Office and your work. Thank you so much.
Thank you, and thanks for the great questions.