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Ontario Film Classification Act 2005

Regulations - Public Hearing Transcripts
Film Review Board and its Student Film Contest

All films & videos exhibited or distributed must be classified
by the Ontario Government's Film Review Board!

Collectively-written Letter
to Ontario artists & politicians April 14, 2005 from
ad-hoc group: James Missen, Linda Feesey,
Roberto Ariganello and John Porter.

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Public Hearing Transcripts
Standing Committee on Justice Policy
Consideration of Bill 158, An Act to replace the Theatres Act
Wednesday, April 20, 2005.
The committee met at 9:08am in room 228,
Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Queen's Park, Toronto.

John Porter, free-lance artist,
Linda Feesey for Pleasure Dome,
Petra Chevrier for The Images Festival,
and Roberto Ariganello for
The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.

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JOHN PORTER

The Chair (Mr. Shafiq Qaadri): I would now invite our next presenter, Mr. John Porter, if he is in the room. Mr. Porter comes to us in his capacity as a private individual. Sir, I remind you that you have approximately 10 minutes in which to offer your presentation. Please be seated. If there is any time remaining, it will be evenly distributed amongst the parties afterward for questions. If you might identify yourself, you have 10 minutes. Please begin.

Mr. John Porter: Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is John Porter. I have been a filmmaker in Toronto for 37 years, but I have never worked in the film industry. I consider myself to be a fine artist, like a painter, but one who works in the medium of personal film. My films are personal because, like paintings, they are made by one person. I perform all the tasks: writing, acting, directing, photography, editing and financing. Financing is easy because, like paintings, my films cost about $50 each, so I'm able to make many each year, just like a painter. I've made 300 films, each one just a few minutes long, about as long as some people look at a painting. I show my films in art galleries and film festivals and I have received arts grants, including from the Ontario Arts Council.

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Most fine artists produce work primarily as a form of expression, not to make a profit. We would like to earn a living from our art, but that is secondary. We produce to suit ourselves and then hope to find an audience. Most artists must earn a living and finance their work by taking regular jobs like driving a taxi, waiting tables, teaching or arts administration. I was a letter carrier for five years and a bicycle courier for 10 years and I get occasional work teaching and publishing, in addition to my artist's fees and grants.

My films cost so little to make because I make and show them on silent 8mm and Super 8 film, the old home movie formats before video. I don't like video and I choose to not use it, in the same way that an oil painter chooses to not use acrylic paint or watercolour, or a stone sculptor chooses to not use wood.

Last week, the Toronto Star published a full-page article about Super 8 film enduring as an art form, and I am quoted extensively in it. This is a photograph of me performing in one of my films in 1981. I have provided copies of this article for you.

One thing that makes Super 8 film inexpensive is that you can exhibit the same roll of film that was in the camera without making a copy, just like video. It's not a negative, as with larger film formats; it's a positive or reversal image, like 35-millimetre slides. It's the camera-stock film. It's the original, one-of-a-kind film, just like an original painting, and I prefer to exhibit my originals, just like a painter. They look better than any copy. So I don't make copies, partly to save money. I would rather spend money making new films than copies of old ones. Showing the original film also allows it to be exhibited just hours after shooting it, like an improvised performance.

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So I handle my fragile, precious, original films with great care, usually preferring to travel with them and oversee the projecting, and never sending them away to strangers with strange projectors. I do not submit my films for classification to the Ontario Film Review Board, and none of my fellow film and video artists do, which means that all of our screenings are either illegal and underground, so we can't publicize them very much -- and in fact we can't talk about them in some circles -- or they are automatically classified as Restricted, regardless of the content of the work. Anyone under the age of 18 cannot attend. But my films are perfect for all ages, and I have done screenings for children. Children like my films and I like having children in my audience.

I have been protesting Ontario's film classification laws since 1979, when the review board began requiring the classification of personal film and video art such as mine. In 1983, I was devastated to see my 9-year-old nephew turned away from a solo screening and performance of my films at an art gallery in Peterborough, Ontario, where he lived, because my films had not been submitted for classification. He was disappointed and confused, wondering what was wrong with my films that he wasn't allowed to see them. He never got another chance to see his uncle's show, and now that he is living permanently in Dublin, Ireland, he may never get another chance. The Ontario government took that one special family occasion away from us forever, and I will never forgive them for that. Since then, I have been passionately consumed with fighting this law, as you can see.

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It continues to break my heart, witnessing many other such incidents at public screenings over the years. Other film and video artists bring young family members to their own screenings, but are turned away even though the films are appropriate. This hurts even more when I see that my artist friends who work in other art disciplines, like painting, writing, music, dance and theatre, are not required to submit to forced prior classification of their work. It's discrimination. I have done nothing wrong. I have never been in trouble with the law. What have I done to deserve being treated by my own provincial government like a convicted pornographer on parole? I'm required to check with my local review board before I'm allowed to show my films to children. lt's degrading, and my only crime has been that I chose to work in film or video. Out of respect for myself, my family and my life's work, I can never accept this law.

I said that I have received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, but since the incident with my nephew in 1983, I stopped applying for Ontario grants. I felt that Ontario was rewarding its film and video artists with one hand and slapping us on the wrist with the other. It's paternalistic and I don't want your support under those conditions.

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The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Porter. We have approximately two minutes. Mr. Kormos, if you might begin.

Mr. Kormos: Mr. Porter, your submission, after hearing from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, adds to the increasingly compelling arguments to not support Bill 158. New Democrats opposed it on second reading. I am intrigued by the proposal by Judge Juriansz in his Glad Day decision -- his contemplation of yet one step further from, let's say, Manitoba, to which he made frequent reference -- and that was the category of unclassified, which then is caveat emptor. You'd better be satisfied that you have a reasonably good idea of what's in it before you take your seven-year-old kid. The onus is upon you. If film classification is truly to be about merely consumer advice rather than backdoor censorship, we have to have the classification of uncategorized, otherwise it becomes censorship by the requirement of classification.

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Section 7 will be ruled unconstitutional by the court. If you have any doubt about what the Court of Appeal will say, think about this. Judge Juriansz is now on the Court of Appeal, so that should give you some idea of where the Court of Appeal is going to be. But the next stage is to challenge the requirement that the film be submitted for classification. If it's truly consumer advisory, there wouldn't be a requirement because there would be the class of caveat emptor. There is nothing in this bill that says it's going to be against the law to sell a XXX movie, you know, Debbie Does Dallas -- I'm dating myself -- to a kid, never mind SpongeBob SquarePants or whatever the name of that particular character is.
Thank you very much for coming.

Mr. Porter: I'd like to add that I would like to see in the act, and not in the regulations, which can be changed more easily, a category for unclassified films. People can choose not to submit for classification, and that is a warning to parents or anyone going out to screenings of an unclassified film: beware. All we would lose by not getting a classification is extensive commercial distribution, which we're not that interested in and wouldn't get anyway.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Porter, for your testimony.

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PLEASURE DOME

The Chair: I would now invite our next presenter, Ms. Linda Feesey, who is the president of Pleasure Dome. Ms. Feesey, please introduce yourself to the committee. I'd remind you that you have approximately 15 minutes in which to offer your deputation. If there's any time remaining, it will be distributed evenly among the parties. Please begin.

Ms. Linda Feesey: Good morning, members of the justice committee. I am Linda Feesey, president of the board of directors of the Artists Film Exhibition Group of Ontario, which presents film and video programming under the name Pleasure Dome.

Pleasure Dome is a non-profit, artist-run organization. We are one of over 100 film and video festivals and exhibitors spread over the province who are dedicated to screening artists' film and video to the public. The films and videos we present are independent, non-commercial, local and international, contemporary, historical, experimental, innovative, short and feature length, all made by artists to be viewed in the context of larger historical trends within the production of art worldwide. We believe that our programming is being inadvertently subject to the legal implications of Bill 158. The Theatres Act is designed to govern the commercial film and video industry, not independent media arts.

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Pleasure Dome consists of one paid program coordinator, 12 volunteer board members who are the programming collective, a computer, a Super 8 film projector, a DVD player and some cords. It is financially supported by three levels of government through the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Founded in 1989, Pleasure Dome is one of the oldest media arts exhibitors in Ontario. We program 20 events in a year-round screening series, and I want to stress that each event is unique.

Pleasure Dome is an important contributor to the independent media arts in Ontario. We nurture the development of Ontario curators and their critical writing. The 12 members of the programming collective choose work and themes for each show. They write program notes and curatorial essays.

Pleasure Dome has published five books on media art and individual artists. Pleasure Dome nurtures the further development of Ontario artists. We pay to present their work to the public. Through commissioning grants, we pay for the creation of new works and their dissemination. We often bring artists to Toronto from within Canada and abroad to discuss their work, and we pay for their travel. We provide a forum for a dialogue with the international film and video community, so that our audience can evaluate contemporary, theoretical and aesthetic issues.

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Pleasure Dome's principal audience is Toronto's ever-expanding film and video community. Also, the student body at a number of media arts programs, including OCAD, Ryerson University, University of Toronto, York University and Sheridan College, are all part of Pleasure Dome's target audience.
I think for now I'm just going to continue with my section on Bill 158 and play the video at the end. It's a sample of the kind of work we're showing to the public. But I don't want to risk going over.

The intent of Bill 158 and the current Theatres Act is to govern the exhibition and distribution of commercial film and video, and its measures are not appropriate for independent media art. The film and video artwork created and exhibited by our community is non-commercial and intended for cultural purposes. We request that our sector be written out of the Ontario Theatres Act. This would be a better solution than the current regime of exemptions in the regulations and more in keeping with last year's judgment, Regina v. Glad Day.

Pleasure Dome -- this is our policy -- does not submit its film and video programming for prior approval by any censoring bodies. Bill 158 effectively renders our screenings illegal. We do not submit works for classification because it is a form of prior restraint that infringes on our charter right to freedom of expression. We are ideologically opposed to censorship in any form.

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There are also practical considerations. As stated in the Ontario Superior Court judgment, prior approval is a financially and administratively burdensome practice. This is especially so for our type of administratively thin organization, not to mention discriminatory, as other art disciplines are not required to submit their work for prior classification. It is an unnecessary and costly administrative burden to Pleasure Dome, because we exhibit works only once and usually show many short films at an event. Often the work of a touring international artist is brought directly to the screening, so there's no window of time for prior approval.

The regulations attached to the previous Theatres Act provided exemptions to art galleries, libraries, educational institutions and festivals if they posted a sign restricting admission to those 18 years or older. We object to any kind of age restriction on our audience. Much of the work is appropriate for educating all ages in the arts, yet the law prohibits access to younger audiences for the sectors exempted in the regulations. Programmers and curators are well-educated, responsible citizens who are capable of self-regulating and are in the best position to make decisions about access to the work. An interest in art is a process of intellectual development that starts in childhood or adolescence. No one who chooses to be an artist or art historian sees their first painting at age 18. Also, books, paintings and other cultural products are not subject to prior approval.
This sector to which Pleasure Dome belongs, specifically exhibitors and distributors of non-commercial artists' film and video, should be written out of the film classification section of Bill 158 altogether, or perhaps placed in an unclassified category. We want this contained in Bill 158 rather than in its regulations, to ensure a secure environment for the dissemination of non-commercial, artist-made film and video in Ontario.

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Now I'd like to show you an example of our work, of something that we've shown. It's a commissioned piece by artist Judith Doyle. She's also a teacher at OCAD. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring the one that I did cite, because it's in the PAL format, which is European. You're going to see something on the history of the moving image and also some great footage shot in our own Beaches neighbourhood.

The Chair: How long is this video?

Ms. Feesey: I'm not sure. You can cut it off if we're going over.

Video presentation.

Ms. Feesey: That's the end.

The Chair: We've got one minute remaining, and we'll start with the government side. No questions? Mr. Martiniuk?

Mr. Martiniuk: No questions.

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The Chair: Mr. Kormos, one minute please.

Mr. Kormos: Don't go away, please. I'm curious as to why you place exemptions first and then you sort of say, "Maybe an unclassified provision."

Ms. Feesey: That would be our second choice.

Mr. Kormos: Why wouldn't you go full blast into proposing a category of films that have not been submitted for classification? Would you rather have an exemption, or would you rather have this broader category of film not submitted for classification -- without any presumption of it being adult material? The first submitter today was the fellow who was involved, presumably, in the distribution of adult movies -- because again, the church choir singing could be a film not submitted for classification, as readily as something one of your colleagues produced.

The Chair: You have just about a minute, Ms. Feesey, please.

Ms. Feesey: I think what we'd like to see is somehow to have the law written so that it just does not address our sector at all, because we're non-commercial. If it can be written just to cover things that are within the industry, within commercial venues, that would be the first choice. Is that possible?

Mr. Kormos: Anything's possible. It's a matter of political will. I get you, but I don't know.

Ms. Feesey: But our second choice is the unclassified category for our type of non-commercial artist, educational film and video.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Feesey, for your deputation, as well as the film.

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