Premier McNeil ‘moving on’ from film debate

HALIFAX – Premier Stephen McNeil defended changes to the Province’s Film Tax Credit again on Thursday, after two industry-related businesses said the lack of business created by the changes has chased them from the region.

Filmworks and Special Effects Atlantic Ltd., announced over the weekend they’re closing to find work elsewhere because of the lack of business in the area, despite a boom in the film industry in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

McNeil disputed the former tax break was attracting any more business to the region as a total amount of work that was happening in Canada.

“We’re moving on,” McNeil said. “We believe there’s an industry there and there are people who continue to believe there’s an industry here.  Has it changed?  Of course it has.  Is there going to be a transition to it? — there’s being a transition to it.”

Gary Coates, owner of Special Effects Atlantic, had said he didn’t want any help from the McNeil government, just an apology from the Premier and an admission the government made a mistake when tweaking the tax credit.

McNeil chalked it up to “a difference of opinion” with Coates, as he said under the old model, the government was continuing to put more and more money in to an industry that wasn’t experiencing any growth.

“Even though we were subsidizing more than any other part of Canada, other parts were growing faster than we were,” McNeil said.

When looking at the number of jobs and production work going on in the province, a lot of numbers have been thrown around, he said, the bottom line is taxpayers were subsidizing, “65 per cent of their business.”

“A good chunk of that production work in Nova Scotia never qualified and never applied for the tax credit. They were working here because of the great expertise and the great location they have here in Nova Scotia.”