I am the Department Head of Animation at the Centre for Arts and Technology, a small, successful, private post-secondary school located in Kelowna, BC.  We typically have a standing student body of 250 students and typically 15-20% of them are enrolled in our two animation programs.  Like so many others, I am extremely concerned about the recent announcement to eliminate the Regional and Distant Location Tax Credit for animation studios based in the Okanagan.  

 

Before I begin, I fully understand and support the need to address the possibility that some studios in British Columbia have capitalized on the Regional and Distant Location Tax Credit by counting remote workers from areas outside of their region as “local”.  However, this decision, when applied wholesale to the region, unfairly penalizes above-board animation companies based in the Okanagan, and indirectly will penalize companies and educational institutions like the Centre for Arts & Technology, who support these studios.

 

You should know that studios like Artists Animation Studio (formerly Yeti Farm Creative), Bardel Entertainment and Monster Puppy Studios are local, traditional, street-side businesses here in Kelowna.  They are owned, operated, and staffed by people who live in our neighborhoods, who shop in our stores, who contribute, participate, and give back to our community.  

 

As a result, world-class creative talent has relocated to the Okanagan to take on high-paying positions, and local education institutions like Centre for Arts & Technology have grown their animation programs to provide junior and intermediate animators to help these local studios meet their demand for service.  In fact, prior to the recent downturn in the animation industry, more than 60 of the animators working full-time at Yeti Farm Creative were graduates of the Centre for Arts & Technology.  Additionally, more than 100 of our graduates have worked at these local studios to start their careers.

 

Since 2010, the Centre for Arts & Technology’s recruitment of animation students has generated more than $13 million dollars’ worth of revenue for the school; revenue which has almost entirely remained in the local economy in the form of salaries for our educators and support staff, regular, expensive, capital purchases to remain “leading edge” in a high-tech field, leaseholds, etc.

 

Many of our students come to our school from remote rural areas of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.  Most often, they choose to attend school in Kelowna because moving here is less daunting and financially more viable than moving to a “big city” like Vancouver.  Additionally, they are compelled to enroll in our school because of our historic ability to place them in smaller, local studios like Artists Animation Studio (formerly Yeti Farm Creative), Monster Puppy, and the local satellite studio of Bardel Entertainment.

 

It is not an exaggeration to say that the exclusion of animation productions from access to the Regional and Distant Location Tax Credit poses a serious threat to the viability of many local businesses that are highly dependent on the credit to remain competitive, locally, and globally.  I am certain that the job and infrastructure growth, GDP growth, and the cultural and education benefits resulting from the Regional and Distant Location Tax Credit more than pays for the “cost” of these enhanced credits.

 

To reiterate my position, the elimination of the Regional and District Location Tax Credit for Okanagan-based studios:

 

• ignores the significant financial investments these studios have made to be in the Okanagan,
• ignores the world-class creative talent that have come to live in the region to fill high-paying, skilled positions,
• overlooks the benefits to hundreds of junior and intermediate creatives who were able to access locally based opportunities and high-paying jobs,
• dismisses the return on investment in the form of local job and infrastructure growth, GDP growth, as well as the cultural and education benefits resulting from the Regional and Distant Location Tax Credit, and
• unfairly penalizes legitimate, local, bricks and mortar businesses, including not only the studios, but also the legitimate, local businesses that support these studios.
   

Of late, almost every piece of news coming out of the Okanagan seems bleak.  The tourism industry is reeling due to the annual threat of forest fires.  The wine and agriculture industries are being decimated by the effects of climate change.  Fuel and commodity prices are driving average citizens to access food banks in record numbers.  The real estate market has grown so out of control that young people can no longer hope to enter the market, and the rental market is so sparse that those who are lucky enough to find an apartment or basement suite are paying more than mortgage rates to simply have a roof over their heads.

 

So much of what is happening in our world today seems beyond the scope of government to solve in a reasonable timeframe.  But the decision to eliminate the Regional and Distant Tax Credit for animation studios located in the Okanagan is within your ability to amend and if you do so, it will make an immediate, meaningful, substantial, and beneficial change to our community.

 

Please add my voice, and the voice of all the many instructors and support staff who mentor and teach our animation programs students to the growing wave of opposition towards this announcement.  

 

I urge you to reconsider this change in policy and reverse or amend it so that the animation studios that have grown up in the Okanagan in the last 15 years can continue to compete with their Vancouver counterparts and continue to employ the young professionals we have taught and care deeply about.