Even though it’s not a perfect metaphor, when observing the largesse the Houston government has been bestowing upon the Film and TV industry a tune that comes to mind is Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip’s Blow at High Dough.

The song starts off, aptly enough, with reference to a film shoot in the singer’s hometown, but blowing “high dough” isn’t strictly about throwing big money at movies. Apparently it’s a homespun caution from Downie’s Scottish grandmother against getting too excited about something – which when you think about it is applicable to the PC Premier.  

Houston has shown his passion for the industry by giving it money, and industry lobbyist Laura MacKenzie has been just as generous with praise for Houston. “I think for the industry, what this means is that we can really take a sigh of relief,” she said a few months after Houston became Premier. “We know we have a partner in government.”

MacKenzie knew the industry had a partner because back before his current fixation with resource extraction and his “laser focus” on health care Houston, a rookie MLA from Pictou, got the attention of the arts community with his enthusiastic support for the HRM-based film industry. That was in 2015, when Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government decided to tamper with film and television production subsidies and Houston went all in on the side of industry.

McNeil’s initiative, announced in the annual budget, provoked a backlash. Film and TV workers and their allies in the arts community mounted protests at the legislature. Those demos look today like a smaller versions of the demonstrations against cuts to arts, culture and heritage in Houston’s budget for 2026. But unlike in 2015, film and television are getting a pass while their erstwhile colleagues are being cut. 

As explained here, subsidies to film and television productions have contributed significantly to overspending in the Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage (CCTH) department, but unlike grants to theatres, museums, book publishers and visual artists, those subsidies are not facing cuts. 

The budget estimates book does show a big drop between forecast spending for 2025-26 and estimated spending in the fiscal year just underway.  But that forecast was the result of nearly $30 million in non-budgeted spending in 2025-26 – and CCTH Minister Dave Ritcey hasn’t ruled out going over budget again in 2026-27.

Notable, if not surprising, is that in the deluge of criticism that has greeted the arts cuts little attention has gone to the disparity in treatment between subsidies to film and television and and the dozens of other entities whose grants from CCTH are being cut. Politicians have not raised the fairness issue and if that concern surfaced in any of the public presentations on the budget bill it escaped my attention.  

Maybe that’s because the industry itself has the allure of Hollywood, and Nova Scotia’s part of the industry has a good story. That story would start with a successful industry that was putting Nova Scotia on the cultural map while providing well-paying jobs to hundreds of creative people. Then along came Stephen, the tight-fisted villain, whose wrong-headed government crippled the industry, forcing many creative people to flee the province just to make a living. But the industry refused to accept victimhood, fighting back with the help of Tim Houston and the PCs to reach new heights. How can one throw shade on such a tale?

Well, let’s start with the over-spending. 

Big money for media giants

In 2020-21, before the PCs came to power, the Liberals spent $25 million through the Film and TV Production Incentive Fund, the program that emerged following McNeil’s notorious cancellation of the 20-year-old refundable film tax credit. 

Over the next five years – including two years when the level of incentive actually dropped – the average annual increase was an astonishing 36 per cent – about four times greater than the average annual increase for the provincial budget as a whole. The large annual average increase for film and television subsidies over the period was mainly the result of $77 million spent in 2024-25 and a forecast $69 million in the fiscal year that ended last week. Combined, the subsidies for those two years included an equally-astonishing $67 million in over-budget spending.  

What have we been getting for all that the money? Certainly not a wealth of Nova Scotia content. I went through incentives approved in 2023-24 and 2024-25 as listed on the provincial government’s open data portal looking for grants of $1 million or more. Other than This Hour Has 22 Minutes I found five approvals of between $1 and $2 million, but the big payments over those two years were to:

  • Washington Black, a Disney production $14.4 million;
  • Sullivan’s Crossing, a Reel World production for CTV circa $11.0 million over two seasons; 
  • From, MGM International $10.0 million;
  • The Institute MGM+ $7.8 million 

The list has not been updated since last July, so there’s no entry yet for another blockbuster incentive, $15.6 million for We Were Liars. A poor-little-rich-girl story produced by  Universal Television and Amazon MGM it was shot mainly in Lunenburg and streamed in 2025 on Prime. Bringing We Were Liars into the mix makes three subsidy deals with Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, which in addition to Prime, also owns MGM, producers of From and The Institute.

With the possible exception of Sullivan’s Crossing (Reel World calls itself L A and Canadian based) the big ticket items are examples of what’s known as Foreign Location and Service Production (FLSP) – film and TV programs shot in Canada by foreign (I.e. U.S.) producers with involvement of local service providers. 

FLSPs  have come to dominate the industry in Nova Scotia. Those productions averaged about 30 a year from 2015-16 to 2020-21, but surged to an average of 96 per year between 2021-22 and 2023-24. According to Profile 2024, put out by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), $46 million was spent in Nova Scotia on FLSPs in 2020, growing to $91 million the following year and reaching $118 million in 2022-23, the latter amounting to well more than half the total production expenditure that year. 

2015 turning point 

The rise  of FLSP coincides with McNeil’s policy initiatives of 2015, embraced by Houston but with more cash added. Not only did McNeil’s government eliminate the tax credit and replace it with a reduced incentive, it also changed a wage subsidy for Nova Scotian film and TV workers to a subsidy on all expenditures of 25 percent (later raised to as much as 32 percent on some productions). 

This change reduced the incentive for foreign producers to use local labour, especially actors and writers, and also provided that the wages of any local arts worker fortunate enough to be hired would presumably carry the same subsidy eligibility as the caterer, truck driver, innkeeper or a tank of gas. It’s not clear whether the 2015 changes directly caused the rise in foreign service work versus local production. There is however a strong correlation. 

I chanced upon the 2013-2014 Accountability Report by long-defunct Film and Creative Industries Nova Scotia. Established under the NDP with a focus on local production, it was axed by McNeil and its film and television file transferred to Nova Scotia Business Inc. where it remained until absorbed by the Department of CCTH in 2021. According to the Film and Creative Industries report, the industry generated $139 million in 2013-14, $122 million “domestic” and just $17 million foreign service work. 

“Over the past five years, a trend has emerged as domestic production activity has seen steady growth,” said the report, presenting numbers showing domestic production growing from 47 percent in 2008-9 to 88 percent in 2013-14. The cost to the province to support a $139 million industry, producing $122 million in “domestic” film and television is not entirely clear but can be estimated. The province annually transferred about $5 million to the arm’s length agency, and the approximate cost of the tax credit was $20 million. 

So it appears that a decade ago, subsidies of $25 million per year supported a $139 million industry creating a lot of mainly domestic film and television fare. The subsidy accounted for about 18 percent of production spending. Another way of expressing it would be that every $1.00 of subsidy supported $4.56 in additional direct spending. Those numbers – subsidies of 18 percent and a $1.00/$4.56 ratio between subsidy and additional expenditure – are worth keeping in mind when considering the costs and benefits of the recent spending spree.     

It is important to note that those calculations are based on a single year (2013-14) and came mainly from an annual accountability report that by its nature would try to put the best face on accomplishments. However, that report contained much more detailed information than what’s available since responsibility for production incentives was moved in-house to the CCTH department in 2021. Consistent with the entire Houston government approach, the big increase in spending has been accompanied by a decrease in transparency. 

Data confusing  

Although it is possible to access lists of grants through Public Accounts and the government’s open data portal there is no longer any reporting on the larger picture. Indeed, although we know how much the government is spending, there’s no reliable public source on how much film and television production has actually been going on in the decade since the McNeil Liberals disrupted the industry.

Statistics Canada has biennial production estimates dating back to 2013. Surprisingly, despite the dire predictions at the time, StatsCan figures (Table 21-10-0059-01) do not show a decline in production after the 2015 changes. In fact, there was a slight increase from $102.5 to $109.4 million between 2015 and 2019. 

And another surprise – StatsCan shows an 82 percent increase between 2019 and 2021. White Knight Houston did not arrive until mid-way through 2021 so he can hardly claim credit for that growth. And after he arrived to rescue the industry, production fell 14 percent between 2021 and 2023 according to StatsCan, from $199 million to $172 million, likely the result of the Hollywood writers’ strike.

For his part, Houston has made several public statements about the value of production which confuse rather than enlighten. In an interview with Indiescreen, a product of the CMPA,  Houston said that in 2021-22 production was worth $180 million, dropping to $140 million 2023-24, which would be somewhat consistent with the StatsCan numbers. 

As for 2024-25, the year during which the province handed out a record-breaking $77 million in incentives, Houston’s office released a statement on March 25, 2025, boasting that the “investment” was “generating more than $160 million so far.”

The possibility that it took $77 million to generate $160 million “so far” in 2024-25 should raise questions. The subsidy is supposed to cover only 25 to 32 percent of total spending in the province. The statement from the Premier’s office indicated that in 2024-25, subsidies covered nearly 48 percent of total production expenditure.  

Subsidy-to-spending ratios

Let’s assume that either the production spending of $160 million in 2024-25 was later revised upward – we still don’t know – or that accountant Houston and the communications people in his office goofed. Under the general framework of the program, the subsidy should not be as high as 48 percent but closer to 30 percent of the total Nova Scotia expenditure.

That 30 percent was more or less the measure that CCTH Minister David Ritcey revealed when defending his estimates before a legislature committee in late February. He used three examples, presumably to show that putting multi-millions into film and television production is a worthwhile investment for a province facing a $1.4 billion deficit. Ritcey’s examples were:

  • The Institute – $7.8 million invested, expenditure of $26.6 million equals 29 cents from the province, 71 cents  from Bezos’ outfit;
  • Sullivan’s Crossing -$5.7 million from province,  $17.9 million return equals 32 cents from the province, 68 cents from Reel World;
  • The Curse of Oak Island – $2.7 million from province, $9.0 million return equals 30 cents from Nova Scotia and 70 cents from its Michigan-based producers.

(To digress, the $2.9 million for The Curse of Oak Island is just the latest recorded payment. Thanks to Nova Scotia incentives, the Lagina brothers, who run the History Channel show, have been finding treasure on Oak Island for more than a decade, including $17 million in subsidies over the past five years. But The Curse is not the longest-standing beneficiary. That distinction probably belongs to CBC-TV staple This Hour has 22 Minutes which has been receiving provincial subsidies for much of its 33-year existence, including $19 million between 2020-21 and 2024-25). 

But back to the examples cited by Ritcey. They are consistent with the 30-70 split. Looked at in terms of a dollar invested, from $1.00 of incentive you get $2.33 in additional expenditure in the local economy from the production company. Is that a good return? It is certainly well below the $1.00/$4.56 indicated by the 2013-14 report of Film and Creative Industries.

In addition, while explaining his departmental estimates, Minister Ritcey used another example of investment generating a return to the economy, and it was much better than $1.00 generating $2.33 in spending. The example cited was advertising, where a study had apparently shown that $1.00 spent on advertising in Ontario and the Eastern U.S. generated $39.00 in tourism spending in Nova Scotia.

If that’s true, it sets a very high bar for film and television incentives. Tourism promotion has frequently been cited as one of the reasons for those incentives. The idea is that audiences will be drawn to the province to visit locations featured in movies or television shows shot here. 

There is some evidence – anecdotal as far as I know – that such is happening in places like Shelburne, location of several productions, and communities near Oak Island, site of the History Channel’s long-running The Curse of Oak Island. On the other hand, productions such as From, recipient of $10 million last year and $28 million over the last three years, is an unlikely tourist magnet. Indeed, it may be better to keep quiet about the location for the science fiction horror series whose scenes featuring dark woods, caves, creepy-looking houses and bad weather may have the opposite effect on potential visitors.

Bang for the Buck?

If government officials have any evidence to back the claim that film and television subsidies to out-of-province production brings in anything close to the payback to tourism of targeted advertising they don’t cite them. They rely instead on the 30-70 split, plus or minus a few percentage points, to justify handing out millions, a lot of it to American media giants.

Culturally and politically it seems like a bad idea, especially in the Age of Trump. But is it a good idea economically? 

Before considering that question it is important to state what should be obvious – the incentives have never been about  making money for the government. A dollar in incentives will return only pennies to government in the form of taxes. The way government officials present the numbers could lead one to believe that, for example, the $9 million generated by putting $2.7 million into The Curse of Oak Island was a return on investment in the conventional sense.But the incentives are really no different in most respects than the grants to local arts establishments – and based on the government’s metric they may be an inferior use of public funds. 

An arts group with which I was once involved received $25,000 from the province in 2021 and spent $125,000. That expenditure would have been almost entirely within the province, but let’s knock off $15,000 for out-of-province spending. You are left with a $25,000 grant producing in-province expenditure of $110,000, a 23 to 77 split, or $1.00 invested producing $3.40 in additional expenditure. Compare that with $1.00 in film incentives producing only $2.33 in additional expenditure.

That’s only one example and the $1.00 will get you $3.40 may not apply across the dozens of arts groups across the province who get a chunk of the $66 million the Houston government claims – without providing details – to be spending on the arts sector. However, there’s enough in that one comparison to question the assumption that the current sky-high subsidies to film and television are the best way to stimulate expenditure by arts and culture entities.  

A big Hollywood-style shoot may mean a short-term boost for a few communities – the Blow at High Dough phenomenon. Such productions also mean that the $2.33 per dollar expenditure triggered by the $1.00 subsidy is money from away – a good thing. But when assessing whether that’s a cost-effective way of bringing money into the province, subsidizing film and television should be viewed through the same lens as spending on tourism advertising,  giving universities the resources to accommodate more out-of-province students or, Heaven forbid, the Yarmouth to Bar Harbour ferry.

Jobs and culture

In addition to claims about tourism and generation of  expenditure by foreign film and television entities, the industry is also touted as a source of well-paid employment. The well-paying part is true, but when compared with job numbers in other parts of the subsidized arts and culture sector it comes off poorly. 

According to Statistics Canada (Table 14-10-0023-01) there were 19,300 Nova Scotians employed in information, culture and recreation in 2025. The assumption is that category includes work in film and television. The industry association, Screen Nova Scotia, reports that  2,500 Nova Scotians work in film, television and animation in the province. 

The animation industry also benefits from significant provincial support, reminiscent of the long-gone film tax credit – a refundable credit providing up to 60 percent on eligible Nova Scotia labor expenditures. According to budget documents, the cost to the provincial treasury of the Digital Animation and Digital Media credits has averaged about $30 million over the last four years. With film and television incentives averaging about $50 million per year over the same period the total subsidy to support those 2,500 jobs would work out to about $32,000 per job.  

Subtracting those workers identified by Screen Nova Scotia from the StatsCan estimates leaves employment in the broader information, culture and recreation category  at 16,800. Let’s assume this is the group the Premier is talking about when he defends this year’s budget cuts to CCTH with the claim that the PC government is spending $66 million on the arts and culture sector. That $66 million, divided by 16,800 jobs, works out to about $3,930 per job, a cost-per-job that’s a small fraction of cost-per-job in film, television and animation.

Another way of measuring the difference is to look at jobs supported by million dollars of subsidy.

  • In 2024-25 the combined subsidy to support 2,500 jobs in film, television and animation was $108 million, for a jobs-per-million count of 23;
  • The $66 million supported 16,800 jobs, for a jobs-per-million count of 255, more than ten times the number supported by the film and television incentive.  

It’s possible the gap in cost-per-job is less than the rough calculation shows. As noted a few times in this discussion, numbers are reported haphazardly and basic definitions – such as what constitutes arts funding and employment – are elusive. There is also some crossover between film and television and other arts and culture sectors such as theatre and music. However, with that caveat in mind, it still seems very clear that government support for arts in general supports many more jobs per million dollars invested than does investment in film, television and animation. 

As for the industry’s contribution to that nebulous thing called culture, the numbers alone indicate that as the industry has become increasingly dominated by Foreign Location and Service Productions its contribution to Nova Scotia’s culture has diminished significantly from where it was in 2013-14. Aside from This Hour, the largest subsidy in recent years for a locally-created, Nova Scotia-themed production has gone to East Preston native Floyd Kane’s Diggstown, which ran for four seasons on CBC. Shot mainly in Dartmouth and the Eastern Shore with an African-Nova Scotian backdrop, it received a total of $8.2 million from the province between 2019 and 2023. 

The Trailer Park Boys (TPB) and their raunchy comedy, which has been soaking up subsidies  for almost as long as This Hour, have also been receiving additional incentives recently. In 2024 a TPB production, The Trades, a comedy about refinery workers in Sarnia,Ontario, launched on Crave with the help of $3.7 million in subsidies over two years from Nova Scotia.

There have been many smaller budget projects backed by the Film and Television Incentive Fund – including At the Place of Ghosts by Mi’kmaq screenwriter and director Brettan Hannam and The Lighthouse in Little Lorraine, a film based on a hit song by Dartmouth-based singer-songwriter Adam Baldwin. But the government showed its dismissive attitude toward domestic  filmmakers by slashing the Screenwriters’ Development Fund by 50 percent and reducing its grant to the Atlantic Filmmaker Cooperative, for over 50 years an incubator for budding film and media workers.  

Touching the Third Rail     

In a previous post on the arts and culture cuts I suggested that the film and television industry has become a third rail of Nova Scotia politics, an expenditure that no politician seems prepared to challenge. Maybe that’s because of the glamour factor, combined with the reality that for some the industry is the source of well-paid employment, a sought-after commodity in these parts. Or it may be the result of a political cost-benefit analysis – the damaging backlash against McNeil’s 2015 cuts and reforms produced very little in the way of cost savings.  

The arts community doesn’t seem prepared to raise questions either, understandable for several reasons. Some of the money that has been going into big-budget FLSPs ends up in the pockets of Nova Scotian arts professionals, helping them to eke out a precarious living while creating cultural content in other venues better reflecting their experience. Why bite the hand that feeds you, even if the meal is thin gruel? There is also concern that if those on the fringes of the industry start criticizing how the film subsidies work and who they benefit most some government will use that questioning to justify a McNeil-like sequel, or worse, leaving everyone poorer. 

With the current round of cuts to arts and culture, and the likelihood of more to come, it would be wrong to leave the costly film TV and digital subsidies untouched and unexamined. Over-budget expenditures to attract American media giants may once have seemed like the cool thing to do, a win-win for the entire arts sector. But now, with the across-the-board cuts to everything but the media subsidies, the cost of those subsidies and their relatively minimal contribution to jobs and local culture must be questioned. And in any process of re-examination it would be wise to heed the advice of Gord Downie’s grandmother –  be objective and don’t continue to “Blow at High Dough.”

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