'It made a lot of sense:' producer calls for reinstatment of film, TV labour rebate

An award-winning P.E.I. television producer who was just named to the P.E.I. Business Hall of Fame is adding her voice to a growing chorus calling on the province to reinstate a labour rebate for film and television.

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Gretha Rose and her company, Cellar Door Productions, were instrumental in building the film and television industry on the Island in the late 1990s when the province offered companies a labour rebate.  

"We're hoping that somehow there can be a break here," Rose told CBC News. "The program had been in place and it would not take a lot to have this be implemented once again."

The labour rebate program was aimed at hiring and training local people for jobs in the industry, not bringing in labour from other provinces.

'It made a lot of sense'

"It made a lot of sense, to keep our young people home, our artists home, and corporations coming here to set up," Rose added.

"After we lost that labour rebate program, we were not able to continue business," Rose said. "I couldn't keep a full- time staff of 10 people employed."

Rose is part of a volunteer group lobbying for a new labour credit and joins Nils Ling, the head of the Island Media Arts Cooperative, in calling for support.
    
The province said $2.4 million had been spent on television and film projects in the last eight years. Details showed showed $1.4 million of that spending happened in 2007, with the other $1 million spent over the next seven years. 

'It was insane'

"Over the years, I was adding up how many people I employed — it was insane," Rose said. 

Cellar Door produced an award-winning animated series about Eckhart the mouse, a reality series about veterinarians at the Atlantic Vet College in Charlottetown, and launched chef Michael Smith's star with Inn Chef and several subsequent series including Chef at Home, Chef at Large, Chef Abroad and Food Country. 

Rose sold her animated short series Doodlez to Teletoon in 2002, prompting Trapeze Animation to set up on P.E.I., hiring 35 animators. In 2003, Cellar Door produced Mrs. Ashboro's Cat starring a then-unknown Ellen Page. Most of Cellar Door's productions were nominated for or won awards, including Geminis. 

Most of the people who trained and worked on those productions have left P.E.I., Rose believes. 

"It would have been a lot easier for me to do most of my shows other than here," Rose said. "I had to fight with a lot of my partners to do as much as we did do here... I really did want to invest in growing the industry.

"At that pinnacle, we had the best public-private partnership going here. And that's what it takes... that champion in government."

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