Post navigation Canadian Film & TV Needs Affirmative Action It's funny: Just last night I was engaging in that favourite past time of Canadian filmmakers -- complaining about the Canadian film industry. Complaining about the lack of government financing and the difficulty of breaking into a distribution market that is locked down by the studios and mini-majors and, here in Canada, where there is now "1.5 distributors" to choose from (as my co-conversationalist described it). With multiculturalism such a big part of Canadian culture, even written into laws and deliberately recognized and practiced, it seems a short jump to actually include multiple races, multiple ethnicities, women and transgender people, etc., within that larger framework of diversity. Canada tends to think of itself as a mosaic, with each part (read: each community) doing its part to create Canadian culture, rather than the American version of a "melting pot," where people are expected to become American, assimilate, and somehow, perhaps, give up a part of who they were as immigrants to become American.