True Patriot Love - June 22, 2026


[Sneak Peek] The State of Film & Television in 2026 ft Joel Stewart

Topics
film industry in Canada
Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Guests
Joel Stewart
Mentioned
Paul Thomas Anderson Joel
Canada's Youth Unemployment Problem ft. Tristin Hopper From Broadcasting Icon to Best-Selling Author： A Life in Sports Media ft Jim Lang

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

185.19

Word count

1,871

Sentence count

23


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we sit down with Joel Stewart to talk about what's happening in the film industry here in Canada. From tax credits to tax incentives, there's a lot going on in the industry here, and Joel joins us to discuss it all.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 canada's doing okay i think in a larger sense i mean as an industry the movie industry is just
00:00:08.160 very interesting i mean all the industries anyone who tells you this is where it's going
00:00:12.960 doesn't know what they're talking about thanks for joining us tpl media and by the way we might
00:00:22.240 be there locally in your hometown go to tpl media.ca local and you'll find us in brandon
00:00:28.320 and regina and sous saint marie and montreal and ottawa we're coming to your town too and that
00:00:34.240 means that we might even be there in person uh stay with us and subscribe to our newsletter on
00:00:40.080 our website at tplmedia.ca don't forget you can even support the network it wouldn't hurt one
00:00:46.000 little bit and we would certainly appreciate it all right let's get on with what's happening today
00:00:51.760 an opportunity i have once in a while to sit down with joel stewart to talk a little bit about
00:00:57.360 film in canada among other things joel stewart joins us thanks so much buddy well i am the least
00:01:02.720 qualified person you could have rounded up from the streets of toronto i want to see you to be
00:01:07.280 here let me test you on that joel because let's see uh network television producer correct yes
00:01:14.880 stage performing uh rock star still yes uh recent movie in theaters actually you know the more you
00:01:22.960 bring this up the more you're right yeah i hate to be your promo guy but you're perfectly qualified
00:01:28.160 for this and i do appreciate you taking the time uh here we are in the throes of summer and coast
00:01:33.360 to coast in canada that means something from a production standpoint generally speaking it means
00:01:38.720 we're usually pretty busy yep what do you feel is going on out there now how's your gauge on how
00:01:44.480 busy the studios the producers and the tech teams are doing out there you know what i think the tech
00:01:50.640 teams are doing great uh there there is still the the uh you know we're known for having great crews
00:01:57.440 in very interesting places not just toronto and vancouver but winnipeg has become a film hub okay
00:02:03.120 dot dot you know all those uh great bob odenkirk movies the nobody movies they filmed there right
00:02:08.400 the new little house on the prairie that is coming out on netflix which is set in california is
00:02:14.000 filming and you know in winnipeg uh but you know winnipeg really rallied around you know the
00:02:20.720 government said hey we have to turn this into something and then they created a tax credit
00:02:24.720 environment that attracted american producers so in addition to the exchange rate and all those
00:02:30.240 incentives that were there but what happened was back a bunch of years ago uh when the opposite was
00:02:36.800 happening in alberta a bunch of the alberta people moved to winnipeg and and made that their home and
00:02:42.080 And I'm talking about grips and gaffers and technicians.
00:02:44.480 And so now there's this hub.
00:02:46.700 There is a scene there.
00:02:47.720 I mean, they should maybe change it to Hub Manitoba because it's now a hub for, in many ways, for all of the logistics that go on in many parts of Canada.
00:02:58.140 It's a huge hub.
00:02:59.480 There's a lot of space there for studios, I would imagine.
00:03:02.320 And then you've got dramatic seasons there.
00:03:05.640 And you have the incredible buildings in Winnipeg proper.
00:03:08.580 it often doubles for chicago or new york and all that kind of stuff as well so
00:03:12.900 they they've you know so as far as crews go crews are working uh i think crews are thriving here in
00:03:20.420 canada um there was an article in variety today what is today june 16th but again it was about
00:03:26.820 the uh people escaping the scene in la too expensive to shoot in la there's there's the
00:03:31.460 entertainment capital of the world los angeles where else are they going do you think because
00:03:36.260 Because I've heard this.
00:03:36.920 I've heard Texas is a big one now.
00:03:39.540 Yes.
00:03:40.740 Georgia is massive.
00:03:42.140 Right.
00:03:42.400 Everything's happening in Georgia.
00:03:44.540 Massachusetts.
00:03:46.460 Say it five times fast, Joel.
00:03:48.320 I can't say it even once.
00:03:51.160 Every time I say it, I offend somebody.
00:03:54.260 I was reading this thing, and somebody said, well, the tax credits are better here than they are in California.
00:03:59.340 And, you know, dot, dot, dot.
00:04:00.800 What is that?
00:04:01.320 Let's talk about that for a minute.
00:04:02.440 because i think i've i've participated in tax credits a couple of times uh in my life uh with
00:04:08.840 various uh television shows but let's explain to people how that operates because i think that
00:04:13.960 there's a misconception that a huge amount of money from our government is put into film when
00:04:20.920 really what it is in many cases and and this kind of production many cases it's just a tax relief
00:04:27.720 it's just a tax arrangement that makes the budget go further i don't know if that's true i think
00:04:33.800 there is cash involved no no you get the cash yeah you get cash but i don't think that comes
00:04:38.200 from the federal government so essentially what happens is it offsets the cost of production
00:04:44.440 based on where you yes okay so in manitoba for instance uh i don't know why i'm bringing up
00:04:51.240 manitoba all the time what are you the king of manitoba i didn't know this but as an example uh
00:04:55.960 uh just because it's recent in my head i believe it's 30 of all of the labor costs you would have
00:05:04.440 would be subsidized by the tax credit and northern ontario has a similar they have yes people might
00:05:10.320 not know there you get a tax credit in ontario just for doing something in ontario okay if you
00:05:14.720 go to northern ontario which is why a lot of things are filmed in sudbury you know sudbury
00:05:21.680 wow film capital of canada capital of canada there's a northern ontario tax threshold so
00:05:28.320 if you were able to move your production out there uh you get a bump to the existing
00:05:34.240 ontario tax credit and you know you think about it this is significant these are significant
00:05:40.420 dollars because oh let's go there and we'll get a tax credit well to go there you have to
00:05:45.560 kind of go there a bunch of people have to be in hotels you need to have the cruise are
00:05:49.900 you need a localized crew which i think is hopefully the net result of this that
00:05:55.460 in in for example winnipeg you get a film community and and a resource community there
00:06:02.100 that can continue to make films that continues to be a destination no matter who's coming in i mean
00:06:06.480 the creative keys will come in like you know when they made fargo in those five seasons of fargo
00:06:11.080 in calgary uh a lot of the crew were the same crew but a lot of the the keys the writers they
00:06:17.260 all from hollywood and stuff right come up and do that sort of thing so there is a cost to it but
00:06:22.380 you know canada's doing okay i think in a in a larger sense i mean as an industry the movie
00:06:30.460 industry is just very interesting i mean all the industries anyone who tells you this is where it's
00:06:35.580 going doesn't know what they're talking about because they don't know and nobody knows no it's
00:06:40.780 changed so dramatically really yeah but here's the thing that's stressing me out now uh as an older
00:06:46.860 guy who made a movie wants to make another movie well there's this great thing happening now people
00:06:52.500 are flocking to the theaters right now the young people are flocking to theaters to see backrooms
00:06:57.960 and obsession both of which you know backrooms was based on a fella's web series dot dot dot yeah
00:07:04.500 he's in his early 20s he got a budget and he's making he's making bank now yeah and then this
00:07:10.500 movie obsession same story so it being a copycat industry you know that every every head of every
00:07:17.420 whatever company is like let's find another 20 year old i can see that what i think is interesting
00:07:23.420 about that is well that's truth cinema is i mean it's changing uh i think i've got tickets upcoming
00:07:29.100 to a symphony for goodness sake uh you can see live events and things like that and there's a
00:07:33.720 huge uh ethnic element now uh to the forum film uh showing going depending on where you are in
00:07:40.680 the country you know a number of theaters are showing punjabi or uh other ethnic related to
00:07:46.920 that community uh and there's less theaters for just straight away film when you add a back rooms
00:07:54.680 for example which by the way freaks me out the whole idea of it freaks me out and so good for
00:07:58.600 that kid alongside those there needs to be this epic series of movies or epic element of movies
00:08:05.740 i think that keeps people uh within the magic there has to be genre of film that has impact
00:08:12.980 to people's emotions and then there has to be these throwaways that are what i like to call
00:08:18.620 viral fascinations in film and i don't think the industry can survive very long on just viral
00:08:25.200 uh fascinations i don't think i don't i think it'll be a fad you know i think it'll be but
00:08:32.180 it'll be a fad for a while you know and it'll be there'll be somebody who gets a new job at a new
00:08:36.840 place who said this is what we're going to do and they will forget about experience and all these
00:08:41.180 sorts of things joe let me see how many followers do you have right right like i get it oh my gosh
00:08:46.420 you know we were just talking before we went to camera about about these things that happen now
00:08:52.620 and and the way things are done now and it's like you don't look for the best actor for the part
00:08:56.900 you you wonder you you have a person going how many followers do they have on instagram and it's
00:09:01.900 like well but can they act it doesn't matter how many followers do they have on instagram yeah
00:09:06.200 this becomes a thing what's their viral pattern online are they tiktok or instagram yes oh my lord
00:09:12.040 these things matter these things are discussed and come up and i'm gonna make a fantastic movie
00:09:16.600 and they'll be viral the rest of their lives well you know exactly uh when paul thomas anderson won
00:09:24.120 the golden globe for one battle after another he said something very specific in his speech and he
00:09:29.240 pointed to one studio person in the audience and said that person is responsible for this movie
00:09:36.000 weapons and sinners now sinners in one battle after another i think are you could just redo
00:09:41.700 the top 10 greatest movies of all time really didn't nail it and you could you could make an
00:09:46.500 argument that those movies should be on it those movies made me want to go to theaters again yes
00:09:51.940 yes and marty supreme as well i guess supreme another great example just a singular