The Californian recall election of this past October 7th were followed so closely in some quarters of Toronto and Vancouver that an uninformed observer would have been excused to think that it was a local election.

To a certain extent it was, at least for those in the buoyant Canadian film industry, but it was as far from any feelings of empathy towards the Republican candidate and fellow filmmaker-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger as the center of Canadial filmmaking is from the mecca of Hollywood. On the contrary, if Canadian filmmakers were able to influence the outcome of the impromptu electoral contest, they would have most likely worked against the actor’s intent of managing the government of the fifth largest economy in the world, as he will do when he takes the oath of office this November.

The reason for it is in the new governor’s well known opinions on what Hollywood has come to term “runaway productions,” films and television series that are shot in the “Hollywood of the North” as producers in Los Angeles and elsewhere are attracted to the cheaper prices and generous tax rebates.

Canada is not the only location in the world where this occurs. There are myriad locations in the world where filmed productions can take advantage of mostly Western architectural landscapes at bargain prices. These opportunities, however, vary with the tide of politics and, to a lesser extent, financial woes. In some cases, like in the Czech Republic, hard times may guarantee filmmakers considerable savings to continue for quite some time, while more the reliability of more recent bargains seem to be more more of a mystery, like Argentina and South Africa.

Nonetheless, this practice is not a novelty, either. Ever since the aftermath of WWII, film productions have traveled to depressed but exotic locations, where sunshine and cheap labor meets, places like Southern Italy and Southern Spain, to shoot what would have been prohibitely expensive in the U.S. for better part of the fifties and sixties. The rise of Canadian filming, however, is more difficult for unions to ignore. Canada is a stable economic neighbor next door, and its convenience for producers has become, in time, also a target of political convenience for the technical film crew for whom jobs lost to such proximity to their power base may be too much to stomach.

Despite Schwarzenegger's harsh words for Hollywood films shooting in Canada, filmmakers there are banking on the fact that his words have not always been backed by his actions in the past. Although his last movie, the third installment in the Terminator series, was shot entirely in Los Angeles and not, as it was expected, in Vancouver- all due to his personal, last-minute intervention –Schwarzenegger did shoot “The Sixth Day” entirely in Canada in the year 2000. Still, the candidate has vowed to fight so-called runaway productions, and that is enough to have the Canadians deeply worried, for they now depend, more than ever, on the work that comes from the Hollywood mecca. This is especially true this year, due to the 40 per cent film production drop in places like Ontario as a consequence of the unfortunate reports about the presence of the SARS virus in the province earlier this year.

The last hope for Canadians is that Schwarzenegger will be completely bogged down with the more acute problems that the State faces and, therefore, he will find little time to worry about more ambitious proyects like wooing back those “runaway productions.” It is precisely what was stated by the head of the British Columbia Film Commission, Susan Croome, “I suspect this is at the bottom of priorities right now.”

Nevertheless, pressure groups in the film industry are expected to have an easy access to the new governor’s office, which threatens to crush any Canadian hopes for a delayed fight. The Film and Television Action Committee- one of such groups –suggests that Canadian subsidies can affect up to 44% of salaries paid and has caused great damage to the economy of the Sunshine State. Canadian incentives, according to their view, “have moved from our territory three quarter of television productions in the short run, as well as a quarter of motion pictures’ production.” In economic terms this translates to more than $10,000 million dollars per year.

In fact, a little after the Republican candidate obtained his gubernatorial victory at the ballot box, representative Darrel Issa- the millionaire who bankrolled the recall petition to begin with and, after quitting the recall race himself, contributed with 1.6 million dollars to the actor’s campaign –has signaled that California will start fighting to keep those productions from fleeing over to Canadian territories.