Province to pay more than $3M to take over Prairie Production Centre
Winnipeg Free Press
Tuesday April 12 2005
By Paul Egan
THE province's cost to take over a money-losing Winnipeg film studio topped $3 million -- about 71 per cent more than the government announced last week, officials confirmed yesterday.
In addition to paying $1.78 million for the Prairie Production Centre sound stage, the government forgave loans to the owner that totalled $1.26 million, a spokesman for Culture Minister Eric Robinson confirmed.
That means the total provincial price of the takeover was just over $3 million, not $1.78 million as the government reported. A federal loan of about $450,000 was also forgiven as part of the deal.
"This facility needs to be debt-free in order to be sustainable," the spokesman for Robinson said.
The 3,716-square-metre film studio on Pacific Avenue was owned by a partnership that included the troubled Crocus Investment Fund and firms controlled by wealthy Winnipeg businessmen Arni Thorsteinson and David Asper.
Critics have assailed the purchase as corporate welfare and an overpriced government bailout. Thorsteinson, a real estate developer and the president of Prairie Production Centre, has not returned phone calls. Asper, the executive vice-president of CanWest Global Communications, whose company Daremax Enterprises Ltd. was a limited partner in the studio, said he believes all proceeds from the sale are going to pay debts. None is going to his company, he said.
Robinson has said continued existence of the studio is critical to Manitoba's ability to compete with other provinces as a venue for shooting films. The film industry cites studies that say each $1 spent producing a movie in Manitoba generates $13 in economic spinoffs.
Tory culture critic Jack Reimer said it was misleading for the province to state the purchase price as $1.78 million.
"That's ludicrous," Reimer said. "We're looking at a total expense of $3 million for a business that's shown it can't survive.
"Those are all dollars that could be well-spent in other areas."