If you don’t have plans on Sunday nights, you do now! Alberta is on the big screen.
In case you haven’t heard, The Last of Us premiered on January 15th and new episodes air weekly on Crave TV at 7:00 pm. The Last of Us, based off a popular video game, is HBO’s newest series about the survival of a man and a young girl in a post-apocalyptic world, onset by a mass fungal infection that turned most of civilization into wild cannibalistic monsters and left survivors to fight and kill for basic means of living. The two are forced together by unfortunate circumstances in a journey across a now desolate United States in pursuit of a cure to save the human race. Admittedly the plot is a bit dark, but the series and video game are known to be a deep story of hope, love, and perseverance.
What really matters is that this series is HBO’s largest production in studio history at over $10 million per episode, even larger than Game of Thrones, and it was 100% filmed in Alberta. Throughout the series you will recognize many familiar places such as the Calgary skyline, the Canmore bridge and Main Street, and the Legislature Building – all brought to life by the hard work of the 9000 individuals employed to work on the set.
This massive production was a direct success of our Government’s economic policies and new film production tax credit. This work began back in 2019 before the provincial election was even held. As a United Conservative caucus we knew that Alberta had immense potential for film and television production, but that it had yet to be harnessed. We collectively organized a summit with producers from across the province and most major Hollywood studios to better understand what Alberta needed to become competitive in this industry. Our province had the landscapes, but lacked the supporting policy. Shortly after the 2019 election in response to what we heard at that summit, we introduced the Alberta Film and Television Tax Credit or FTTC for short. By Spring of the following year we removed the per-production cap on the credit, and just a month later HBO announced they would be filming the entirety of the Last of Us in Alberta.
In the past, Alberta historically had a grant program to support the film and television industry in the province. The grant was tied to a fixed allocation of money and was only accessible on a quarterly basis upon filling out a lengthy and tedious application. This left companies to spend resources on needless bureaucratic processes and to make business decisions based on government timelines that did not even come with certainty of application acceptance. Our new FTTC is a tax credit that is continuously accessible, available to any production that meets the basic requirement of being largely filmed and produced in Alberta, requires no onerous application process, and scales with the size of the production.
The interest from major studios was instant.
To directly quote the Vice President of Creative Industries & Film Commissioner at Calgary Economic Development, “The Alberta Government removed the per production cap. This immediately made us nationally and internationally competitive.”
Keep Alberta Rolling, the leading film and television industry association in Alberta stated “The Alberta screen industry is seeing record levels of production including flagship projects like HBO’s The Last of Us choosing the province to do business. This serves as a reminder that good policy matters. This success is a direct result of working collaboratively across industry stakeholders, the incredible talent and landscapes in the province, and the implementation of the film and television tax credit making the Alberta Government great partners in production.”
Even the Senior Vice President of HBO stated at The Last of Us premiere that the production was a “partnership between HBO and the Government of Alberta”.
The success of the FTTC is a perfect example of why deliberate economic policy matters. While Alberta has the human capital, the natural resources, and the landscapes to be a natural destination of business interest, sitting idly by as policymakers would have inhibited our province from reaching its true potential. That is why, over the past three years, we have reduced business taxes, deregulated the economy, and introduced targeted sector growth strategies for new and emerging industries such as hydrogen, lithium, petrochemicals, technology, and film.
Today Alberta is leading the nation in GDP growth, leading the nation in inter- provincial migration, and leading the nation in job creation with over 220,000 new private sector jobs having been created in just three short years.
At a time of such global economic uncertainty, this economic growth serves as a reminder of how fortunate and proud we should be to consider ourselves Albertans.
On Sunday nights going forward, turn on your televisions and see Alberta on the big screen. You’ll be left feeling as proud and excited about our future as I am.
