Film industry insiders say tax breaks in Ontario and Quebec have producers yelling "CUT!" in B.C. and taking their projects east.

At the Brightlight Pictures film lot in Burnaby, local film professionals and members of the NDP banded together on Saturday to call for better incentives.

NDP MLA Spencer Herbert has told the Straight that the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts has eliminated its stand-alone arts and culture division. Herbert, who is the Opposition critic for this ministry, said by phone that ministerial assistant Frank Costa informed him shortly before Christmas that arts and culture now falls within the tourism-development category.