Ten years ago, the Montreal Canadiens were competing for the Stanley Cup, Brian Mulroney was prime minister and the 500-channel universe was still a dream. A lot has changed since then including the coming of age of Canadian series television productions. Shows like Traders, Dudley the Dragon, LEXX, Deux Freres, Radio enfer, Big Comfy Couch and The Associates have been broadcast since that time, attracting millions of viewers here and internationally. Helping to make that growth possible has been the Independent Production Fund and its executive director, Andra Sheffer.

"Ten years ago," recalls Sheffer, "there was very little private money in the industry. Producers had to rely on government subsidization for their programs to be made. And there always seemed to be a critical 10% of the budget that was never available in Canada."

That 10% amounted to critical work in post-production that would turn a good show into a superlative one or pay the producers properly for their efforts.

Right at that time, Ron Osborne, then CEO of Maclean Hunter, became involved in the purchase of Selkirk Communications. Osborne recalls that MH "suggested to the CRTC that we offer $9 million as a public benefit for the transaction."

MH's proposal was to create a fund that would offer money to producers of dramatic television series as a "top-up" to their budgets. Intended as an investment, the fund expected to recoup monies should a series prove profitable.

Even a decade later, Osborne still sounds miffed at what happened next. As part of the approval for buying Selkirk, the CRTC upped MH's amount by $20 million to $29 million. Although that decision was no doubt controversial at the time, Osborne - who is no longer involved with broadcast television - says "I've been delighted that it worked as a fund. It was Maclean Hunter's suggestion to set it up in the first place. It's water under the bridge now as to what the amount was."

The increase in the fund, dictated by the CRTC, did have a major impact. At $9 million, the Maclean Hunter Fund would have been able to disburse less than $1 million a year. With $29 million to play with, the fund has been able to invest approximately $3 million a year into 122 series over the past decade.

While investing $30 million in more than 1,000 hours of television viewing, the IPF's board has wisely reinvested the principal into a portfolio that has seen the initial $29 million grow into a fund that now has $35 million.

In addition to funding shows as diverse as The Black Stallion and Tribu.com, the IPF has assisted in more than 175 training and professional development programs administered by the likes of the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Banff Television Festival and the Montreal World Film Festival. Producers, directors, show-runners and actors have benefited from these sessions, which occur, like clockwork, at every major film and television festival in the land.

Nor is the IPF merely a funder. Following the principles set down by Osborne, the fund has always sought recoupment from its investments. It has seen successes as the decade has progressed and the industry has grown more astute in the search for foreign investors and broadcasters.

LEXX, the Salter Street-produced science-fiction series, paid the IPF back 100% of its investment and the series is now financed without the largesse of independent funding sources. Other shows that have been able to pay back the IPF considerable amounts of dollars include Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House, Groundling Marsh, ReBoot, Caillou and Eric's World.

None of these financially prudent investments would have occurred had the fund not been created properly. Comments Sheffer, "Ron Osborne set up a board of directors which was completely independent of Maclean Hunter from day one. It's what makes this fund unique in this country."

Osborne made sure the board was comprised of professionals who understood the needs of the broadcast industry but were not themselves involved in independent series production. Recruits for the first board included Michael McCabe, now head of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Peter Mortimer and Denise Robert.

Robert, the acclaimed feature film producer of, most recently, The Widow of St. Pierre, is still on the board. "Fifteen years ago, the most popular television shows in Quebec were things like Dallas, American series that were dubbed into French," comments Robert. "Now the top 25 shows are mostly homegrown productions. I'm happy to say that the IPF has made a difference in whether [some Quebec] series are made or not - and whether the shows can be made comfortably, with high quality."

Robert notes, with satisfaction, the IPF's involvement in such adult series as Alys Robi, Tribu.com and Deux Freres as well as such children's fare as Radio enfer and Pin Pon. "The quality of the productions has increased because there's been more money, either to do period or contemporary pieces. You can see the production value on the screen."

From its beginnings as the Maclean Hunter Fund and now as the IPF, there has been a commitment to funding Quebec productions with anywhere from 30% to 40% of the monies available in a year. While Sheffer administers the IPF, the Cogeco Program Development Fund (which supports writers, MOWs and series pilots) and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund from Toronto, her associate director Claire Dion handles applications from Quebec for all three funds from their Montreal office.