It seemed like the challenges faced by the B.C. film and television industry were being conspicuously left out of the acceptance speeches at last night’s 15th annual Leo Awards gala.

That was until Michael Shanks got up to receive his best lead in a dramatic series trophy for the “Ride or Go Home” episode of Saving Hope, a show which is made—like a few of the evening’s winners—in Toronto.

Besides their better tax incentive program, Shanks told the industry professionals gathered into the ballroom of the Westin Bayshore that the difference between the two provinces, “is that in Ontario, Rob Ford smokes crack, and here, Christy Clark makes everybody want to smoke crack.”

After handing the award to Shanks, presenter Tom Scholte fired off an even better zinger.

“I happen to know that Christy Clark is a big supporter of the B.C. film industry,” he announced with mock indignation, “because I read it in the program and Michael you obviously didn’t.”

Directly after, Gerrard Plunkett raised the roof once again when he thanked the premier for “having absolutely nothing to do” with his best supporting performance award for the film Camera Shy.

That was about it for politics, besides an eloquent Michael Eklund—accepting a best lead performance Leo for his work in Errors of the Human Body, filmed in Dresden, Germany—who remarked, “we need to go down to pick up speed to go back up. And that’s what we’re doing, we’re going back up.”

In what might have been a poetic-cosmic reflection of industry disarray (or maybe not, but I need a segue here), the event was beset with technical problems.

Hosts Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson took all that in stride, with Robertson hilariously threatening to leave about six months into what turned out to be a long, long night. Then she asked producers Walter Daroshin and Sonny Wong if they’d like to show "another clip without any video and sound?”

But it was also a lot fun (mostly), the food was excellent, and many of the right people won, notably Agam Darshi for her supporting performance in the The Crimes of Mike Recket, Jennifer Copping for her lead role in Becoming Redwood, and two big awards—for direction (Mark Sawers) and best feature film—going to Camera Shy.

All three of those films are about as locally made as you can get, with the real estate-themed noir Recket and Camera Shy—about a corrupt and insane Vancouver city councillor—specifically reflecting life here in Vancouver-is-allegedly-awesome.

Other highlights included a very emotional David Nutter receiving the first annual Stephen J. Cannell Award, designed to recognize a “non-B.C. friend of B.C. film and television.”

Nutter talked about “coming to this magical place” and getting his first professional gig on 21 Jump Street. These days his resume includes Nip/Tuck, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones.

As the last surviving key cast member of the show, Jackson Davies was on hand for a special tribute to The Beachcombers. “We knew that we were this kind of quirky, this kind of cheesy little Canadiana, but we were good with it,” he said in a cheerful speech.

The Beachcombers was a noted worldwide success, and so is Continuum, which ultimately received the honour for best dramatic series—one of seven prizes for the Vancouver-set, dystopian sci-fi saga produced by Showcase.

Talking to the Straight afterwards, creator Simon Barry smiled broadly when asked if last week’s revelations concerning the U.S. spy agency NSA was fodder for future episodes.

“Oh yeah,” Barry said. “I think one of the great things about Continuum is that as far-fetched as we think the future is going to be, the reality of the world is always surprising us in how behind we actually are.”

He continued: “We try to use the real world as an anchor point for our technology, and invariably we’re going to run into this problem where smarter, wealthier, sneakier people are going to be way ahead of us… We’re gonna obviously try to be a little less behind the curve.”

For the full list of winners, including Friday's (June 7) Celebration Award's ceremony, go here.