The "English" in "English-Canadian" excludes Les Boys, the French-language phenomenon about a recreation-league hockey team in Quebec, with more than $6- million in receipts. "In two decades" neatly leaves out the teenage sex comedy Porky's, the all-time champion grosser (in either sense of the word), which took in $12-million across Canada in its 1981 theatrical release.

But it's that word "Canadian" that is the most problematic. There are any number of films made in Canada that take in more in a week than Men With Brooms is ever likely to make. Indeed, these days it seems like half the films in Hollywood are actually made in Canada. By most measures, these should count as Canadian, even if their producers are American. After all, when we report figures on "Canadian" car production, no one seems to mind that the companies are in fact American-owned -- that is, when they are not German-owned -- least of all the members of the Canadian Auto Workers.

Of course, these films weren't made by Canadians, so perhaps they shouldn't count. But Canadians have made countless other successful films over the years. They just haven't made them in Canada. Canadian directors, Canadian writers, Canadian actors, even Canadian producers and distributors: some of the biggest names in Hollywood are Canadian. And Canadians, in their turn, flock to their films. Yet still we bemoan the failure of "Canadian" films to find a Canadian audience.

Well, you may say, there's nothing recognizably Canadian about the work they do.

Canadian directors like James Cameron and Norman Jewison make films about American stories, featuring American actors. Canadian actors like Jim Carrey or Donald Sutherland play American characters. Where are the stories set in Canada, about the struggles of Canadians? All right: Why isn't a film like The Shipping News, set in Newfoundland, a "Canadian" film? Because the author of the novel on which it is based is American? Then how about The English Patient, by the Canadian author Michael Ondaatje? Should it not count, because it's set largely in Italy?

The closer you get to trying to define Canadian content, the more problematic it seems.

The producers of Men With Brooms seem to solve the riddle by inserting that qualifier "homegrown," which apparently means the producers -- and therefore the profits -- are Canadian. But Alliance Atlantis is a publicly traded company, listed on both the Toronto and NASDAQ stock exchanges. Many of its shareholders presumably live in the United States.

This might all seem like so much idle sophistry, were it not also a critical matter of public interest. It is, as everyone knows, official government policy to promote and support "Canadian content" in films, television, music and publishing, by means of a dizzying array of subsidies, tax credits, ownership restrictions and broadcast quotas. But while everyone knows that's the policy, no one has the foggiest idea what it means. (Leave alone what the point of it all is, or whether it has even achieved such objectives as might be claimed for it, a subject for another column or five.) It's simply undefinable.

Current regulations are a brave try. The Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO), for example, applies a "points system" to decide which productions should qualify for the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC). You get two points for a Canadian director or screenwriter, one point if your highest-paid actor is Canadian, another point for a Canadian director of photography, and so on. A minimum of six points are needed. In addition, the producer must be Canadian, and 75% of the production costs must be paid to Canadians, among other requirements.

Just one problem. Well, two problems. First, the requisite numbers of Canadians may be gainfully employed, but the film itself may be about American tourists eating Japanese food in Bangladesh. How does that amount to "telling ourselves our own stories," in the painful nationalist cliche. (And why should it be preferred to a film made by Americans of a Canadian story, as in The Shipping News example?) And second, what is a Canadian? How do we even define that? By residence? Out go all those highly-paid expat Canadians in Hollywood. But if it's by citizenship, there are probably a few Hollywood films that should count.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, has just announced a review of these regulations. "We are asking Canadians to help us define what makes a film or television production Canadian," she said. Good luck.