Julie Snyder says she's been forced out of TV production

Julie Snyder says her marital status has forced her to leave the television production business.

The founder of Productions J, a TV and live event production company, is engaged to PQ Leader Pierre Karl Peladeau.

During a news conference Monday afternoon, Snyder said the province’s finance ministry won’t let her business benefit from a tax credit offered to other independent producers in Quebec because of her relationship with Peladeau.

Snyder's company was ineligible for this tax credit until the regulations were changed by the former Parti Quebcois government, against the recommendations of senior bureaucrats, weeks before the 2014 election. The Liberal government removed the tax credit soon after it came to power.

Snyder says without that money, Productions J would be now at a disadvantage in such a competitive industry. The company is behind French-language television shows such as Star Academie and La Voix.

Under what Snyder calls Quebec's "discriminatory" rules, Productions J can't sell more than 50 per cent of its shows to the same television network.

The Liberal government says because much more than 50 per cent of the company's content is broadcast on TVA, her company is not independent and therefore does not quality for the tax credit.

But Snyder says it's her marital status that's behind the decision. She lamented being forced to make what she referred to as an impossible decision: end her relationship or part ways with her company. Snyder founded Productions J in 1997.

She didn’t quit the company but said she divested herself from a large part of its operations and is no longer its director.

Peladeau and Snyder are set to wed later this summer. They have two children together.