WGC claims Canadian industry is ‘dying’ as writers face 22% fall in earnings
The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) has claimed the “domestic industry is dying” as its members’ aggregate earnings have seen a “devastating” fall of nearly 22% over five years.
The guild’s president, Alex Levine, said the decline, which has been adjusted for inflation, demonstrates the “dire straits that Canadian screenwriters find themselves in.”
“Out-of-work writers are switching careers. Others are leaving the country. Our domestic industry is dying,” said Levine (Orphan Black, Essex County).
While the overall production volume in Canada has boomed over the past decade, most of that increase has been due to big-budget US projects shooting in cities including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
The WGC said this boom has not benefitted Canadian screenwriters and has left them languishing in a domestic system that has become increasingly unsustainable for TV scribes.
“When a Hollywood show comes here to shoot, that may create jobs for crew but not Canadian screenwriters. These series aren’t Canadian, they aren’t written by Canadians and they don’t have an authorial Canadian voice. We need to make sure Canadian shows get produced too. We can’t just be a branch production plant for Hollywood,” said the WGC.
The guild added the broader Canadian industry is in a precarious position as local broadcasters grapple with the growing power of global streaming giants, which have decimated Canadian networks’ market share over the past decade.
“Canadian broadcasters are clearly in decline and are threatening to exit the system. And Canadian screenwriters, whose jobs are at the leading edge of the wedge, are fully in crisis,” said the guild.
The comments come at a worrying time for the local industry, following cuts at Canada’s two biggest private broadcasters, Bell Media and Corus Entertainment.
Canadian telecommunications giant Bell, parent of Bell Media, last month said it was axing 1,300 jobs across all levels of its business, while Corus recently said that it has cut 8% of its workforce over the course of this year.
Corus also restructured its original programming team last month, leading to the departure of key execs including Krista Look, VP of original lifestyle content; Kathleen Meek, manager, original content, scripted and factual; Maria Knight, production executive for History Channel in Canada; and Dan Pasqua, development production executive, Corus Studios.
The private broadcasters have also requested that the country’s TV regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), lower the amount of money it must spend annually on local programming.
The WGC’s comments were made in a submission to the CRTC in relation to an industry-wide consultation following the passing of Bill C-11 (aka the Online Streaming Act), a landmark piece of legislation that brings international streamers including Netflix, Amazon, Paramount+ and Disney+ under Canadian regulation.
One of the main goals of the updated legislation is to mandate that international streaming services operating in Canada contribute to the funding of local programming.
With the legislation now passed into law, the CRTC is seeking input from all players in the local market, including broadcasters, producers, writers and international streamers, before creating a set of rules that will govern all companies and entities in the sector.
The WGC argued that global streamers operating in Canada have sought to “blur the distinction” between true Canadian content and US content filmed in Canada, so that the content they already produce in in the country can be counted as Canadian content.
“We can’t have foreign service production count as ‘Canadian content’ through window dressing. Canadian content must be Canadian written. And the status quo isn’t enough. The government and the CRTC need to actually grow this industry and make sure that Canadian screenwriters have pride of place within it. Otherwise, screenwriting is finished as a profession in this country.”
