Canadian writers are standing united and prepared for a potential work stoppage as part of an ongoing battle against pay disparity, AI and other key issues.

After a week-long voting period, the Writer’s Guild of Canada (WGC) has revealed that an overwhelming 96.5% of members are in favor of a strike mandate in case a fair deal is not reached with the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) by a date that is still being determined.

The organizations have been in negotiation for more than six months, which WGC executive director Victoria Shen says is unprecedented—especially after their IPA (Independent Production Agreement) expired at the end of December. “This has never happened before; we’ve always been able to reach a deal before the agreement expires.”

Shen explains that there are three main issues driving the contract talks: fair compensation, adequate protection against AI, and securing minimum staffing. In a significant sign of how negotiations have dragged on, this marks the first strike authorization vote in the guild’s 33-year history. “I feel very strongly that the reason [for the strike authorization vote] is because of the lack of conversation around AI,” says Katherine Sandford, who has penned scripts for animated series including Elinor Wonders Why (PBS KIDS) and Hop (Max). She emphasizes that animation is particularly vulnerable to the impact of this emerging technology, which needs to be regulated before it’s too late.

Fair pay is also worth highlighting, for kids TV writers especially. Research from the WGC has found that animation writers are paid CAD$320 less per 15-minute script than live-action writers. This makes it necessary for many of them to take second jobs, which Shen finds ironic, considering the enormous levels of financial success that Canadian animation has achieved. “In the past few years, shorter episodes are becoming more common, so there’s an urgent need to set minimums that will protect the writers,” she says, adding that diverse writers are being disproportionately affected. 

Many writers have also noted instances of misinformation around the negotiations. One example is the idea that the WGC has been provided the same protections against AI as the WGA, which is “not the case at all,” Shen says. 

Mark De Angelis, whose credits include Odd Squad (PBS KIDS) and Go, Dog Go! (Netflix), elaborates: “For starters, the WGA has minimum staffing protections, so even if AI is used, shows still need to meet a minimum threshold of writing staff; the WGC does not have that protection. Further, the WGA has rules governing the ‘Created By’ credit; the WGC does not. In Canada, we must negotiate for the ‘Created By’ credit—so producers could conceivably have AI write a five-page series overview, and the producer in charge can claim the ‘Created By’ credit while a real human writer does the actual creation work of extrapolating a series from five pages of absolute horse shit.”

“In short, we are not asking for more protection than American writers,” he says. “The current protections offered leave us very vulnerable. Plain and simple: We want to be writers, not re-writers for AI-generated ideas.” 

Updated at 2:45pm: The CMPA released a statement this morning in response to the strike authorization.

“The CMPA remains at the table and is committed to a negotiated settlement with the WGC,” says Sean Porter, the org’s VP of National Industrial Relations and Counsel. “Canadian producers value the work of Canadian screenwriters, and sincerely believe that future Canadian projects should be written by humans, not AI algorithms.” 

Porter adds that concluding negotiations is a priority as a labor dispute “would be extremely damaging to the domestic Canadian film and television production sector.”

Image courtesy of Harry Grout/Unsplash