WGA Strike: The Canadian Angle

THE GLOBE AND MAIL today has an article about the WGC's reaction to the work stoppage south of the border:

Canadian writers told to down pens on U.S. work

GUY DIXON

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

November 7, 2007 at 4:31 AM EST

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) is telling its members not to accept work from U.S. producers looking to replace striking American writers.

"Their fight is our fight," the WGC said in a notice to its members. The notice went on to explain union rules on how the strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers effects WGC members. The strike in the United States mainly revolves around the amount of payment writers receive for sales of films and TV shows on DVD and other types of digital distribution. The Canadian guild said that "the issues the WGA is addressing will affect every professional artist seeking compensation for their work in the digital age."

Under Canadian rules, writers who belong to both the Canadian and American guilds and who live in the U.S. have to abide by the American strike rules. Dual members of both unions who reside in Canada can work for Canadian productions, but a WGC member in Canada cannot accept work from U.S. producers.

That last paragraph is the really important one. I've had people ask me, and email over the last few days trying to figure out if there were opportunities here. Some were innocent, don't know any better inquiries and some were actually serious. The bottom line is that if a producer is doing work for a struck company -- you can't go with them. Morally, and if that argument doesn't work for you -- legally by the rules of the WGC. If you do take work, you're a scab and you'll certainly never be able to join the WGA once the strike ends. (And it will end.) But the reality is that you probably won't be able to join the WGC either, if they get wind that you worked for a struck producer.

There's a larger question which comes into play if the strike goes on a long time, and the U.S. nets start looking to fill their airwaves with foreign-produced programs. Alex Epstein wrote about this yesterday:

There could be a silver lining. If the strike goes for a long time, then the US networks will be needing content to fill their schedules. (Hell, CTV and Global will be needing content to fill their schedules. Isn't the CBC laughing now?) And there are only so many cool Brit shows they can air. Will they look to Canada?

I think they'll have to at least look. A few Canadian shows are airing in the States: DE GRASSI, SLINGS AND ARROWS, CORNER GAS, WHISTLER. My show NAKED JOSH aired on Oxygen. I think these shows ought to have put to bed the notion that Canadian shows are all poor-quality low-budget rip-offs of American shows. There ought to be a home for DURHAM COUNTY. There ought to be a home for TRAILER PARK BOYS. And how about LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE?

I'm developing a show for The Movie Network that might be right for HBO. Would they buy a Canadian show? Unlikely. Would they buy a Canadian show if they have nothing else to air? Hmmmm... HBO can't exactly survive on reruns and reality shows.

My fond hope is that at some point media in the States will notice that we make a lot of good stuff here and start talking about the Canadian New Wave, the way they talked about the Australian New Wave when Peter Weir was shiny and new. That'll happen faster if there no US content to yak about.

Alex and I are good friends, and we're both American transplants to Canada -- though he's of a more recent vintage than me. I've lived in Canada for thirty years. And one of the things about good friends that keeps life exciting is the way that sometimes you can see things so very differently.

I don't see Alex's silver lining. First of all, I defer to my current co-worker, the inimitable David Barlow, who's been writing and producing TeeVee in Canada roughly since Jesus was in sandals. (I love that joke.) Barlow recounts that in the 1988 strike, the phone started ringing immediately looking for completed Canadian product...but those phone calls immediately dried up at the whiff of a settlement.

Caroline dropped this gossip in a comment on Alex's piece:

I have it on good authority from parties involved that a network that shall not be named is looking very seriously at both Durham County and Billable Hours ... hate to say this and not support my own countrymen on this score, but these two shows are being distributed by big international (read: non-Canadian) companies that had the clout to get them in the door in L.A. in a serious way.

Interesting. But I'm still going with Barlow on this one. I think Alex underestimates the insularity of Americans. I think it's far more likely that if U.S. Channels started showing replacement, Canadian-made shows, that would generate resentment. Not just from the striking writers -- from the viewers too. Whistler is not Gossip Girl.

But what I'm trying to figure out is where the line is for taking future work in Canada while a strike's on. Shows that I've worked on, that I know were made primarily for a domestic audience with a faint hope of getting U.S. love, well, if they get sold, I guess that's a reasonably good thing -- product is meant to be sold. I'm not against capitalism.

Where things get dicey for me is in projects going forward. If this turns into a lengthy strike, there's a possibilty that a Canadian show in development could get greenlit from the Canadian network, and go into production fast because it has a U.S. sale that it might not have gotten if there was alternative American product. To me, that's kind of like working for a struck company.

There are shows that are made here that already have U.S. sales. Blood Ties, Degrassi, Instant Star, The Best Years. Since those existed and those deals were in place before a work stoppage, I can't see why anyone who works on those shows should feel loogy about going back.

But a script sitting in development at one of the Canadian nets that suddenly gets elevated because of a whisper down the mojo wire from L.A.? That might be something else entirely. I think that would be worth a call to the WGC for advice.

And all of this is said with the knowledge that Canadian TV writers, WGC members, do suffer a kind of chauvinism every day from the WGA. I was surprised by how nasty someone got when I asked if there was any way I could get access to the Writer Action board the WGA runs -- though I'm not a member. I asked because I noticed five or six threads that were linked from this blog tracking back from WA. (They're still doing it, BTW.)

But now's not the time to consider hurt feelings or jurisdictional whoozits and what nows. Writers down south are in a death-cage match. I feel very lucky right now to be finishing up work for a show that's designed and written to be Canadian -- The Border.

If there's no U.S. programming on the air in January, we might even benefit from that. Nothing I can do about it. But when it comes to taking the next job, I think WGC members have to think long and hard about where it's likely to end up -- and why.

Nobody likes to win because the other team can't take the field.

At least, I don't.