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Awards, Featured

Nominations announced for the 2026 WGC Screenwriting Awards

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From a media release:

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) is pleased to announce the nominations for the 30th annual WGC Screenwriting Awards, marking three decades of recognizing the writers behind Canada’s most engaging and powerful series, films, and shorts. The Awards will take place at Koerner Hall in Toronto on Monday, April 27, hosted by Ali Hassan, and written by Kurt Smeaton.

Nominated for the 2026 Awards are scripts from North of North (Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Garry Campbell, Aviaq Johnston, JP Larocque, Stacey Aglok Macdonald, Linsey Stewart), Bet (Simon Barry, Amanda Fahey, Laura Good, Tabia Lau, Kurt Mungal, Chris Roberts), Lana Longbeard (Emer Connon, Alex Ganetakos, Lienne Sawatsky), Mittens & Pants (Phil McCordic, Katherine Sandford), 18 to 35 (Rahul Chaturvedi, Kaveh Mohebbi), and many others.

Please see the complete list of categories and nominees below.

In addition to the nine featured screenwriting categories, the 30th anniversary awards will also present several special honours. One WGC member will be awarded the prestigious Showrunner Award, a special prize honouring a recognized showrunner who has demonstrated great writing and leadership skills. Other special awards include the Alex Barris Mentorship Award, the McGrath Service Award, and the Margaret Collier Award, presented with supporting partner the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (the Canadian Academy).

CHILDREN’S

  • Dino Dex, “Dino Discovery” | Written by J.J. Johnson
  • Jane, “Pan troglodytes” | Written by J.J. Johnson
  • Lana Longbeard, “Going Overboard” | Written by Alex Ganetakos
  • Lana Longbeard, “It Takes Two to Durango Tango” | Written by Lienne Sawatsky
  • Lana Longbeard, “Lana the Something Super Great and Totally Awesome” | Written by Emer Connon

COMEDY SERIES

  • North of North, “Bad Influences” | Story by Aviaq Johnston & JP Larocque, Teleplay by Aviaq Johnston & Garry Campbell
  • North of North, “Dumpcano” | Written by Garry Campbell
  • North of North, “Joy to the Effing World” | Written by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril & Linsey Stewart
  • North of North, “Top of the World” | Written by Stacey Aglok Macdonald & Aletha Arnaquq-Baril
  • North of North, “Walrus D*ck Baseball” | Written by Moriah Sallaffie & Garry Campbell

DRAMA SERIES

  • Family Law, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” | Written by Ken Craw
  • Family Law, “Play It Straight” | Written by Corey Liu
  • Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, “Tango Romeo” | Written by Tassie Cameron
  • Murdoch Mysteries, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” | Written by Jenny Lee
  • Sight Unseen, “Family Matters” | Written by Lisa Codrington & Kay Shioma Metchie
  • Surrealestate, “Night Terrors” | Written by Justin Rawana

DOCUMENTARIES

  • Beavers From Above | Written by Michael McNamara
  • In the Room | Written by Brishkay Ahmed

FEATURE FILMS

  • Blueberry Grunt | Written by Sherry White
  • Dinner With Friends | Written by Tania Thompson & Sasha Leigh Henry
  • Honey Bunch | Written by Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli
  • Nika & Madison | Written by Eva Thomas and Michael McGowan
  • Paige Darcy: Reluctant Detective | Written by Alice Moran

PRESCHOOL

  • Hop, “Benny’s Book Scare” | Written by Renae J. Ruddock
  • Mittens & Pants, “Mittens & Pants Christmas Special” | Written by Phil McCordic
  • Mittens & Pants, “Pants in the Box” | Written by Katherine Sandford
  • Paw Patrol, “Pups Save the Sea Sponges” | Written by Jeff Sager
  • Woolly Woolly, “Big BeeBee” | Written by Naomi Jardine

SHORT FILMS (UNDER 60 MINUTES)

  • I am Pleased | Written by Vanessa Magic
  • Now, I Am A Bear | Written by Jason Filiatrault

SHORT SERIES (EPISODES UNDER 15 MINUTES)

  • 18 to 35, “Bed Math and Beyond” | Written by Rahul Chaturvedi
  • 18 to 35, “Buck Mustang” | Written by Kaveh Mohebbi
  • Dying Seconds, “Have I Told You About This Hockey Card” | Written by Brendan Halloran
  • Fugget About It: Fan Favourites, “Gina’s Eleven… Minus Eight” | Written by Willem Wennekers
  • One Man’s Treasure – A Fool’s Fortune, “The Beginning” | Written by Thomas Conway

TWEENS & TEENS

  • Bet, “First Blood” | Written by: Tabia Lau
  • Bet, “Ice Breaker” | Written by: Amanda Fahey
  • Bet, “Meet the Parents” | Written by Chris Roberts
  • Bet, “The Hunt” | Written by Laura Good
  • Bet, “The Recital” | Written by Simon Barry & Kurt Mungal
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Featured, Industry News

Writers Guild of Canada ratifies new agreement

From a media release:

Canadian screenwriters and producers have a new collective agreement governing English-language screenwriting in Canada. The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) announced today their members have ratified the new Independent Production Agreement (IPA), which will come into effect on May 22, 2024. This agreement sets the terms, conditions, and rates for writers, story editors, and story consultants until January 31, 2027.

As part of the newly ratified agreement, live action script fees will increase by 5 per cent, 4 per cent, and 3.5 per cent over the next three years. Animation script fees will increase by 5 per cent, 11.5 per cent, and 3.6 per cent over the same period. A minimum staffing provision was negotiated, requiring two Story Editors to be engaged during the bulk of principal photography on productions commencing on or after January 1, 2025, for one-hour productions with budgets over $2.5M per episode and half-hour productions with budgets over $1.5M per episode. Artificial Intelligence (AI) protections were also negotiated, requiring producers to disclose and contract under the IPA when providing writers with AI-generated materials, as well as no reduction in existing writer credit or compensation. Expanded protections against discrimination and harassment in the workplace were also negotiated.

“We are pleased to have negotiated meaningful protections and fee increases for our members,” says WGC Executive Director Victoria Shen. “These achievements would not have been possible without the solidarity demonstrated by our membership. Special thanks to the Negotiating Committee, who volunteered months of their time, passionately represented the interests of screenwriters, and stood their ground to reach this deal.”

“Bargaining this agreement was extremely challenging but it has resulted in a more united and engaged membership,” says Bruce Smith, President of the WGC. “Our work will continue on many fronts, including fighting for equal compensation and protections for animation writers, advocating for a better funding system to address the needs of feature film writers, and ensuring our industry can flourish.”

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Featured, Industry News

Writers Guild of Canada releases new report on equity, diversity and inclusion in Canadian television

From a media release:

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) has released a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Report with 2022 data. The initiative is part of the WGC and its Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee’s efforts to work towards addressing issues of historic underrepresentation in Canadian television. (Diversity groups are defined by the WGC as Indigenous, Black, LGBTQ2S, People of Colour, People with Disabilities.)

The new report provides membership data from 2017 to 2022 and includes contract data from 58 live-action and 29 animated series that started production in 2022.

For the first time, this report includes earnings data and also features interviews with members who have participated in training and networking opportunities for diverse writers.

The data shows some marked increases in 2022, including:

  • The percentage of Indigenous writers and writers with disabilities joining the Guild grew to 7% each, from 5% and 4% in 2021 respectively. The percentage of diverse members joining with intersectional identities has also grown from 12% in 2021 to 17% in 2022.
  • The percentage of WGC diverse writers who are working has increased steadily from 21% in 2018 to 38% in 2022. The increase is largely explained by a higher participation of writers of colour and Black writers.
  • Writing credits for People of Colour have increased consistently from 7% to 17% between 2018 and 2022. Similarly, the share of writing credits for Black writers increased from 3% to 9.4% during the same period. In the case of LGBTQ2S screenwriters, writing credits recovered from a steady decrease and now sit at 17%.

Other observations on the 2022 data include:

  • Across every diversity category, the share of writers earning more than $200,000 is well below the 7.9% of “white, cisgender, heterosexual and non-disabled” (non-diverse) writers in that category.
  • In animation, there is a significant gap between the compensation of non-diverse and diverse writers. While non-diverse animation writers represent 22.9% of working writers and account for 15.4% of total earnings, diverse animation writers represent 8.6% of working writers but only account for 2.2% of total earnings.
  • The share of Indigenous writers and writers with disabilities working on TV remains low when compared to population numbers. The percentage of Indigenous writers increased by half a percentage only to 2.5% in 2022. Similarly, the share of writers with disabilities continues to be markedly low (3%).

The full report is now available on the WGC’s website HERE.

The Writers Guild of Canada represents 2,500 professional English-language screenwriters across Canada—the creators of Canadian entertainment enjoyed o

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Industry News

Writers Guild of Canada releases new equity, diversity and inclusion data

From a media release:

The Writers Guild of Canada has released a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Report with 2020 data. The initiative is part of the WGC and its Diversity Committee’s efforts to work towards addressing issues of historic underrepresentation in Canadian television. (Diversity groups are defined by the WGC as Indigenous, Black, LGBTQ2S, People of Colour, People Living with Disabilities.)

The new report provides membership data from 2017 to 2020, and includes contract data from 62 live-action and animated series that started production in 2020, in addition to the 280 series previously covered in the period from 2017 to 2019.

The data shows some marked increases between 2019 and 2020 in key credit categories, including:

  • The share of writers from underrepresented communities receiving upper-level staffing credits increased in multiple categories, including Co-Executive Producer (from 25% in 2019 to 28% in 2020) and Consulting Producer (from 24% in 2019 to 33% in 2020).
  • The combined share of Black and People of Colour who received credits for entry-level Story Editor and Executive Story Editor positions rose in 2020 by 14% to 46.9% and by 5.5% to 52.6%, respectively. Both categories of credits have reached a parity zone, when population numbers in urban centres where writers’ rooms are often located are considered (visible minorities make 54% of the population in Toronto and 51% in Vancouver).
  • Black writers have made strides to achieve representation in live action that is on-par with population numbers. The percentage of Black writers in live-action writers’ rooms increased from 8% in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020 and is slightly higher than population numbers in highly dense population centres like Toronto and Montreal. Other indicators such as writing credits show that there is still room for improvement.

Other observations on the 2020 data include:

  • The participation of Indigenous writers decreased across the board in 2020. The share of Indigenous writers working on Canadian TV dropped to 1% in 2020 from 4% in 2019. No Indigenous writers were engaged in animation productions during the same period.
  • The share of East Asian (1.4% in 2019 to 2.8% in 2020) and South Asian (3.2% in 2019 to 3.6% in 2020) writers increased slightly, but there’s still work to do to achieve representation on-par with Canadian population numbers.
  • The share of writing credits received by LGBTQ2S writers decreased across different formats. In live action, credits dropped from 8.6% in 2019 to 6.9% in 2020. When it comes to animation, writing credits going to LGBTQ2S writers decreased from 4.1% to 1.7% during the same period.

The full report is now available on the WGC’s website HERE.

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