The labor disputes among Canadian actors are attributed to ‘corporate greed,’ according to the actors’ union.

On Saturday, two unions representing actors and media professionals organized a rally outside the Toronto offices of Amazon and Apple to draw attention to the ongoing labor disputes faced by their members.

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) is advocating for improved compensation, safeguards, and benefits for its members as part of challenging negotiations to renew the National Commercial Agreement with the Institute of Canadian Agencies (ICA). On the other hand, members of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) have been engaged in a strike demanding better pay and protections against the use of artificial intelligence (AI), among other concerns.

ACTRA President Eleanor Noble expressed frustration over her union’s exclusion from its commercial domain by Canadian advertisers for an extensive 501-day period, while SAG-AFTRA has been on strike for 58 days.

“We are in our lockout and you are in your strike because of corporate greed. Corporate greed, making billions of dollars off the backs of performers,” Noble said.

“We have said it time and time again — enough is enough.”

Noble explained that she completed her theatre school education and began her career as an actor with the belief that, like anyone else, she had a legitimate right to make a livelihood in the profession she had studied for.

“What I didn’t realize was that the average income of an actor was way below the poverty line, and I’m talking about those performers you see in movies, on TV series, and in commercials that aren’t household names,” she said.

“Those are the actors and performers across North America, around North America, that are earning below the poverty line, and this is a big fight for them.”

ACTRA and ICA have struggled to reach a new agreement that would update the regulations governing the utilization of actors in advertisements, a set of rules that has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s.

While mediated negotiations and hearings at the Ontario Labour Relations Board continue, actors have voiced concerns about the financial and professional repercussions they’ve experienced due to diminishing job opportunities. They emphasize the critical importance of commercial work for those striving to sustain themselves within Canada’s entertainment industry.

This rally coincides with the backdrop of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), typically a glamorous event featuring Hollywood A-list celebrities. However, due to the ongoing strikes involving Hollywood actors and writers, this year’s festival has seen a reduced presence of stars in attendance. TIFF is scheduled to run until September 17th.

The rally included the presence of Patricia Arquette, the Oscar-winning American actress.

“I think that this AI situation is really critical because first it will replace all of the background actors, then it’s going to replace all of the character actors and then they’re going to build up movie stars from scratch,” Arquette said.

“Eventually the bigger stars will start to get replaced by these new things.”

“our industry and our form of art go into the hands of AI” will result in “derivative movies that are stealing from the arts of real artists.” according to arquette.