We have already started conversations with elected government officials at the provincial level.

Much like the work that went into getting the Protecting Child Performer Act (PCPA) passed into law, there will need to be a coalition of many constituents in the industry coming together to lobby the government into action. Those initial conversations have started.

There are many consultations and meetings required in order for an idea to become a Bill and that Bill to become a law.

Member support for this work is essential

As part of the Bill creation, ACTRA Toronto members will absolutely need to be part of the process. Politics is a numbers game. Motivating MPPs to support the Bill will require a demonstration of community and industry support including but not limited to email campaigns, lobby days and outreach to constituency offices.

Many productions use EP Canada to do their payroll. With a MyEP account, performers can access tax statements, view their pay history and set up direct deposit.

Compass Artist management clients who were paid by EP Canada can use their MyEP account to verify payment details. 

EP Canada are not the Employers if there is a payment issue, and will not receive any declaration of loss forms from performers. Those must be sent to the original employer of record.

To register a new MyEP account, click the image below to open the EP Crew portal, scroll down to the MyEP panel and click the "Log in" button.

Working dues are 2.25% of your fee. So, for a contracted fee of $1,000, ACTRA would receive $22.50. An agent would receive $100-150 depending on the commission in your contract. Producers deduct and remit the 2.25% working dues to ACTRA according to the terms of the IPA and a further 12% Producer’s contribution to the performer’s benefits is sent to AFBS. This direct payment of the benefits contribution ensures there is no loss of benefit contributions.

Insurance and retirement payments are add-on payments made by the Producer (12%) and not deductions from the fee or dues. And because those Producer contributions are remitted directly to AFBS by the Producer, ACTRA members whose payments were received but not forwarded by their agent did not lose the Producers Benefits Contribution associated with the work they had done. There is a 3% deduction from the fee put towards retirement by the performer.  ACTRA Toronto has spoken with AFBS to ensure they are up-to-date on these events so they can respond accordingly as, and if, needed.

ACTRA Toronto is not the EIC and cannot amend its rules.

The EIC is a voluntary industry coalition formed in the early '90s to draft a code of ethical conduct for talent agencies. While ACTRA Toronto is a proud supporter of the EIC and is represented on the EIC Board by a member volunteer, the union and the EIC are distinct organizations. The decisions of the EIC Board with regard to its list of member/signatories is not subject to ACTRA Toronto’s review or approval.

It must also be understood that the EIC is a voluntary association of member agencies. It is not a regulatory agency and was never conceived of as a warning system.

The current situation makes it abundantly clear there is a desperate need for such a regulatory body with appropriate powers to investigate and compel agencies to adhere to a minimum standard of ethical behaviour.

The EIC, in its current form, unfunded and entirely dependent on the work of volunteers, is not that body.

It is time for Ontario performers to be able to rely on the secure enforceable protection that comes from  legislation of the kind currently in place in British Columbia and in California.

The current situation has made it clear that the terms of many current Talent Agency contracts, which are apparently designed to  provide security of commission payment for agents and agencies, do not offer adequate protection for the performer’s earnings held in trust by the agency (i.e. earnings net of agency commissions) in the event of agency insolvency.

One solution might be for agency commissions to be deducted at source, either by the producer or by a payroll company engaged by the producer. In the event of an agency insolvency, commission due to the agent would continue to be paid to the insolvency trustee but the performer’s “take-home” pay would be left whole.

Such an arrangement, while satisfactory, would have to be collectively bargained to become part of our collective agreements.

To transform the union into a payroll service, on the other hand, would require additional staff and resources to handle the increased volume of accounting work and would still have to be bargained.

The best solution would be a robust government regulatory regime for talent agencies that would establish standards for security of payment and enforce compliance with those standards to protect all parties.

Any regulations proposed by ACTRA Toronto would include all Talent Agents and Managers in the province of Ontario. Just as the Ontario Protect Child Performers Act provides protection to all child performers whether unionized or not, the scope of a robust regulatory regime for talent agencies must include all the agents and talent representatives in the province, regardless of size or affiliation.

Unlike the IPA, the NCA doesn’t stipulate that Performers receive a copy of the call sheet. Changes to the NCA would require collective agreement negotiation and members should be aware by now that ACTRA is curently engaged in a tough fight to defend our commercial jurisdiction and bring to an end an illegal lockout by a number of powerful agencies who seem determined to break our union.

ACTRA Toronto's commercial staff do, however, pursue late and missing commercial payments on behalf of Performers.

Various scenarios for session payments:

• ACTRA Toronto have copies of the engagement contracts and a process in place to pursue payment when timelines not met
• Agent calls ACTRA Toronto
• Performer calls ACTRA Toronto

Residuals are slightly tougher to track, as ACTRA Toronto needs to know where/when the commercial was seen and whether or not 20 working days have passed since the spot was seen. We do not have the staff to make general inquiries about where/when a commercial will be used but rely on information from the agent/performer/engager.

A performer and their agent decide where film & television cheques are sent by production on the deal memo/contract.

Many ACTRA members already have their film & tv payments sent to them directly.

Under the terms of the NCA, ACTRA Toronto staff receive, process and distribute commercial cheques directly to the performer or to their authorized agent, according to the member's instructions.

Before ACTRA Toronto staff could do the same for Film & Television cheques, changes would first need to be negotiated into the collective agreement and then a large number of additional ACTRA Toronto staff would have to be hired to deal with the additional workload. This is not financially possible at current dues levels.

ACTRA Toronto has communicated with the Casting Directors Society of Canada (CDC), the Association Of Canadian Commercial Production (ACCP) and the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA). In addition, ACTRA Toronto has notified Breakdown Services, Casting Workbook, EP Canada, Cast & Crew Payroll, The AFC and AFBS.

ACTRA Toronto President David Gale has issued a statement of solidarity with all performers who have been unable to collect earnings owed to them by Compass Artist Management. ACTRA Toronto Council has committed itself to fight for the overdue regulation needed to establish and enforce standards of practice and ethical behaviour that will protect performers. 

Neither the EIC nor ACTRA Toronto have any power to audit or investigate agencies, and no means of compelling agents to provide evidence or any other way of  verifying complaints. The EIC is a voluntary association of member agencies, not a regulatory agency, and was never conceived of as a warning system.

Similarly, without any regulatory powers, ACTRA Toronto relies on moral suasion to encourage adherence to best practices and uses the information it receives from member complaints to inform those efforts. But at the end of the day, we have no actual power to make agents behave and we cannot make public statements based on allegations we are unable to verify.

The current situation makes it abundantly clear there is a desperate need for a properly constituted regulatory body with appropriate powers to investigate and compel agencies to adhere to a minimum standard of ethical behaviour.

The EIC, in its current form, unfunded and entirely dependent on the work of volunteers, is not that body. Nor is ACTRA Toronto.

It is time for Ontario performers to be able to rely on the secure enforceable protection that comes from  legislation of the kind currently in place in British Columbia and in California.

Only for ACTRA Toronto productions:

A member’s work history is updated once the payroll company or the Engager’s accounting department remits I&R to the branch and the information is entered by staff. While most payroll records are remitted in a timely manner after a particular pay period has ended, there can be circumstances where remittance and/or entry is delayed.

The work history section of the membership database is intended to be internal accounting records attached not only to a performer’s file, but the production’s as well, in order to record and track insurance and retirement payments. It was not designed as a forensic tool and is not considered a complete or official record for the purposes of declaring income for income tax purposes, but it is a tool that can be used by members for cross-referencing earnings against paystubs, earnings reports generated by a payroll service or a T4A issued by an Engager.

It is best practice to keep your own records of work you have done, and use the work history information accessible through the Member Portal to help verify your record keeping.

ACTRA's insurance does not cover the loss of a performer's income resulting from an agent's failure to fulfill the terms of the contract between the performer and the agent.

No. ACTRA does not reimburse members who are owed money by their agents. In all cases that ACTRA Toronto is  aware of, producers issued timely payments to performers represented by Compass Artist Management in accordance with ACTRA's collective agreements and sent those payments to the address on the engagement contract signed by the performer or their designated agent. Neither the producers nor ACTRA can protect performers from the failure of their agents to fulfill their obligations to pay performers.

Like all unionized workers, ACTRA members pay dues. ACTRA members pay annual basic dues of $195 and, when they work, they pay working dues (2.25% of gross fees), which are deducted at source. The difference between union members and non-union performers who are missing payments from Compass is that 15% of the ACTRA full members' gross fees, deducted at source, made it safely into their benefits funds. Ironically, this is the same amount their agent would have claimed as commission. Non-union members don't have mandated producer's contributions or automatic performer contributions and are consequently completely out of pocket.

Clearly, even in the midst of this disaster, it was better to be a union performer than a non-union performer.

But if there had been a robust provincial licensing regime for Ontario Talent Agents, this disaster might have been avoided. ACTRA Toronto Council has announced its commitment to getting such a regulatory system put in place. That effort will be funded by the dues paid by all members.