ACTRA

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) is a Canadian labour union representing performers in English-language media. It has 22,000 members working in film, television, radio, and all other recorded media.

The organization negotiates, safeguards, and promotes the professional rights of its members. It also works to increase work opportunities for its members and lobbies for policy changes at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

ACTRA presents the ACTRA Awards to honour the best in Canadian radio and television performances.

Affiliations

ACTRA is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress and the International Federation of Actors.

In July, 2005, ACTRA and the United Steelworkers announced that the two unions have entered into a strategic alliance to take on the globalization of the culture industry and to address a range of common issues.

What the acronym means

The earliest form of the organization represented radio performers in Toronto in the 1940s. This organization was called RATS: the Radio Artists of Toronto Society. In 1943, with wider involvement of groups from other Canadian cities, the Association of Canadian Radio Artists (ACRA) was formed.

ACTRA Award

The ACTRA Awards were first presented in 1972 to celebrate excellence in Canada's television, film and radio industry. Organized and presented by ACTRA, the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, which represented performers, writers and broadcast journalists, the Nellie statuettes were presented annually until 1986. In 1987, responsibility for presenting the Canadian television and film awards was transferred to the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, which continued to present the Nellie in several categories, but now focuses on its Prix Gémeaux, Genie and Gemini Awards.

On the 60th anniversary of the national union in 2003, now renamed the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists and representing only performers, the ACTRA Awards were resurrected in several of its branches across Canada as a local, rather than a national, film and television award.

Some awards are handed out for performances, while others are given for union-activism and contributions to the industry.

Canada

Coordinates: 60°N 95°W / 60°N 95°W / 60; -95

Canada (ⁱ/ˈkænədə/; French: [ka.na.da]) is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's second-largest country by total area and the fourth-largest country by land area. Canada's border with the United States is the world's longest land border. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its land territory being dominated by forest and tundra and the Rocky Mountains; about four-fifths of the country's population of 35 million people live near the southern border. The majority of Canada has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer.

The land now called Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the 15th century, British and French colonies were established on the Atlantic coast, with the first establishment of a region called "Canada" occurring in 1537. As a consequence of various conflicts, the United Kingdom gained and lost territories within British North America until left, in the late 18th century, with what mostly geographically comprises Canada today. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1, 1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia joined to form the autonomous federal Dominion of Canada. This began an accretion of provinces and territories to the self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. In 1931, Canada achieved near total independence from the United Kingdom with the Statute of Westminster 1931, and full sovereignty was attained when the Canada Act 1982 removed the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Writers Guild

Writers Guild may refer to:

Writers Guild of Canada

The Writers Guild of Canada represents more than 2,200 professional writers working in film, television, radio, and digital media production in Canada. Members of the Guild write dramatic TV series, feature films, MOWs (Movie of the Week), documentaries, animation, comedy and variety series, children's and educational programming, radio drama, as well as corporate videos and digital media productions. The organization administers the Canadian Screenwriting Awards.

The WGC is the voice of professional Canadian screenwriters - lobbying on their behalf, protecting their interests, and working to raise the profile of screenwriters and screenwriting. Most importantly, on behalf of its members, the Guild negotiates, administers and enforces collective agreements, setting out minimum rates, terms, and working conditions in the Guild’s jurisdiction — all English-language production in Canada. The central collective agreement, the Independent Production Agreement (IPA), is negotiated between the Guild and the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), the association representing independent producers in Canada. In addition to the IPA, the Guild also has agreements in place with the APFTQ, CBC Radio, CBC Television, CTV, the NFB and TVOntario. The WGC is formally recognized as the official bargaining agent for English-language professional screenwriters under the federal Status of the Artist Act and Quebec’s Status of the Artist Legislation.