Vancouver: Just days before the ACTRA Performers Guild went into its last scheduled round of negotiations with producers in Calgary last weekend, members set up a $1-million strike fund to back up the strike mandate approved by 96% of members late last month.

‘It shows how serious our members are about the issues on the table,’ says actra’s national executive director Stephen Waddell. ‘Performers won’t accept the rollbacks that the producers want and they’re willing to fight for their rights.’

The latest development followed an emergency meeting called by the cftpa and apftq, representing producers, and the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, that wrapped June 1 without a resolution to the labor impasse.

‘The possibility of a strike has enormous ramifications for our fledgling industry,’ says cftpa president and ceo Elizabeth McDonald in a statement.

‘It would mean the death of the fall season, putting Canadian television out of sync with the rest of the world. More than 2,000 hours of original Canadian programming and countless Canadian jobs are at risk. I’m not even going to extrapolate the impact when you include the 45 u.s. productions already on hold everywhere in Canada except b.c. just because of the threat of a strike.’

According to the cftpa, the Columbia TriStar feature The Patriot is one project that has moved to North Carolina. Viacom project Amanda America is apparently also close to moving out of Canada.

Toronto series Manchester Prep, Leap Years, Bull (aka Wall Street) and Ready to Rumble and Montreal series Secret Agent Man are also caught in limbo, says the cftpa.

In Montreal, film commissioner Andre Lafond says to date there have been no flags raised by clients over the threatened actra strike. ‘When we have this kind of critical situation usually an American or foreign producer will call and ask `What’s the latest news,’ but this time they know the latest news because they [cmpda] are themselves at the negotiating table. I can’t predict the future. Everything could conceivably collapse and we could have the worst year ever.’

Foreign locations shoots only make up 20% of the volume of indie film and tv production in Montreal, in the order of $130 million last year.

actra director of communications Alex Gill says among the outstanding issues are rollbacks on use fees, prepayment periods and turnaround times.

One potential positive note in the proceedings – which took place June 11-13 – is the addition of freelance conciliator Rick MacDowell, who is otherwise the chair of the Ontario Labor Relations Board.

MacDowell successfully led an agreement between the Ontario District of the Directors Guild of Canada and producers after 14 months of negotiations and the threat of a provincial directors strike. On May 19, the Ontario District’s 1,300 members voted 88% in favor of ratifying the deal that grants, among other contract improvements, 10.5% to 12% increases in rates over three years. The new directors’ contract expires Sept. 1, 2001.

‘If any conciliator can bring these parties together, it’s this one,’ says Marcus Handman, executive director of the Ontario District of the dgc. ‘[MacDowell] understands the industry.’

Handman also observes that actra has ‘backed off’ on some of its more extreme positions, which signals that the actors want to make a deal.

Gill says that unless an agreement is hammered out in Calgary, the 14,000 actra members could be in a legal strike position by Canada Day.