The breakdown of last month’s talks between ACTRA, the CFTPA and APFTQ has at least one notable producer scouting locations in B.C. – just in case the angry talk from both sides leads to a strike.

‘I have two pictures scheduled for early next year,’ budgeted for US$45 million each, says producer Don Carmody. One is scheduled for Manitoba and Montreal, the other for Toronto. ‘However, to protect myself from a potential strike… I am actively checking out locations in B.C. with an eye to moving both films there.’

Actors there are represented by the Union of B.C. Perfomers – the B.C. branch of ACTRA – which negotiates separately and currently has a Master Production Agreement in place until March 31, 2007. Meanwhile, on the national front, talks began last month on a new contract between ACTRA and English and French producers, but broke down when actors Gordon Pinsent, Eric Peterson and others walked away from the table on Oct. 23.

Stephen Waddell, national executive director of the actors’ union, says the producers are seeking ‘huge rollbacks’ to wages and residuals.

The CFTPA, representing English-language producers, and the APFTQ, representing more than 130 Quebec producers, say the actors are not negotiating in good faith.

‘We were just totally thrown by this. That’s not bargaining,’ says CFTPA chief negotiator John Barrack.

ACTRA called for mediation, and the Ontario Labor Relations Board has since appointed Reg Pearson, while the Quebec side has tapped Richard Champagne.

A meeting has been tentatively set for Nov. 14 to discuss how to move negotiations forward. The current contract expires on Dec. 31.

Two main points of dispute are wages and residuals. Barrack says when the current Independent Production Agreement was written, producers expected to do more dramas. Now there’s more demand for unscripted, fact-based and magazine programs with lower budgets and producers want to lower pay scales for all genres.

Waddell says the rates in the existing IPA suffice since reality programming is on the wane, and scripted drama on the rise. ACTRA wants Canadian actors’ wages to move toward parity with SAG actors working in Canada.

On residuals, producers want to extend the prepayment/buyout period to seven years from four, says Barrack. Currently, if producers pay actors more than 100% of wages earned – 105% for TV and an additional 130% for features – they don’t have to pay residuals until four years after the production is released.

Rather than seeing that period extended, Waddell wants to cut it to three.