One thing’s for certain — the winner for comedy at this year’s Canadian Screenwriting Awards will either work for The Jane Show or Corner Gas, each of which scored two nominations for the upcoming gala, closing out the category.

Corner Gas frontman Brent Butt is nom’d along with writer Kevin White for the recent ep ‘Outside Joke,’ and will face off against former coworker Paul Mather, who wrote ‘Blog River’ before his recent defection to Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Jane Show creator Teresa Pavlinek, meanwhile, has scored a nom for her ‘All About Steve’ ep, and shares a second with Ralph Chapman for ‘Should Have Said.’

The Writers Guild of Canada, organizers of the annual fete, unveiled its nominees and a new award on Thursday. Some lucky and presumably overworked writer will next month also go home with the inaugural WGC Showrunner Award.

‘It’s time for Canada’s showrunners to step forward and be celebrated by their peers,’ said WGC chief Maureen Parker in a release, noting that in the U.S., showrunners such as David Shore (House, Due South) ‘are well-known and revered.’

‘These writer/producers hold the vision for a television series and make all the creative decisions from development to post-production,’ says Parker.

The guild recently sent letters to its members looking for showrunner nominees and got dozens of responses, one of which, based on the praise of their coworkers, will be crowned by a WGC jury.

There are other multiple nominees among the nine categories. Naked Josh got the nod twice in the half-hour drama category, facing an ep of 11 Cameras, while renegadepress.com is up twice among youth shows, alongside eps of Degrassi: The Next Generation and Naturally, Sadie.

Among one-hour dramas, the since-cancelled Godiva’s and scribe Michael MacLennan are up for the ‘Out the Door’ ep, opposite Chris Haddock for his work on Intelligence and the writing team of Slings and Arrows. Slings scribes Susan Coyne, Bob Martin and Mark McKinney — who won in the same category last year — are nom’d for their script ‘The Way Madness Lies.’

Among feature films, the team of Andrew Currie, Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton are in the running for Fido, along with Sarah Polley for Away from Her and Almost Heaven writers Shel Piercy and Richard Beattie.

The Canadian Screenwriting Awards will be held in Toronto on April 23.