Don McKellar was caught off guard Monday night when Writers Guild of Canada members honored him with the 2009 Canadian Screenwriting Award for best feature film for Blindness.

McKellar was up against strong competition from Paul Gross for the box office hit Passchendaele, and Michael McGowan for his road-trip drama One Week.

‘Wow, this is really wonderful and a surprise… that’s why I was way at the back,’ said McKellar after working his way through the crowd to receive the prize. ‘At this point, any positive recognition for this film in the English-speaking world is really important,’ he joked. The Rhombus Media copro opened last year to lukewarm reviews and receipts.

Afterward, McKellar told Playback Daily that adapting the screenplay from José Saramago’s award-winning novel was ‘tough’ because he admired the book and felt the additional pressure of ‘having to honor the vision of the author.’

Corner Gas once again ruled the half-hour category with a nod to Brent Butt for the season six premiere episode ‘Full Load.’ Butt beat out fellow Gas scribes Kevin White and Andrew Carr. Meanwhile, Gas‘ Mark Farrell was recognized with the WGC Showrunner Award for his work on both the CTV sitcom and This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Newcomer Flashpoint picked up its first CSA win in the one-hour drama series category for the episode ‘Who’s George?’ penned by Adam Barken, who beat out fellow Flashpoint writer Tracey Forbes for the top honor. The CTV action series was also up against scribes from Murdoch Mysteries and ReGenesis.

Host Geri Hall and her fellow writers from CBC’s 22 Minutes, who are no strangers to the CSAs, nabbed the variety category prize for the first episode of the show’s 16th season.

Head writer Jennifer Whalen accepted the prize on behalf of the writing team, and jokingly proceeded to thank politicians including Stephen Harper, Jack Layton and ‘Jack Layton’s moustache,’ and Stephane Dion, ‘the man who is like punching milk.’

‘We couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said to cheers from the crowd.

Other winners at the 13th annual CSAs, held at a downtown Toronto nightspot, included Andrew Wreggitt for best MOW & Miniseries script for the acclaimed CTV movie Mayerthorpe, while John Walker won for his documentary script Passage.

‘It was a tough movie to do, thank God it’s over,’ said Wreggitt, referring to the 2005 incident in which four Mounties were killed.

In the youth group, Brent Piaskoski picked up the prize for ‘The Gala Issue’ episode of The Latest Buzz, which airs on Family Channel. Piaskoski also won last year for Naturally, Sadie.