A  new report from the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) says its percentage of diverse writers is growing, despite a continued “decline in Canadian content.”

The WGC released its 2021 Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Report on Monday (April 3), an initiative of its Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee. The new report includes updated membership data from the 2021 calendar year.

Approximately 59% of new members to the guild in 2021 identified as diverse, according to the report, up from 34% in 2020. The WGC defines diverse as an individual who identifies as Indigenous, Black, a person of colour, LGBTQ2S, or a person with a disability.

In terms of the WGC’s overall membership, 12.3% identified as diverse in 2021, an increase from 9.8% in 2020.

The guild also saw an increase in the percentage of diverse writers working in 2021, coming to 34.7% compared to 22% in 2020. The percentage of writing jobs in TV came to 40.7%, with some writers working in more than one writers’ room within the year. That figure is up significantly from 25% in 2020.

When broken down by various underrepresented groups, the report said 2.5% of writing jobs were held by Indigenous writers, 10.7% by Black writers, 9.1% by LGBTQ2S writers, 23.6% by people of colour, and 1.5% by writers with a disability.

The report said, however, the overall earnings for members under its Independent Production Agreement declined by 16% between 2018 and 2022, with the number of total writers working declining by 5%. This is attributed to lower episode orders in live action series, and shorter episode lengths for animated series.

Between 2017 and 2022 there was an 11% decrease in the number of one-hour drama episodes, a 16% decrease in half-hour adult live action episodes, and a 31% drop in the number of half-hour children’s live action series.

When it came to animation, the number of half-hour episodes decreased by 85%, whereas the number of 15-minute episodes increased by 60%, and episodes 10 minutes or less increased by 57%.

The report also warned that a “glass ceiling” remains when it comes to diverse writers attaining more senior level positions. Roughly 22% of diverse writers held the title of executive producer, which has steadily decreased from 25% in 2019. Whereas 65% of diverse writers held the more junior role of story editor. The report also found that while diverse writers accounted for roughly 48% of workers in writers’ rooms for live action series, they earned 33% of writing credits.

The report covers 88 series that were in production as of 2021, in addition to the 342 series covered in the period from 2017 to 2020. Included are the composition of the WGC’s membership (2017-2021), diversity in writers’ room configurations, and credits earned by diverse writers working on live-action and animated Canadian series.

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