Hollywood has yet to shut down and the Screen Actors Guild has yet to poll its membership on a strike, despite the U.S. actors union contract with the major studios having expired at 12:01 a.m. on July 1.

But Hollywood’s labor woes have produced a ‘de facto’ strike that has thrown a wet blanket on U.S. location shooting in Canada.

‘The [studio executives] we’re talking to are quite resolved that the issues are not going to be solved easily,’ Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios, says of current brinkmanship in Los Angeles, as SAG representatives consider a final offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Both sides in the contract talks have pledged to continue bargaining, as all eyes turn towards a July 8 ratification vote for the proposed TV contract between the producers and the rival actors union AFTRA. Ratification of the AFTRA contract requires a simple majority.

Ferguson, who has yet to unveil a tenant at his new Toronto Filmport soundstage for lack of greenlit U.S. projects, says the major studios were holding back work from Canada and other international locales to show their resolve at the bargaining table.

‘[Producers] feel that SAG needs to fall in line with the other agreements that were made, and the SAG deal will not look different from what was settled with the other unions,’ he said after recent talks to woo a Filmport tenant in Los Angeles.

The studios’ hard line at the bargaining table stems in part from a bet that SAG officials will not be able to secure enough votes to go forward with a strike, as actors, and most everyone else in Los Angeles, have little stomach for a second labor stoppage this year following the earlier action taken by writers.

SAG has told its rank-and-file membership that work will continue in Hollywood, and that they should report to film and TV sets and auditions until their union leadership tells them to do otherwise.

For their part, AMPTP representatives are shouting strike to ratchet up the pressure on SAG bargainers across the table.

‘Our industry is now in a de facto strike, with film production virtually shut down and television production now seriously threatened,’ the producers said in a July 1 statement after they gave SAG officials a 43-page final offer.

The dread of further labor woes is shared in Canada, where homegrown production is helping somewhat to keep the lights on in Montreal and Toronto.

‘Toronto is very quiet because of strike threat. But this being summer, not only are we quiet, but the phone calls are not as plentiful,’ says Jim Mirkopoulos, VP of Cinespace Film Studios.

Mirkopoulos, like other industry players, is anxiously looking beyond the current Hollywood labor troubles to when U.S. producers will return to Canada, and with little uncertainty as to whether the Americans will ever again do business here in big numbers.

‘Canada is just not as economically attractive as we once were. We have the competition from the U.S. states,’ Paul Bronfman, CEO of production equipment supplier Comweb Group, says of the continuing strain on the Canadian industry from the escalating loonie and competition from rival locales.

Vancouver remains the lone hot spot in Canada for U.S. production.

‘We feel fortunate to have the business that we have, but we’re concerned that people might be out of work again, which isn’t good for the industry at any time,’ says Peter Leitch, president of Mammoth and North Shore Studios in Vancouver.

Mammoth is ticking over with Night at the Museum 2. Vancouver is also playing host to American TV series including Kyle XY, Stargate Atlantis and Psych after they secured new season orders.