Canadian screenwriters echoed the concerns of their U.S. counterparts on Wednesday, as about 200 weathered the cold and turned out at a demonstration in downtown Toronto to voice their support for the striking Writers Guild of America.

Writer/director David Cronenberg, Susan Coyne (Slings & Arrows), Denis McGrath (The Border, Across the River to Motor City), Suzette Couture (Love and Hate, The City) and Peter Mohan (Blood Ties) were among the writers at the rally, staged by the Writers Guild of Canada in front of the Sony Centre concert hall.

‘I’m not in Los Angeles, so I’m not on a picket line there… but if I were, I would be,’ Cronenberg, a WGC and WGA member and sometimes producer, told Playback Daily, adding that writers are being treated ‘unfairly’ by producers.

At issue for striking writers — currently in their fourth week on the picket lines in the U.S. — is compensation for DVD and new media sales, including digital downloads via the Internet and mobile phones.

‘All these companies that make so much money — in our case CTVglobemedia and CanWest… we have to ensure that some of that money comes back to the people who created that content,’ said WGC executive director Maureen Parker, noting that similar issues will come up when the guild’s contract with Canadian producers expires in 2008.

McGrath, whose series The Border will make its debut in January on CBC, says writers are often underappreciated because they tend to be in the background.

‘I take nothing away from the hard work done by crews, directors and actors, but we’re the only ones that start with nothing, we have to fight the blank page,’ he says.

Demonstrations were also held in Montreal and in countries including Australia, Ireland, the U.K. and France.

The WGA and the AMPTP resumed talks this week in L.A. under a strict media blackout.