Attached and enclosed please find a joint press release from ACTRA Toronto and Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TORONTO, October 30, 2014 – David Sparrow, President of ACTRA Toronto, Ferne Downey, President of ACTRA National, Arden R. Ryshpan, Equity’s Executive Director and performers Art Hindle, Clara Pasieka and David Gale will be at the Ontario Legislature today to support Bill 17 – Protecting Child Performers Act, 2014.  The private member’s bill, introduced by Paul Miller, MPP for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, receives second reading today.

ACTRA Toronto and Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, the performers unions representing screen and stage actors respectively, jointly support the bill, as they did its predecessor, Bill 71, which died on the order paper when the provincial election was called. The new proposed legislation contains the same measures to address length of the workday and rest periods for minors, health and safety, tutoring, income protection and parental access and responsibilities. If the bill passes second reading, it will likely be referred to committee for review.

“Last year this bill came within inches of becoming law in Ontario. We said we’d be back to stand up for child actors, and so here we are again,” said Equity Executive Director Arden R. Ryshpan.

“This bill is a largely unchanged from its predecessor bill, Bill 71,” said David Sparrow. “We simply will not give up until our most vulnerable are protected under the law.”

ACTRA Toronto is the largest organization within ACTRA, representing over 15,000 of Canada’s 22,000 professional performers working in the English-language recorded media in Canada.  As an advocate for Canadian culture since 1943, ACTRA is a member-driven union that continues to secure rights and respect for the work of professional performers.

Equity is the voice of professional artists working in live performance in English Canada. It is a national artists’ association representing almost 6,000 performers, directors, choreographers, fight directors and stage managers working in theatre, opera and dance from coast to coast.

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Lynn McQueen

Communications Director

Canadian Actors’ Equity Association

Mobile: 416-476-7037

Email: lynn@caea.com

Karen Woolridge

Public Relations Officer

ACTRA Toronto

Mobile: 416-937-1437

Email: kwoolridge@actratoronto.com