‘They bowed to pressure’

Canadian screen stars want ‘action’ from industry

Compared to Hollywood, Canada’s screen industry is tiny. And by all accounts, there are fewer egos, bullies and powertrippers on the scale of Harvey Weinstein within it.

“But of course there’s been sexual harassment here. Absolutely. No question,” Emmy-nominated Canadian writer-director Patricia Rozema said in a recent interview.

“There are definitely, definitely cases of people who have been systematically sexually harassing young actors, female actors, and getting away with it, and people looking the other way.”

Canada’s performers’ union, ACTRA, has invited industry stakeholders to a closed-door meeting on Thursday to discuss how to implement practical, concrete measures to tackle the issue here in a way that also leads to cultural change.

“Is there a specific thing I would like to see come out of that meeting? Action,” said actor Lyriq Bent.

“This isn’t something that is new, this is something that’s been going on for a long time, which is why a lot of what we’re hearing about has been 20, 30 years ago .... Now, an opportunity came along where people have to listen. So let’s purge. Let’s purge ourselves of all of this sickness and move forward. It’s about time.”

While sexual misconduct has long been a part of the Canadian industry, it’s a problem that seems to be growing, said actress-writer Susan Coyne, cocreator of “Slings and Arrows and screenwriter of the new film “The Man Who Invented Christmas.“

For the past year, she’s been holding ad-hoc meetings in Toronto living rooms and coffee shops about sexual misconduct in the industry. The latest meeting had about 25 women in attendance.

“What I was hearing from younger actresses is things have gotten worse than when I and my friends, like Martha Burns, were younger and were their age and starting out,” said Coyne.

“And I don’t understand how that could be. It was so disturbing.”

The smallness of Canada’s screen industry makes it “almost harder to speak up, because there’s just so much less work and we don’t have the stars who can lead the charge either,” she added.

“We work a lot, not just on Canadian sets, but we have a lot of American shows that come up here, too. And Canadians have even less power there, working on an American show; it’s so easy to replace you.”

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Atom Egoyan said ACTRA needs to take “a much firmer stand” going forward.

“There are situations clearly in history where ACTRA was told of abuses and didn’t react properly and I think that can never, ever happen again,” said Egoyan.

“I think obviously — and ACTRA is quite aware of the fact that — they bowed to pressure.”

Actress Mia Kirshner is also critical of the way ACTRA has handled the topic of sexual harassment and abuse.

“Too little, too late. I don’t believe that ACTRA is actually interested listening to union members,” Kirshner tweeted recently.