The Writers’ Union Meets the Royal Commission

Archives Of Ontario Royal Commission Fo

doi:10.33137/pbsc.v56i1/2.32928

Abstract

In November 1970, a crisis arose in the Canadian publishing industry: The Ryerson Press, English Canada’s oldest publishing house, was soldto American branch plant McGraw-Hill. In response, the Ontario government mounted a Royal Commission to investigate the businessconditions of publishing in Canada. The commission accepted briefs from anyone who wanted their say and heard hundreds of hours oftestimony. But it wasn’t until Farley Mowat bumped into Richard Rohmer at a party and demanded to know why the commissionwasn’t talking directly to writers—they had actually heard from the few who had sent in briefs—that the date was set for 9 December1971 for a group of writers to give their testimony. Some of those who testified went on to found The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC)in 1973. Jack Gray went on to separate the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) in order to get a better deal for scriptwriters. The writers testifying before the commission here include June Callwood, Margaret Atwood, Ian Adams, Hugh Garner, Al Purdy, Farley Mowat, Max Braithwaite, David Helwig, Jack Gray, Graeme Gibson, Fred Bodsworth, and Dennis Lee.

Highlights

En novembre 1970, une crise a éclaté dans l’industrie canadienne de l’édition : The Ryerson Press, la plus ancienne maison d’édition canadienne de langue anglaise, a été vendue à la succursale américaine de McGraw-Hill
THE CHAIRMAN: I think perhaps we can begin. This is the last session of our public hearings in relation to book publishing generally
GRAY: we are going to be looking for a very practical way to form—I don’t know what it will be called, and I don’t know— nor do any of us know from what base it might develop, but in any case, an authors’ society can do a variety of things. It can obviously organize the collection agency on the one hand and be responsible for that, but there is a whole range of problems that we want to tackle, contracts with publishers, specific problems like the difficulties that many of our writers are having with anthologies, with Americans coming in and sweeping the field and creating anthologies at rates and conditions which are not acceptable to Canadian writers

Summary

Introduction

En novembre 1970, une crise a éclaté dans l’industrie canadienne de l’édition : The Ryerson Press, la plus ancienne maison d’édition canadienne de langue anglaise, a été vendue à la succursale américaine de McGraw-Hill.

Results

Conclusion