Metro Vancouver film workers 'trying to hang on for as long as we can' amid ongoing Hollywood strikes

In a 37,000-square-foot warehouse in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver, Jay Hauca walks down aisles of props that have been used in hundreds of films.

Hauca is one of the co-owners of Acme Prop Shop, the family-run business he has operated for decades with his sister.

Usually bustling, the warehouse is quiet due to ongoing strike action involving U.S. screenwriters and actors, which has stretched on several months and cancelled or delayed many productions locally.

Hauca says it has been devastating for the business.

"It's pretty dead. We're not even making enough to pay our employees, but we're paying them," he said.

"Our landlord has been kind enough to defer our rent for now, but all that means is we got to pay it back at some point in time."

For decades, Jay Hauca and his sister have run the Acme Prop Shop, pictured here in Burnaby on Sept. 7. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Houca says he and his sister have not taken a salary for a couple of months, and they've been using their own savings to pay staff.

"We're not a big team and the people we have are great, we just don't wanna lose them. We're trying to hang on for as long as we can."

With the film industry affected by both the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing strike action, more support from all levels of government is needed, Houca says.

"We just barely made it through COVID and we were hoping for good times ahead and then this happened."

Funding for B.C. film industry

Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Lana Popham acknowledges the impacts of the strike are devastating, with more than 88,000 people working in B.C.'s film industry.

She says hiring in the industry has been down about 44 per cent this year.

"But in the last month it's down over 80 per cent," Popham said. "It's having a significant impact and that impact grows as time goes on, because things are more and more delayed. So it's a huge worry."

Workers are pictured at the Acme Prop Shop on Sept. 7. More than 88,000 people work in B.C.'s film industry. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

She says the province has offered some support with $15 million in funding earlier this year, but that she will keep the issue top of mind when she visits Ottawa later this month.

"One of the things I'm really interested in is how the support for national programs is being distributed across Canada," she said.

"Funds that come out of Telefilm for example, or the Canadian Media Fund, when you look at how they're distributed and where B.C. falls in getting some of those funds, we're third in line behind Ontario and Quebec," she said.

"How can we ensure that we're getting a greater piece of that pie so that we can become more resilient here in B.C.?"

Some consider leaving

The strike has left thousands of film professionals without steady work for months, including Vancouver-based makeup artist Cassandra LaCroix, who has worked in the industry for eight years.

LaCroix says many have considered leaving the industry, while others have decided to move out of the province.

Makeup artist Cassandra LaCroix is pictured at her home in Vancouver on Sept. 7, 2023. She worries employment insurance will soon end for her, as strikes in the U.S. film industry continue affect productions in B.C. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"It definitely made me think if I want to stay in the industry," she said.

"I know a lot of other people just in the makeup department who have just sold all of their makeup, sold their house and moved ... And it's happening more and more because people just can't do it anymore."

LaCroix is currently on employment insurance (EI), which provides temporary income support to unemployed workers — about 55 per cent of a person's average insurable weekly earnings, which depends on the number of insurable hours accumulated in the last year.

For LaCroix, that support ends in three months.

"Because there was already kind of a slowdown last year, I wasn't necessarily getting a lot of insurable hours. I have heard a lot of people have just run out of their EI claims and there's nowhere else to get money from," she said.

"I only have 13 more weeks on my claim, after 13 weeks I'm not really sure what I'm going to do."