Here are more details regarding the situation and a motion to Equity at its AGM
Further details regarding director Guy Sprung and his case against Canadian Actors Equity Association:
Here are the details of Guy Sprung’s case from my blog:
Now there is a member’s motion that Terry Tweed will present to Equity’s AGM Oct. 21.
Details below.
Friends, colleagues and fellow theatre artists:
Below please find the member’s motion that Terry Tweed will present from the floor as item 8 on the agenda of Equity’s AGM on October 21st, to be seconded by Barbara Gordon.
Terry Tweed was a member of Equity National Council for over 18 years and President for six. Barbara Gordon was also a long-time Equity councillor and winner of the Larry McCance Award for outstanding contribution to our association.
If you believe that CAEA should live up to its own constitution and, “assist members in pursuing their lawful rights and remedies.” (Object vii of our Constitution),I urge you to register for our NAGM and make your vote count. If you are, as Diana Leblanc is, embarrassed and ashamed by how CAEA has treated one of its senior members, I urge you to register for our NAGM and support Terry Tweed’s motion.
If you have yet to register for our NAGM on Oct 21st, you can do it here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6xRWEJJERWa_NmRjnHmzHg#/registration
Additional information, including the meeting agenda, is available online at www.caea.com/NAGM-2024.
If you do support Terry and Barbara’s motion, I hope you will circulate this email to your own friends and colleagues in CAEA.
In the name of Canadian decency and justice, I thank you,
Guy Sprung
Here is the resolution Terry Tweed will be presenting:
RESOLUTION FROM THE FLOOR 2024 AGM
Whereas Equity once prided itself on offering the protection of a transparent and robust disciplinary process, where there was adherence to the principles of truth and justice, where ALL participants had the right to defence and appeal, including the accused, and where both sides were treated with equal fairness and respect, and
Whereas Equity in 2020 failed to assure the protection of Guy Sprung’s rights and privileges when a complaint was brought against him, failed to grant him an appeal which he had every right to expect and which forced Mr. Sprung to take legal action against his own Association, and
Whereas Mr. Sprung’s legal action resulted in a resounding victory for him, one that recognized
the wrong done to Mr Sprung through a failed and unfair disciplinary process, and that action exonerated him of any wrong doing, and
Whereas Equity, in the light of the Québec ruling also exonerated him, has continued to refuse to apologize to Mr. Sprung for its mistakes and to pay Mr. Sprung for his legal costs:
BE IT RESOLVED
That CAEA Council apologize to Guy Sprung in front of its membership for its failure to ensure that he received fair and just treatment, and to immediately reimburse Mr. Sprung for his legal costs before the Québec Superior Court, whose decision so clearly recognized the failure of Equity’s disciplinary process against him.
Terry Tweed
Member # 2099
Seconded by Barbara Gordon
Member #6434
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Lynn, I am happy that you are following up on this important issue.
As a former Crown Prosecutor and Defence Counsel, I am horrified at what happened to Guy Sprung here, and shocked that it happened in Canada. We must have investigations that are fair to all persons, and that always requires a careful and sound process without biases, prejudices, and partiality. The only way to move forward as a country, to reconcile our various groups, is through rigorous and fair justice.
The Superior Court Justice in Mr. Sprung’s case completely rejected the case against him. He notes that the investigation of Mr. Sprung was, in effect, not an investigation at all. “Bald facts” were “lined up one after the other,” and a final report by an investigator hired by the Actor’s Equity Disciplinary Panel was “little more than the aggregate of a lengthy series of isolated assertions.”
With respect to one of the allegations, the Justice notes that the investigator’s conclusion is based on “unrelated statements gleaned here and there from a myriad of situations of which absolutely no detail is afforded to the reader…” And the Justice concludes the following: “The reader of such words cannot but come away with a staggering impression of the disparity between the gravity of the conclusion and the shallowness of its basis.”
And this investigation, which was clearly no investigation at all, was what the Canadian Actor’s Equity Association Disciplinary Panel used to censure Mr. Sprung.
This is not the case where the Court made a subtle ruling that no one could have predicted in advance. A clear wrong was done to Mr. Sprung, and now it is been publicly affirmed as such. Mr. Sprung no doubt has suffered years of consequences, both emotional and financial, based on the wrongful decision by Canadian Actor’s Equity Association.
I hope very much that the Canadian Actor’s Equity Association apologizes to him, and compensates him for the enormous costs in time and money he has spent to right a wrong that should never have happened.
Robert Girvan, Toronto
Articulate as always, Robert. And thanks.
Thanks to Robert Girvan for his cogent analysis of the “clear wrong (was) done to Mr. Sprung.” One of the Objects of Canadian Actors’ Equity, as stated clearly in its constitution, is, “to assist members in pursuing their lawful rights and remedies.” Let us hope, with Terry Tweed’s motion at our upcoming AGM, membership can encourage Council to live up to this fundamental tenet of its own constitution.
I was forced to take CAEA to court, it was the sole recourse open to me to prove that the decision of the Disciplinary Panel was without any reasonable foundation. I also, in the interests of all members, wanted to ensure that in the future, if a member “rolls their eyes and sighs” during rehearsal discussions, this is cannot be used to justify taking away their right to work.
Guy Sprung