Movies and television product are created for and aimed at the average movie-goer and television consumer who is twelve to sixteen years old. Minors consistently make up about ten percent of any theatrical guild s membership but they work nearly twice as much as their adult counterparts. Equity, which covers theater, is the only theatrical union in which kids do not out-perform their adult peers. The great myth of child labor protection is nowhere less observed than in Canada, a world leader in its concern for other working children around the world but not the kids in its own back yard. What is particularly galling is that they are importing American kids to star in Canadian productions.
Big money is at stake.
An entire industry is being created. Thousands of jobs are at issue. Canada s national priority has been set. The conspiracy of silence which surrounds the real working conditions for children is well-documented in Greg Quill s expose. People are afraid afraid of blacklisting, career-busting exposure if they speak up, and most of all, a fear that all those supposedly good jobs are going to dry up and blow away if they speak up for working children.