Guides
ACTRA Narrator Demo Reel Rules: Canadian Union Differences
ACTRA narrator demo reel rules differ from SAG-AFTRA, and Canadian members carry disclosure and record-keeping duties under provincial labour law.
What to take away
- ACTRA covers most English-language Canadian union voice work, so a Canadian union clip is governed by the ACTRA agreement that produced it.
- No standalone ACTRA demo reel bylaw exists. The producer grants permission, and the governing agreement sets the limits.
- A compliant disclosure names five items per clipsource, client or studio, session date, union status and written permission.
- Quebec differs mostFrench-language work belongs to UDA, and provincial law sends engagement disputes to arbitration.
- Losing clearance means pulling the clip, recutting the reel and re-uploading it on every host.
The rule lives in the agreement, not in a bylaw
You need the producer's written permission. The union does not grant it.
ACTRA publishes no separate demo reel bylaw. The governing text is the agreement that produced the session.
Film, television and digital work runs under the ACTRA Independent Production Agreement. Commercial voice work runs under the National Commercial Agreement. Both spell out the rights a producer buys: media, term and territory.
A music bed needs its own license, and the cost traps are set out in demo reel music licensing for the US market.
The Wikipedia article on ACTRA covers the union's jurisdiction over Canadian voice work.
A producer's reuse clause binds non-union narrators too.
What a compliant disclosure contains
Five items let a producer or a union representative trace a clip in one step.
- The production, campaign or series the clip came from.
- The client or studio of record.
- The session date and the agreement it ran under.
- Union status, stated plainly.
- The producer's written permission, dated.
Demo Reel Disclosure Checklist
- Title or campaign name of production
- Producer, studio or client
- Session date or contract period
- Union engagement and agreement
- Written producer permission for demo use
Those five lines can live in a credit line, a one-page PDF or a private link.
A reel is a business document. Every clip in it should point back to a piece of paper.
Records to store with each clip
The Canada Revenue Agency requires records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. A union member has a second reason to keep files tidy.
Store three things together: the engagement contract, the dated permission and the invoice.
Keep Three Records Per Clip
- Store the engagement contract
- Store the demo-use permission
- Store the invoice for the clip
Narrators claiming a home studio against Canadian income should read home studio tax deductions in Canada, because the same paper trail supports the claim.
ACTRA compared with SAG-AFTRA
The overview of SAG-AFTRA sets out the American union's jurisdiction over voice work. The mechanics look familiar, but four things change.
ACTRA
- Agreement that rules the clip
- Independent Production Agreement or National Commercial Agreement
- Who grants demo use
- Producer, in writing
- Dispute forum
- Canadian arbitration
- Tax authority
- Canada Revenue Agency
SAG-AFTRA
- Agreement that rules the clip
- TV/Theatrical Agreement or Commercials Contract
- Who grants demo use
- Producer, in writing
- Dispute forum
- US arbitration
- Tax authority
- Internal Revenue Service
The unions do not swap paperwork. A clip from a Canadian session stays under ACTRA even when the same producer also hires you south of the border.
A reel is not a re-run, so posting it triggers no residual. Both unions treat the clip as promotional use of your own performance.
US labor law lets a performer resign full membership and pay only agency fees, a status called financial core. ACTRA has no equivalent.
The American side is covered in detail in SAG-AFTRA narrator demo reel rules, which answers whether a member may use union work at all.
Provincial differences: Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia
ACTRA bargains nationally, so the agreement text does not change at the border. Three provincial facts do.
Quebec is the sharpest split. French-language performance falls to UDA, the Union des artistes, not ACTRA. The province's status-of-the-artist law, chapter S-32.1, recognizes artists' associations and sends engagement disputes to arbitration.
Elsewhere the branch that answers depends on where you live. A Toronto member files with ACTRA Toronto. A Vancouver member files with ACTRA Vancouver.
Tax registration differs too. Ontario invoices carry 13% HST, British Columbia 5% GST, and Quebec 5% GST plus 9.975% QST. The Canada Revenue Agency rate table confirms which rate applies.
Example: three union commercials, one reel
A Vancouver narrator books three union commercials over two years. For each one she records the campaign, the studio, the session date, the agreement and the producer's approval email. Those five lines become a single PDF stored with the contracts.
The reel goes up with a short credit line. When a Toronto producer asks for proof, she sends one PDF and the question closes.
What happens if you skip clearance
The union or the producer can demand removal of the clip. That means a recut, a fresh mix and a re-upload to every host and profile where the reel sits.
Hosting fees keep running while the reel is down, and the comparison in narrator demo reel hosting fees shows what those monthly charges look like.
The second cost is reputational. A producer who finds an unlicensed clip may stop calling, and the Canadian market is small.
