Protecting child actors

Supporters of legislation intended to protect children in the entertainment business gathered at the Ontario legislature to talk about the rights of kids.

Veteran actress Shirley Douglas, who is also the mother of Kiefer Sutherland, was joined by some child actors who agree that the government needs to do more to protect working kids.

“The idea that children don’t need help and looking after has always been a very strange thing to me and in film and TV it is often thought that they are so fortunate to have a job, and that they they better take the rough with the good. But they don’t treat us (adults) that way.”

Shannon Kook-Chun, who plays Zane on Degrassi: The Next Generation said “it’s interesting to be here, because this is the sort of thing that I already sort of assumed was in place.”

The bill would insist that kids be given age appropriate hours of work, tutoring, and income protection. This means that a portion of a child’s earnings would be protected in a trust fund that the performer could use when they turn 18.