Canadian Industry’s Roadmap for Real Change: “It’s Not About Statements. It’s About Measurable Progress” (Exclusive)

The Canadian media industry has talked big in recent years about boosting Black representation and funded Joan Jenkinson and her Black Screen Office to help dismantle anti-Black racism in the country’s screen industries.

But Jenkinson, CEO of the Bso, now wants to see symbolism and promises replaced by collaborative and sustained policy steps by the Canadian film and television industry to secure real gains towards black equity.

“It’s not about statements, it’s about measurable progress,” Jenkinson said ahead of the Bso unveiling an Anti-Black Racism Policy Framework later today at The Hollywood Reporter’s Access Canada Summit in Toronto. The Bso and funding agencies have banded together to create a to-do checklist for the industry to practically tackle anti-Black racism in front and behind the camera and elsewhere in the cultural sector.

Jenkinson recalls in 2021 when the Bso was launched amid an industry reckoning over a lack of diversity and inclusion,…