National Referendum – Amendment to Article 6
Under ACTRA’s Constitution, a group of one hundred (100) members can require ACTRA to proceed with a referendum vote to change the Constitution.
Your ACTRA National Council and Ottawa National Councillor have expressed concerns about the referendum and recommends that members do not support this referendum.
– ACTRA recommends members Vote No –
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
Where has this referendum come from?
Members have a right to initiate petitions to make changes to the ACTRA Constitution under article 1103. This gives members the ability to seek wide support from fellow members (under article 1103 petitioners need 100 individuals or 50% of a branch membership, whichever is smaller for a petition to proceed) to make suggestions to improve the operation of the union. Under the constitution all changes must be put to a vote of the whole membership for the membership to decide the way forward of our union.
While we know which members have signed the petition and we support the intent of the changes, it is unclear to ACTRA who initiated the petitions as they have engaged a lawyer and are refusing to meet with ACTRA staff to work out how we can meet the intent of the request while ensuring we don’t accidentally fall to some unintended consequences through the application of the proposal. Under article 1103, ACTRA council/executive should have an opportunity to rectify the situation, however, by refusing to engage, the petitioners prevented the constitutional requirements to be met and limited your elected members ability to work with the petitioners to address their concerns.
What is the timeline for this referendum?
Voting opened on May 29, 2025 at 7:30 pm ET. The voting period closes on June 20, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. ET. Eligible, Full Members received information via email leading up to the vote.
Voting Information – Who Can Vote?
All Full ACTRA Members in good standing are eligible to vote.
ACTRA has engaged ElectionBuddy, a third-party online voting software company, to conduct the online vote for the Petition Referendum. Conducting this vote by online ballot allows you to vote in a reliable and secure way. ElectionBuddy will ensure complete anonymity and confidentiality for eligible voters. Because the vote is being conducted by a third-party, ACTRA will not have any knowledge of who has voted.
- You should have received an email when voting opened at 7:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. PT / 5:30 p.m. MT / 6:30 p.m. CT / 8:30 p.m. AT / 9:00 p.m. NT) on Thursday, May 29, 2025, from: invitations@mail.electionbuddy.com (it is recommended you add this email address to your email contacts, so it is less likely to be filtered into your spam/junk folder).
- The E-mail will include your unique access key (this is your unique secure hyperlink to access the online voting site). Click on your unique access key hyperlink and you will be taken to the online voting site.
- Enter your ACTRA Member Number into the online voting site exactly as it appears on your ACTRA membership card (including the hyphen: XX-XXXXX) and click submit. You will then be prompted to cast your vote.
The voting period closes on June 20, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. ET / 9:00 a.m. PT / 10:00 a.m. MT / 11:00 a.m. CT / 1:00p.m. AT / 1:30 p.m. NT.
Questions: For questions about online voting, please contact ElectionBuddy’s help desk between 9:00 a.m. ET and 5:00 p.m. ET, Monday to Friday (email: actra@electionbuddy.com).
What does this proposal mean for ACTRA?
Increased costs at a time when members are asking us to tighten our belts. As this would be a new requirement ACTRA National would need to take on more staffing and make changes to its reporting systems to be able to prepare and ensure the accuracy of this reporting every quarter rather than increasing the workload on an already small national finance team. This along with the changes needed to the financial systems could cost as much as $300,000 of new spending. ACTRA National presently releases financial information to members on its website as far back as 2010.
ACTRA already has a robust reporting process to its members through regular financial updates provided to the members of the National Council made up of performers elected by every Branch from coast to coast and posting the audited financial statements annually on the website. ACTRA’s Financial statements, including those from all Branches, are subject to a full annual audit by a third party, independent accounting firm.
ACTRA members are also able to meet with staff from our Ntl Finance Dept. or local Branch upon request.
If ACTRA had to release unaudited financial statements every quarter, there would be increased costs for the organization making sure this information is accurate. The vast majority of the cost would be borne by National, however, the regional branches, including Ottawa, would be impacted as more costs for national = more cost to all branches, directly impacting member services.
How could this impact ACTRA members?
Presently ACTRA National has staff to meet the needs of running the day-to-day operations if they were going to add the process of creating reports and financial schedules, they would need to take on extra staff to ensure these are created accurately and on time. At a time when the industry is down and we need to care for every dollar we have, adding cost to produce unaudited financials is not a fiscally prudent thing to do.
Additional costs would also impact other services provided to members – fewer resources for providing workshops and professional development opportunities to members, less money for sponsorships and community engagement, less time for staff to focus on delivering core services to members on a day-to-day basis.
Where can I find info on ACTRA’s finances?
ACTRA National’s audited finances going back to 2010 are on ACTRA’s website available here.
ACTRA Ottawa’s audited financials can be found on our website here.
If you have questions about ACTRA finances, you can email finance@actra.ca or contact ottawa@actra.ca
If you could not attend the Town Hall, review the presentation or watch the full recording here:
