The federal election is on Monday, April 28.

Check your voter information card for where and when you can vote. If you didn’t get your card, you can still vote! Everything you need is on the Elections Canada website.

If you want to know what the parties are promising, various media outlets have created platform and promise trackers, which are updated regularly: CBC, Canadian Press, and CTV.

Don’t forget to let your local candidate know that film and TV is big business in Ontario and across the country. Nearly 45,000 Ontarians work in this industry, which contributed $7.8 billion to the provincial economy over the past 3 years!

Canadian culture and the CBC have become big issues during this campaign. The CBC plays a big role in Ontario’s production ecosystem, as a commissioner of original independent production. Over a five-year period, unionized film and TV workers in Ontario worked an aver age of 87,560 days per year on productions licensed by the CBC, equalling over $60 million in wages paid annually.

If the CBC is an important issue for you, check out the resources created by Friends of Canadian Media.

For more detailed talking points and/or suggestions on how to get involved in the election, check out the resources put together by ACTRA Toronto and the CMPA. The CMPA also recently released the results of a poll noting that promoting and supporting Canadian culture and identity is important to Canadians.

The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE) held two town halls, one in English and one in French, focused on cultural policy issues. Candidates from the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party of Canada, and the Green Party of Canada participated, and all expressed unequivocal support for the protection of the cultural exemption in Canada’s trade agreements, an essential provision that enables the government to adopt policies in support of Canadian cultural industries. You can view the town halls on the CDCE website here.

Whatever else you do, don’t forget to get out and vote on April 28! Make your voice heard.