A video game developers’ union is calling out Ubisoft Halifax for how much the company gets in tax breaks.
The company shut their Halifax game development studio down on Jan. 7, just three weeks after the workers formed a union.
The company said the closure was for restructuring and financial reasons, but the union says that makes no sense with the massive amount of tax breaks the Ubisoft gets in Canada.
“It’s outrageous that a company can take hundreds of millions in tax breaks–public money–and then shut down an operation and lay off workers,” wrote CWA Canada President Carmel Smyth in a news release from CWA Canada.
“And it’s shocking that governments allow it to happen.”
Smyth called on the government to do better, to put tougher conditions in place for companies who use money meant for the public and then suddenly shut down.
The branch had 71 employees, while 61 staff were part of the only North American union in the company. One employee told our newsroom they were “shocked and devasted” at the closure.
Ubisoft has 4000 workers across the country at studios in Toronto, Winnipeg, and four cities in Quebec, the union says.
Financial documents from the French Senate show Ubisoft gets more tax breaks from Canada than every other country where they have studios combined, according to the news release.
That works out to be about $900 million in Canadian dollars when the Euros are converted, more than triple the tax breaks Ubisoft gets in France, the company’s second largest place of business.
Documents from the French Senate that show the tax subsidies for Ubisoft from 2020 to 2024. (CWA Canada)
Documents shared by the union show the amount of tax breaks compared to other countries, as well as the amount of wages covered by the those tax breaks from 2020 to 2024. In Quebec, 31 per cent of wages were covered by tax breaks. In Ontario, it was 24 per cent.
This table shows the percentage of Ubisoft workers’ wages covered by tax breaks, and the document comes from the French Senate. (CWA Canada)
“The union has vowed to keep fighting for better compensation and new jobs for the laid-off workers,” CWA Canada says in the release.
