This Book of Memories memorial website is designed to be a permanent tribute paying tribute to the life and memory of John Gray. It allows family and friends a place to re-visit, interact with each other, share and enhance this tribute for future generations. We are both pleased and proud to provide the Book of Memories to the families of our community.

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Pete White

I first got to know Jack in the early 1980’s when he was Chair of the ACTRA Writers Guild and I was elected to the national council. Jack was a mentor and example to a group of young writers active at the time: Rob Forsyth, Jim Henshaw, Michael Mercer, John Hunter, Roger Abbott, and myself. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of communications policy, was an able and articulate spokesman, could chair a meeting like nobody else, and was relentless about going after what he believed in. The day Jack negotiated a production fee for writers under the Independent Producer Agreement was the day I could make a decent living in this country as a free-lance writer. He inspired me to get involved with the guild. As the longest serving Chair of the ACTRA Writers Guild and the first President of the Writers Guild of Canada, he led the movement for a strong and autonomous screenwriters guild in Canada. He was fierce fighter on behalf of Canadian content and writers’ rights. Because of him, the WGC is the only screenwriter guild in the world whose collective agreements allow the writer to retain copyright in their script. He was also the foremost architect of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds and deserves much of the credit for the organization it is today. No writer ever devoted more hours to the cause of Canadian screenwriters than Jack Gray. My heartfelt condolences to Sandra.
Tuesday March 7, 2017 at 12:29 pm
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