By Ahmad Hathout
The co-creator and producer of the “Degrassi” franchise is suing to stop the world premiere Saturday of a new documentary about the hit Canadian show that includes allegations that the child actors were not compensated fairly for their work.
Linda Schuyler is claiming in a notice of action filed in Ontario Superior Court on Monday that the documentary, Degrassi: Whatever It Takes, includes “defamatory statements and innuendo” leading viewers to believe that she enriched herself through the creation of an “empire” at the expense of the child actors, two of whom alleged they made only $50 per day, which Schuyler denies.
“An ordinary person, hearing those statements as they were presented in the Documentary, would identify Ms. Schuyler, as the co-creator and longtime lead producer of the Degrassi programs, as the creator and beneficiary of that ‘empire,’” the notice claims. “That person would be left with the distinct impression that the child actors were undercompensated and that Ms. Schuyler profited at their expense.”
The documentary, which was co-produced by defendants Peacock Alley Entertainment and WildBrain and includes interviews with stars headlined by Aubrey Drake Graham, is slated for its world premiere September 13 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Schuyler, who created the show with Kit Hood in 1979, sold the Degrassi franchise and her production company that owned the show’s rights, Epitome Pictures Inc., to WildBrain in April 2014.
WildBrain announced in December 2023 that it was producing the documentary, which would feature behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with actors from the show.
Schuyler said she was approached by the producers about an interview and agreed. She claims she also pointed them to the scripts and contracts with the actors, which had been donated to the University of Toronto, her alma mater, for their review.
She claims she was interviewed twice, in April 2024 and the month after that. “She was not told about the content of the other interviewees’ interviews or asked to comment on the information they provided, including the statements made by Amanda Stepto and Stacie Mistysyn,” which were that the actors were paid only $50 per day, the notice claims.
According to the notice, on August 11, 2025, Peacock Alley’s President, Carrie Mudd, went to Schuyler’s home for a pre-screening of the documentary.
Besides being “taken aback” by the claims that the actors were not compensated fairly and the alleged suggestion that she profited at their expense, Schuyler also alleges the documentary contained a “suggestion that the storylines for the Degrassi series were stolen from the actors’ lives.”
Schuyler says these defamatory statements and innuendo are false. She claims the child actors were not only paid much more than $50 per day, but also “well in excess” of then-applicable union rates. That’s despite her claim that the actors on the first three Degrassi series – The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High, and Degrassi High – were not members of the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the union representing television performers in Canada.
Other forms of compensation for the child actors, Schuyler claims, included acting lessons, general entertainment career and financial management counselling; payment in an amount equal to an additional 20 per cent of the child actors’ performance fees into a registered retirement savings plan for the benefit of each child actor; and a percentage of each season’s production budget set aside for the benefit of a not-for-profit entity that facilitates scholarships for post-secondary education and professional services of psychologists.
As for her enrichment, Schuyler claims those first three Degrassi series struggled to recoup their production costs, and revenue from ancillary sources like merchandise and home video sales “was negligible or non-existent.”
She also claims the storylines were “reflective of topical political and social issues from the perspectives of young people and had significant universal appeal for both the young audience and the cast” and each script the work of a “professional writer and the product of extensive research.”
“It would have been easy for the defendants to fact-check the Defamatory Statements and Innuendo by simply asking Ms. Schuyler, at the interview stage or at anytime thereafter, about the child actors’ compensation and the inspiration for the storylines,” the notice says. “Had they done so, Ms. Schuyler would have corrected the narrative immediately, as she deserved the chance to do. However, she was never given that opportunity.”
A WildBrain spokesperson said the company cannot comment at this time. An email to an address believed to be Mudd’s was not returned.
After the pre-screening, Schuyler said she expressed concern to Mudd about the allegedly defamatory statements and innuendo and the harm they did to her reputation. Schuyler alleges that Mudd said the documentary remained a work in progress “but refused to commit to any changes.”
Schuyler said she was then contacted on August 25 by WildBrain’s Vice President of Live Action, Angela Boudreault, with a link to a revised version of the documentary and an invitation to attend the TIFF screening this weekend.
“After reviewing the revised Documentary, Ms. Schuyler wrote to Ms. Mudd to reiterate her concerns about the Defamatory Statements and Innuendo,” the notice claims. “Once again, Ms. Mudd rebuffed her concerns. When pressed specifically as to why the producers had not fact-checked Ms. Stepto’s false statement about the child actors’ compensation, Ms. Mudd demurred that ‘it was difficult for many of the participants in the film to be open and vulnerable in ways they hadn’t before,’ and indicated that the producers ‘wanted to make sure their voices were heard.’”
Schuyler claims the “implication of that statement was that it was more important to the producers that Ms. Stepto and Ms. Mistysyn appear in the Documentary than it was to ensure that their on-camera statements were true.”
Schuyler also says the claims in the documentary that underpin the complaint are central to the marketing of the documentary.
“Both a warm-hearted tribute to a pop culture institution and a clear-eyed look at its ups, downs, and flaws, Lisa Rideout’s documentary relates the Degrassi saga from the perspectives of its creators, writers, superfans, and, of course, its cast members,” a synopsis on the TIFF page reads.
“It all makes for an engrossing history, one that celebrates the realistic take on adolescence that the franchise pioneered (especially when tackling divisive subjects like abortion) while also delving into thornier matters, like some actors’ misgivings about what the show demanded of them and how little they were compensated.”
On the contrary, Schuyler, whose show was inducted into the 2023 Canadian Walk of Fame, claims she has “built a strong professional and personal reputation as an ally” of child actors.
“Indeed, she carried her concern for the teenagers in her classrooms to the teenagers who worked on the Degrassi set,” the notice says. “Ms. Schuyler supported her young cast members both on set and off. In addition to taking extraordinary steps to ensure that they were properly compensated for their work on the shows, she also took the young actors into her own home, gave them her personal phone number, and tried to support their mental and physical well-being.”
“Degrassi was both Ms. Schuyler’s life’s work and a labour of love,” it adds. “As a junior high school teacher in London and Toronto, she saw firsthand the challenges that young people face as they navigate their teenage years.
“She created Degrassi to celebrate the diversity of young people in the classroom and tackle the awkward and embarrassing aspects of adolescence along with the difficult realities many young people experience, including bullying, racism, abuse, drugs, eating disorders, disabilities, gender issues, teenage pregnancy, violence, and school shootings,” it adds.
Besides asking the court to bar the documentary from seeing light in its current form, Schuyler is also suing for punitive damages to be determined by the court.
The documentary has already been screened for the press and media at TIFF on September 8, with another scheduled for that same cohort on September 11, according to the notice.
It’s also slated for its second public screening, following the world premiere, on Sunday.
Screenshot of Linda Schuyler, via the University of Toronto Youtube channel
