{"id":654624,"date":"2026-05-07T22:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654624\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:15:14","slug":"cwa-canada-calls-on-feds-to-investigate-saudi-acquisition-of-ea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654624\/","title":{"rendered":"CWA Canada calls on feds to investigate Saudi acquisition of EA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour union CWA Canada is urging the Canadian government to scrutinize the proposed US$55 billion acquisition of video game giant Electronic Arts (EA)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent to Canadian Minister of Industry M\u00e9lanie Joly<\/a>, the union expressed concerns that the deal would undermine Canada\u2019s massive gaming industry and pose a threat to national security.<\/p>\n

A group of investors is behind the buyout offer, including Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Affinity Partners, the latter of which is run by U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. EA, meanwhile, has a significant presence in Canada with studios like EA Vancouver (EA Sports FC\u00a0and\u00a0NHL), BioWare Edmonton (Mass Effect, Dragon Age), Montreal\u2019s Motive (Dead Space, Battlefield) and Glu Toronto (Kim Kardashian: Hollywood).<\/p>\n

In the letter, CWA Canada warned that Saudi Arabia\u2019s ambitions to expand its own gaming footprint will likely lead it to shrink EA\u2019s presence in Canada, leading to layoffs, wage suppression and other negative impacts. Further, the union argues that Canadians\u2019 data and EA\u2019s technology would be put into the hands of another foreign government, which could lead to a lack of accountability and transparency over how they\u2019re used. It specifically cited Canada\u2019s Investment Canada Act (ICA), which is intended to uphold safeguards against \u201cforeign actors that attempt to gain ownership or control of sensitive Canadian goods, technology, infrastructure, or personal data\u201d for malicious reasons.<\/p>\n

On top of all of that, CWA Canada notes that such a buyout could jeopardize the United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433<\/a> (UVW-CWA), an industry-wide union for video game workers in the U.S. and Canada. CWA Canada added that nearly 10,000 people in the gaming industry have signed a petition<\/a> calling on governments to challenge the proposed EA takeover.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that other concerns have been raised in regards to the proposed acquisition. For one, Kushner\u2019s close affiliation with Trump. We\u2019ve already seen how companies that are chummy with the U.S. president are taking actions just to please him, including David Ellison-owned Paramount\u00a0greenlighting projects like Rush Hour 4<\/a>. Meanwhile, the Saudi government has been accused of numerous human rights violations, including ordering the murder of Washington Post\u00a0journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>\u00a0after he had been vocally critical of the regime.<\/p>\n

When the acquisition was announced in September, it was expected to be completed in June 2026. While we haven\u2019t heard much about it publicly since, The Wall Street Journal\u00a0reported earlier this week <\/a>that it remains on track. It remains to be seen whether governments, including Canada\u2019s, will take any action against it.<\/p>\n

Image credit: EA<\/p>\n

Source: CWA Canada<\/a> Via: Game Developer<\/a><\/p>\n

MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour union CWA Canada is urging the Canadian government to scrutinize the proposed US$55 billion acquisition of video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,168224,9619,46,874,13341,16512],"class_list":["post-654624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cwa-canada","tag-ea","tag-economy","tag-gaming","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}