In December 2025, Ubisoft Halifax announced it had voted for wall-to-wall union representation under the CWA Canada, with 61 of the studio's 71 employees joining Local 30111 alongside Bethesda Game Studios Montreal. Not even three weeks later, Ubisoft announced it was shutting down the studio and laying off all 71 workers, denying that the shutdown had anything to do with the majority of its staff unionizing.
In response, the CWA Canada said it would "pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way." That process has seemingly begun, as the media union has filed an official complaint with the Nova Scotia Labour Board over the closure, and today, the union expressed further outrage after learning that Ubisoft was given nearly $1 billion CAD in tax credit subsidies in the last five years alone while operating in Nova Scotia.
Provincial and state governments will often offer companies tax breaks as incentives to establish a base of operations in their state or province, and in the case of Ubisoft, the Assassin's Creed company has quite the history of taking advantage of these breaks to establish what have become some of its most important offices.
Ubisoft Montreal, for example, was first set up due to Quebec having attractive tax incentives. If not for those incentives driving Ubisoft to open a studio in Montreal, the city may not have grown into the incredible hub of game development it is today, with scores of talented developers calling Montreal their home.
While Halifax hasn't grown as a game development hub in the same way that Montreal did, as CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth pointed out when the union filed its complaint, "Ubisoft took $12 million in taxpayer money from the government of Nova Scotia to nurture a generation of talent, and to build a tech industry. Now it’s walking away without so much as an apology."
Once the union dug through French Senate documents to see just how much of a tax break the company was receiving, it not only found that Ubisoft had received more tax breaks from Canada than any other country, but also that in the last five years, it had received hundreds of millions in tax credits.
"According to the documents, Ubisoft got 605.6 million Euros (about C$980 million at today’s exchange rates) in tax credits from Canadian governments from 2020 through 2024," CWA Canada writes in a press release.
"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," added Smyth. "And it’s shocking that governments allow it to happen. We need immediate changes to hold companies to account. The rules must make it clear that if you close or significantly downsize a business, you must pay back any government subsidies."
CWA Canada is also holding to its accusation that Ubisoft shut down the Halifax studio "to keep out the union." While Ubisoft denies that the shutdown had anything to do with the studio unionizing, CWA Canada notes that if the shutdown had been planned as Ubisoft claims, it wouldn't have caught the staff entirely by surprise as it did, and that Ubisoft has yet to provide evidence proving the shutdown was a decision made through "financial necessity."
Since the shutdown was announced, legal and public pressure from the CWA Canada has already pushed Ubisoft to consider raising the severance offered to the 71 workers laid off from the Halifax studio. While that may be all the union is able to get out of this, the pressure applied here, specifically regarding how Canada and its provincial governments approach tax incentives, could create significant change down the line.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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