The fight to save BioWare has reached the Canadian Parliament. An official House of Commons e-petition asking Ottawa to fund an independent BioWare has gathered thousands of validated signatures in its first few days, comfortably more than enough to be certified, and once it is formally presented the government will be obliged to answer it.
The petition, e-7898 on the House of Commons website, opened for signatures on 4 November and stood at 4,787 validated signatures when we checked on Saturday morning. It was started by Brendan Routh from Burnaby, British Columbia, and is sponsored by Don Davies, the New Democratic Party MP for Vancouver Kingsway. Ontario has supplied the largest share of names with 1,670, followed by British Columbia on 1,004 and Alberta, home to BioWare’s Edmonton studio, on 915.
What the petition asks for
The text makes three requests of the Government of Canada. The first is to “provide BioWare with the capital necessary to secure independence of themselves and their intellectual property from Electronic Arts” so it can carry on as an independent Canadian company. The second calls for Canadian businesses and cultural institutions to be shielded from American and other foreign corporate interests, and the third asks the government to preserve BioWare’s contribution to the entertainment industry as part of the country’s cultural legacy.
It follows EA’s decision last month to close the studio behind Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate, a move that also ended work on the next Mass Effect. The fan response has been loud ever since, from a Change.org campaign close to 300,000 names to billboards in Times Square and, as we reported last week, Save Mass Effect graffiti outside EA’s Madrid office.
Why 500 signatures matters
Unlike those campaigns, this one sits inside the formal parliamentary process. House of Commons procedure on petitions says an e-petition needs at least 500 valid signatures to be certified, after which the sponsoring MP can present it in the chamber or file it with the Clerk. From that point the rules are clear: “The government must respond to every petition presented to the House within 45 calendar days of its presentation or filing with the Clerk.” The one thing that would wipe it out is a dissolution of Parliament before it is presented.
Davies told PC Gamer that his party wants BioWare kept alive “preferably under Canadian control”, adding that employees “ought to have the first opportunity to buy back their studio”. On the idea of public money doing the job, he was blunt: “This is absolutely possible.”
A formal answer, not a rescue
A guaranteed response is not the same as a cheque. The NDP is not in government, and the biggest obstacle sits elsewhere: EA still owns BioWare and every one of its series, and has given no sign that it wants to sell. As VGC noted when the petition first appeared, nothing in EA’s closure announcement mentioned a buyer or a management buyout.
Signing is limited to Canadian citizens and residents, and the petition stays open until 4 March 2027. For fans elsewhere it is mostly a spectator sport, but it does mean BioWare’s closure will now get a written reply from the Canadian government, which is more than any billboard has managed so far.
