Canada's NDP leader wants BioWare staff to buy back their studio

Avi Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP), says BioWare's developers should get the first chance to buy the studio and run it themselves, with federal support. He made the call after Electronic Arts (EA) shut the studio down.

Lewis posted on X on 22 October 2026, and later on Bluesky, blaming private equity for the closure. "This is private equity, this is what it does," he wrote. "Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit."

Private equity firms buy companies, often with borrowed money, and aim to make a profit by restructuring them or selling them on. Lewis's criticism is aimed at that model, not at any one studio's staff.

EA itself was bought in a leveraged buyout, a takeover funded largely by debt. The buyers were Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group and a private equity firm run by Jared Kushner.

BioWare is the studio behind the Mass Effect series. Eurogamer reports that EA has closed it, and that the wider cuts cost 400 employees their jobs across studios including Respawn, Maxis and Full Circle.

Lewis's proposal is a call for a staff buyout backed by public money. It is not a deal, and no buyer has been named so far.

For players, the closure touches a franchise with a long history and a large fan base. For the people who made those games, the question is what comes next, and that is still open.