Do It Yourself

The opening scenes of this film recall the grim days of Dunkirk. We see Britain in that time of crisis girding herself for the siege with the organization of Civil Defence and ARP, and the formation of the Home Guard. On the industrial side, the film shows readjustments made to increase production, such as the absorption of women into war factories and the setting up of labour-management committees. In describing how these committees functioned in the coal industry, the film demonstrates the importance of total democracy in waging total war.

An amusingly drawn cartoon about a highly proficient lady bricklayer, graduate of Specialists' School, whose work takes her high up in the world, and her erstwhile friend, whose equally dedicated professionalism brings him lower. She builds towers of bricks while he tunnels down below ground. What develops in the story involves other unlikely characters, plausible enough in this cartoon context.

The importance of the regular payment of union dues and how they keep a union going is told through the story of a young pipefitter. New to the trade and to his responsibilities as a union member, Frank Weston found there was much to learn about both. Fortunately for him, his boss on the job--a skilled tradesman and a founder of the union--had the patience to teach him. Through him Frank learns the significance of prompt dues payment and the services provided by them, and comes to enjoy the satisfaction of active and interested union membership.

A dramatized presentation of the role of the shop steward in the effective day-to-day functioning of free trade unionism, the film begins with the election of machinist Johnny Walachuk as shop steward for the men in his section of a large industrial plant. Continuing, it shows the part the shop steward plays in carrying out the grievance procedures set up by company and union. How Johnny fulfills his responsibility to protect the men who elected him from infractions of the agreement is told in his own words and typifies the function of union shop stewards generally in Canada. Number one of the series.

This film shows the scientific study of fires set to buildings in Aultsville, Ontario, a town evacuated for flooding by the St. Lawrence Seaway. Scientists at Canada's National Research Council devised instruments for recording the progress of a fire in all its stages, to help the country's fire fighters lessen fire's tragic toll.

Unions Build Low Rent Housing: Autumn-winter construction of Ottawa's Mooretown housing development, brain-child of the local council of the Trades and Labor Congress, eliminates seasonal unemployment for bricklayers, plasterers and carpenters. New Life for Ghost Town Miners: Aided by the provincial government, jobless mine workers of Alberta move from Nordegg and other abandoned coal mining areas to obtain new work elsewhere in Canada.

A description of the work of a research director of a United Steel Workers Union in Canada. The painstaking research and analyses of economic information, and the arrangement of arguments that lie beneath the negotiations of labour unions for better wages and working conditions are shown.

Joe Faber, imprisoned at the age of nineteen on a charge of theft with violence, learns a trade and earns his parole half-way through his sentence. Through the John Howard Society he finds a job in a machine shop and all goes well until he is suddenly confronted by the man he had robbed. He accuses Joe of being an escaped convict and, discouraged, Joe quits his job. Fortunately, with the support of the John Howard Society and his employer he is able to overcome this setback and return to his new life.

Gerhard Herzberg, winner of a Nobel Prize in 1971, is a molecular spectroscopist. This film shows Dr. Herzberg in his laboratory at the National Research Council in Ottawa where, with the aid of highly sophisticated instruments, he tracks down elusive bits of matter that are the keys to discovering what the planets, stars and the universe are made of.

Cavalry detachments come and go at a staging post, while in the background, men feed the horses. Various types of armoured vehicles travel along a country road. They are carrying provisions, soldiers and a heavy piece of metal. The armoured vehicles are also engaged in combat. From inside a bunker, a soldier fires on a tank with a machine gun.

The Eskimo dog--the Qimmiq--has been an integral part of northern Canadian life for almost two thousand years. Archival photographs and film footage illustrate how this hard-working purebred was used for hunting, pulling sleds and keeping polar bears at bay. However, by 1975, the breed, decimated by a changing northern lifestyle, was all but extinct. This inspiring documentary shows the dedicated efforts of biologist Dr. William Carpenter to revitalize the strain and how, with support from local Inuit societies, his breeding project has resulted in a growing and once again thriving Qimmiq population.