Imperfect Union: Canadian Labour and the Left - Part 2 - Born of Hard Times

This full-length documentary is the 7th and final part of Corporation, a film series about the inner workings of the Steinberg supermarket chain. This installment documents a 3-day conference held in the corporation's lodge north of Montreal. There, faced with the stepping down of Sam Steinberg as president, ambitious top-level executives thrash out their differences on matters of corporation policy and objectives. But who will replace Mr. Sam, the man who built the business? Sprinkled with Sam Steinberg's reminiscences and reflections on business, full of insights into the workings of a large corporation and clashes of interest and character, the film presents an unusually close view of a struggle for position and power.

This feature documentary is a fascinating and spirited portrait of the life and times of the legendary Quebec politician and four-time mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde. Using rare archival footage and interviews with ex-colleagues, aides and friends, the film presents a comprehensive profile of this incredible, and, to some, infamous, man.

This documentary short is a portrait of Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and 13th prime minister of Canada, John George Diefenbaker (1895-1979). Diefenbaker's political career spanned 6 decades. When he died in 1979, his state funeral and final train trip west became more a celebration of life than a victory for death. Interweaving scenes from past and present, the film crafts a tribute to an illustrious Canadian and records how a nation paused to pay homage to "The Chief."

From the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, Mackenzie King tried to avoid conscription. Most English Canadians thought young men should be sent to fight, while most French Canadians vehemently disagreed. This same division had nearly torn the country apart during the First World War. King had to make a decision in the final year of the war. This docudrama combines archival footage with excerpts from The King Chronicles, a dramatic series written and directed by Donald Brittain.

Some scenes contain graphic language.

This feature documentary offers a complete record of the 1939 Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The film opens as the royal couple makes a stop in Québec city, where Premier Duplessis greets them. They then visit Montréal and meet mayor Camilien Houde. A visit to Ottawa brings them to Parliament, where Prime Minister MacKenzie King is present. The visit continues throughout Ontario, the prairies, and western Canada. The Royal couple also makes a brief stop in Washington and meets President Franklin Roosevelt. They then stop in on the Maritime provinces before boarding a Royal yacht for the journey back to England.

This feature documentary is a portrait of Adélard Godbout, the largely forgotten man who was Premier of Quebec from 1939 to 1944. During his office, Godbout helped lay the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s: instituting compulsory education, giving women the vote, creating Hydro-Québec and trying to free the province from domination by the clergy. Yet, during the conscription crisis, he favoured sending volunteers to fight Hitler: a sin for which many would never forgive him. Filmmaker Jacques Godbout takes a fresh look at his great-uncle's legacy.

This documentary introduces us to Italian-Canadians whose lives were disrupted and uprooted by seclusion in internment camps during the Second World War. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered WWII.
 Overnight, the Canadian government came to see the country's 112,000 Italian-Canadians as a threat to its national security. The RCMP rounded up thousands of people it considered fascist sympathizers. Seven hundred of them were held for up to three years in internment camps, most of them at Petawawa, Ontario. None were ever charged with a criminal offence. Remarkably, the former internees are not bitter as they look back on the way their own country treated them.

This look at Ottawa shows it as the nerve-centre of Canada during World War II. Everyone, from Prime Minister Mackenzie King and his Cabinet down to the most junior civil servants, shares the responsibility of maintaining the country in the face of wartime requirements.

The Depression era. A small town in Saskatchewan, Dominion Day, 1935. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant runs up against a group of desperate people who plan to join the Trekkers on their march to Ottawa in protest against the daily wage of twenty cents a day paid by the government to the unemployed in federal labour camps. Kid, the hero, has wrangled a truck and is planning to transport people and food to the Regina meeting place. Because of its illegal nature, their mission is thwarted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But only briefly. Humour, suspense and music enliven this short historical drama.

A film to be shown to Canadian employers to inform them of the work of the Canadian Manpower centres.

This feature film made during an exceptionally feverish period of popular revolt that saw the coming together of Quebec’s 3 main unions (CSN, FTQ, CEQ) is a cinematic tract by socially engaged filmmaker Gilles Groulx. Propped against the backdrop of the 1970 October Crisis, the film is a frontal assault denouncing a “consumer society” viewed as the ultimate embodiment of evil.