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Government Agencies, Programs and Services (13)

  • Asylum
    Asylum
    Garry Beitel 1998 1 h 18 min
    This feature documentary follows three newly arrived people in Canada and their experiences with the Canadian Refugee process. As claims are assessed and paperwork is double checked, we begin to examine exactly who can be considered a refugee.
  • Broken Promises - The High Arctic Relocation
    Broken Promises - The High Arctic Relocation
    Patricia Tassinari 1995 52 min
    In the summer of 1953, the Canadian government relocated seven Inuit families from Northern Quebec to the High Arctic. They were promised an abundance of game and fish, with the assurance that if things didn't work out, they could return home after two years. Two years later, another 35 people joined them. There they suffered from hunger, extreme cold, sickness, alcoholism and poverty. It would be thirty years before any of them saw their ancestral lands again. Interviews with survivors are combined with archival footage and documents to tell the poignant story of a people whose lives were nearly destroyed by their own government's broken promises.
  • Duncan Campbell Scott: The Poet and the Indians
    Duncan Campbell Scott: The Poet and the Indians
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    James Cullingham 1995 56 min
    Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) is best known as one of Canada's prominent early literary figures. That he was also a federal civil servant who rose through the bureaucracy to become one of the most powerful heads of the Indian Department, is not well known. From 1913 to 1932, Scott was responsible for the implementation of the most repressive and brutal assimilation programs Canada ever levied against First Nations, Metis and Inuit Peoples. Duncan Campbell Scott: The Poet and the Indians explores the apparent contradiction between Scott, the sensitive and respected poet, and Scott, the insensitive enforcer of Canada's most tyrannical policies.
  • Home to the Land
    Home to the Land
    Stanley Jackson 1944 21 min
    This documentary from 1945 explains The Veteran's Land Act, which provided for low-cost loans to veterans who wished to purchase properties and re-establish themselves in Canada after the war. The loans were for properties ranging from town lots to full-scale farms. The Act also provided aid in purchasing farm machinery, fishing boats, building materials and livestock. Produced by the NFB for the Canadian Department of Veterans Affairs.
  • Operation Conservation
    Operation Conservation
    Andy Thomson 1979 23 min
    A bilingual film, in English and French, to encourage the conservation of oil. Produced by the NFB in 1979 for the Canadian Department of Defence.
  • Pigbird
    Pigbird
    Richard Condie 1981 3 min
    This Richard Condie animated short tells the zany story of a cagey citizen's success at getting a forbidden “animal” through customs and the disastrous results that follow. A humorous reminder that health and safety rules are made for a reason and broken at everyone's peril, this film was produced for Customs and Excise Canada.
  • The Royal Mint
    The Royal Mint
    1938 10 min
    A sequel to the gold mining subject, this film shows the shipment of gold arriving at the Mint and then follows the series of steps whereby the rough bullion is refined into gold bars, stamped with the Royal Seal, and finally placed in the vault.
  • A Total Service
    A Total Service
    Jacques Leduc  &  Arnie Gelbart 1969 17 min
    A film to be shown to Canadian employers to inform them of the work of the Canadian Manpower centres.
  • Up Against the System
    Up Against the System
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    Terence Macartney-Filgate 1969 19 min
    People on welfare are rarely heard. What do they go through? How do they feel? How do concerned social and welfare workers feel about the welfare system? What is welfare supposed to do? In this film, welfare recipients and social case workers talk about the problems of being "up against the system."
  • The Un-Canadians
    The Un-Canadians
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    Len Scher 1996 1 h 12 min
    In the late 1940s through to the early '70s, one million Canadians were investigated by their own government, irretrievably altering their lives. The Un-Canadians uncovers some of their stories and documents the workings of a secret government agency, "The Security Panel," an organization that, along with the RCMP security service, shaped and monitored the development of a Canadian blacklist during the Cold War. We also see the influence that the United States, and Senator Joe McCarthy's tactics, had on the Government of Canada. Through in-depth interviews, archival footage and revealing documents, The Un-Canadians tracks down the supposed "subversives" and traces the effect that the blacklist had on their lives. Many had their careers ruined and their family lives destroyed. Director Len Scher knows how it feels to grow up in one of these families. His father was one of those blacklisted. Scher's attempts to learn why resulted in the publication of the book "The Un-Canadians," upon which this film is based.
  • White Fortress
    White Fortress
    Leslie McFarlane  &  Ronald Weyman 1949 10 min
    This short 1949 documentary studies the impact Canada's National Health Program has had on people who might otherwise not had been able to obtain medical help.
  • Water for the Prairies
    Water for the Prairies
    Lawrence Cherry 1951 18 min
    This 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.
  • Windbreaks on the Prairies
    Windbreaks on the Prairies
    Evelyn Cherry 1943 21 min
    This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.