1948 · Syndicated transcription series

Danny Marsdon

Thirteen quarter hours arguing about what a Canadian actually is

In the autumn of 1948 somebody in Canada decided the country needed to be argued with weekly, and made a series about it. The episode titles read like a syllabus — citizenship, taxes, national unity, world trade, communism — and the arguments are made in scenes rather than lectures. It is the sort of programme that a public broadcaster is usually credited with and that in fact came off a transcription disc. The complete run survives, which for a Canadian series of this vintage is close to a miracle.

13 recordings · Canada

Complete surviving run of thirteen episodes, October to December 1948. Recordings held by the Internet Archive.