Imperfect Union: Canadian Labour and the Left - Part 2 - Born of Hard Times
1989 · 51m · Canada
Directed by Arthur Hammond
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, provocative
During the Great Depression, Canadian labour and the left turn toward communism and industrial unionism, as the 1937 Oshawa GM strike gives the CIO a foothold before the Second World War.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 51-minute essay on Canadian communist sympathies during the Depression sounds like mandatory social studies, but Hammond's willingness to treat labour radicalism as genuinely seductive—not quaint or naive—gives the film teeth where consensus wants apology.
This is rigorous historical documentary work that understands its place in the NFB's tradition of socially engaged cinema; the 1937 Oshawa strike becomes not just an event but a precisely framed inflection point, the kind of archival assembly that rewards close attention and repeat viewing.
Hammond's choice to let Depression-era testimonies breathe without irony or editorializing—to trust the archive itself as the argument—is the restraint that makes this feel contemporary rather than dusty.