PROCESOS DE DESARROLLO DEL BPM

After Doughty’s death, the federal government again took steps to ensure the preservation o f public records. In 1944, a Committee on Public Records was established, ostensibly to consider the management o f wartime records. The Committee surveyed records in government departments and in a number o f boards and agencies. Subsequent to the survey, the Committee reported on its findings and recommended that it be

93 94 95 96

‘An Act Respecting the Archives of Saskatchewan,’ Appendix I, Saskatchewan Archives Board,

First Report o f the Saskatchewan Archives for the period April 1, 1945, to May 31, 1946 (Regina: Bureau of Publications, 1946), p. 33.

‘A ‘Practical’ Plea, Canadian Historical Review 15, 3 (September 1934): 245-47.

G.W. Brovm, ‘Provincial Archives in Canada,’ Canadian Historical Review 16, 1 (March 1935): 3.

L.H. Thomzis, ‘Memorandum on the Promotion of the Study o f Provincial and Community History in Saskatchewan,’ p. 15.

constituted as a permanent committee to advise on ‘measures to provide for the organisation, care, housing and, where possible, destruction o f public r e c o r d s . I n 1945 the permanent Committee on Public Records was formed to ‘keep under constant review the state o f the public records’ and to advise on their care, housing, and particularly on the destruction o f unwanted records. The committee was also charged to oversee the establishment o f a public records office and ensure its ‘integration’ "with the Public Archives.^^

What exactly should that integrated archival repository consist of? In the House o f Commons in 1947, the Hon. Mr. Jackman requested an answer:

Would the minister consider, at little or no expense, having some o f our historians, aided by the director general, draft a report.... so that we would have a definite policy for our archives and get together our national treasures, which may be lost if we do not act with promptness.^^

No such report was prepared, but in the same year an attempt was made to revise the Public Records Act, in an effort to clarify the distinction between the care o f public and private records. The revised act would rename the Public Archives as the National Archives, in accordance with the style in other countries, and would confirm the National Archives as a fully fledged public record office. Despite efforts to gain government consent, the Public Archives Act was not amended. While the Public Archives had a responsibility for government archives, this responsibility was not as explicit as some wanted.

Conclusion

Arthur Doughty single-handedly created a unique Canadian archival environment; one where buttons and medals enjoyed equal status with letters and reports, where seeking out elusive private documents took precedence over arranging and classifying government

W.E.D. Halliday, ‘Report of the Advisory Committee on Public Records,’ 16 July 1945, p. 11, Canada, Public Records Committee Records, vol. 4.

Canada, Privy Council, ‘Order in Council Establishing the Committee on Public Records,’ P C. 6175, Ottawa, 20 September 1945, ibid., vol. 2, PRC; 1960-61.

^ Canada, House of Commons, Debates (1947), p. 4661.

Lanctôt to C. Gibson, Secretary o f State, 29 December 1947, NAC Records, vol. 303, File: Public Archives Act.

records. The formalisation o f Brymner’s work in the nineteenth century into an actual archival office in the twentieth was seen by historians as a success. Doughty met little opposition jfrom scholars to his collecting, although he and his assistants were criticised, often severely, by those whose identities were more regional than national. But in the absence o f other active national cultural institutions. Doughty performed a service unmatched elsewhere in government or in the private sector. The Archives was the nation’s treasure house.

Doughty’s thirty-year tenure left a legacy hard to overcome. The Dominion Archives had established itself as an historical laboratory, the source o f all information about the history o f Canada. By the time the Public Archives Act came into force in 1912, the accepted practices o f the nineteenth century — collecting, copying, publishing, and service to scholarship — were firmly embedded in the mandates o f both national and provincial archival repositories. Efforts to encourage the care o f government records were not to be promoted at the expense o f private records acquisition.

As historians turned their attention to post-Confederation history, they continued to agitate for a public record office. Without proper care o f government records, particularly with the plethora o f information arising from modem wartime and postwar records practices, their ability to write comprehensive histories would be severely hindered. But interested as they were in the preservation o f records for research use, historians did not refute the accepted notion that government-funded archival repositories also had a responsibility for the acquisition o f non-govemment records. This concept was sufficiently established in Canadian archival consciousness not to be shaken by new imperatives. The government archives, not a library, museum, or special collections, had a mandate to manage both public and private records.

The post-war economic boom, which began in the late 1940s, was an ideal time for a review o f archival policy. In fact, the technological changes o f the twentieth century, and the growth in information and paper, inevitably led to a review o f the nature and purpose o f archives. For the first time, the destruction o f records became as pressing a question as their acquisition. At the same time, there was a recognition by government

that the identity o f Canada was still not as strong and unified as might be desired. A strong archival presence could help bolster national sentiment in the face o f regional identities.

In 1949, a government commission was established to scrutinise not just archival policies but cultural policy as a whole. The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences was charged with ‘examining the very soul o f Canada as a nation.’ The Commission could have changed the course o f archival practice to the increasingly well-known European model, delineated by archivists such as Jenkinson. It could have limited government archival repositories to the care o f public records and encouraged the establishment o f special libraries or museums, either publicly or privately funded, to acquire and preserve private records. However, far from making such recommendations, the strongly nationalistic Commission actually entrenched existing Canadian archival practice, especially the preservation o f private records by public agencies, because the practice, though idiosyncratic, was above all Canadian.