The Comprehensive Development Plan

When you start poking around in 1970s history in Prince Edward Island as I have been, you can’t ignore the Comprehensive Development Plan, the 1969 federal-provincial agreement, negotiated by the government of then-Premier Hon. Alex Campbell, that sought to transform, with federal dollars, almost every aspect of Island life.

I arrived on the Island in 1993. The days of the Development Plan were over, but its wake was certainly evident. And being an “expert” from Upper Canada as I was – 26 years old and full of piss and vinegar – I had to work awfully hard not to get tarred with the Development Plan brush (Alan MacEachern, in his book on the Institute of Man and Resources, writes “To say that Islanders did not take well to the Plan is an understatement”).

In the Robertson Library Media Centre I came across a videotape of a 1978 CBC Television program on the Development Plan: an episode of the show Thursday Night hosted by Linden MacIntyre looked at the Plan ten years on, and MacIntyre interviewed people like MP David MacDonald, Eastern Graphic editor Jim MacNeill, farmer Walter Dingwell and Premier Alex Campbell.  Here’s a clip:

You can download the entire 28-minute episode (324 MB Quicktime) for the entire story.