Four Days in March

Six months after the filming of Ten Days in September, the National Film Board came back to Prince Edward Island, in March of 1969, to film the follow-up The Prince Edward Island Development Plan, Part 2: Four Days in March.

Del Gallagher, who featured prominently in the first film, has now left his position at the Economic Improvement Corporation (EIC), the details of the Comprehensive Development Plan have been worked out, and the film opens with the reading of the Speech from the Throne by Lieutenant Governor Hon. Willibald Joseph MacDonald that announced that the Plan would be introduced during the session:

The centre of this film, however, is the debate over how the plan is to be implemented, and this focuses discussions at the Rural Development Council and an interview with a farmer-member of the National Farmers Union:

The film closes with an excerpt of a CBC Television interview with Hon. Alex Campbell, Premier, and Hon. Jean Marchand, minister in the Canadian government responsible for regional development:

It’s interesting to contrast the federal proposal to drop education from the Plan, that was hotly debated in the first film, became, in the final Plan, 60% of the spending.

You can order the film on DVD from the National Film Board or find it in the Media Centre in the Robertson Library at UPEI.