Making History: The Remarkable Story Behind Canada: A People's History

How to make a successful television series when there’s no money, everyone has been laid off, and your bosses are fighting

Canada: A People’s History was a monumental undertaking for the CBC and its executive producer, Mark Starowicz: thirty-two hours of film, aired in seventeen episodes over two years, and the first ever co-production between the CBC and Radio-Canada.

Making History is Starowicz’s shockingly candid account of the making of the series. Proposed at a time when the CBC was laying off veteran staff en masse and shutting down its production facilities because of government cutbacks, the very idea of the series was more like the last gasp of a dying corporation than a sound proposal. The obstacles the series faced were enormous: the incomprehension and lukewarm support of some of the CBC brass; the technical and political challenges of being the first ever French-English co-production in Canadian television; the exasperating job of searching for corporate partners. Despite these huge obstacles, when the series went to air, it took the country by storm, gathering record numbers of viewers each episode.

A madcap adventure story, an insider’s account of a major corporation at its nadir, and the story in microcosm of relations between English and French Canada, Making History is brutally honest and often very funny.

A journalistic star of the CBC, and the brains behind As It Happens, Sunday Morning, The Journal, and the internationally acclaimed series Dawn of the Eye, Mark Starowicz is currently head of CineNorth, CBC Television’s documentary unit. In July 2000, he was honoured with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Journalism Foundation, and later was featured on Maclean’s Year 2000 Honour Roll. He has also received six honorary degrees for his work. Starowicz is an indefatigable promoter of Canadian history and of the CBC.