Sub-series consists of files created mainly by W.M. Cory, legal advisor to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and its predecessors from ca.1930 to ca.1952, on legal and regulatory issues of concern to the various Branches of the department. The files are dated mainly from 1947 to 1955. Some of these files predate the creation of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration; they may have originated with the predecessor Departments (Indian Affairs, Mines, Mines and Resources, and Interior) in the period 1923-1949. Many of the individual items are loosely organized reference files containing documents relating to several different branch functions at the same time.
The files are in three groups: one unnumbered series dated 1925-1963, volumes 71-73 and two numbered series, dated 1923-1955, volumes 70-71 and 1936-1964, volumes 73-74. The principle by which the files are organized (if any) is not clear. Brief summaries of the different subject records are given below. The files are thoroughly intermixed.
The majority of the records in volumes 70-74 relate to Indian Affairs legal issues in the period 1939-1963. These include the drafting of the 1951 Indian Act and its subsequent amendments and regulations; recommendations of the Special Senate/ House of Commons Joint Committee on Indian Affairs (1946-1948); constitutional, statutory, and federal/ provincial issues affecting Indian people and property; Indian reserve land and resource transactions (surrenders, leases, rights of way, estates, and resource rights) generally and in specific cases; Indian status, membership and citizenship (including detailed lists, personal information, and other records on the Indian band membership inquiries and status legislation of 1951-1958); Indian health care and school regulations; Indian-owned and on-reserve businesses; control of "immorality" and illegitimacy in Indian communities; and files on the conduct of specific court actions including Chisholm v. R., Miller v. R., Logan v. Styres, and the membership cases of 1952-1958.
There are a number of files (Federal Lands and Resources) on the status and administration of federal lands (including Territorial lands, airports, and quarantine stations), resources, international territorial claims, and related properties. Topics covered include resource administration procedures; status and history of western railway land subsidies and the Manitoba "Fertile Belt" lands; provincial and international boundary surveys in Northwestern Alberta and elsewhere; hydro (water) power and oil development projects and court actions, and water rights generally; Arctic sovereignty; the British Columbia Six Harbours agreement; and the administration of estates of persons dying in the Northwest Territories.
Topics related to Immigration include the handling of Immigration Act fines, the use of Immigration records for tax investigations, and the swearing of affidavits concerning the war criminal Count Jacques de Bernonville.
Files relating to Citizenship include the following subjects: the legal status of aliens and naturalization; amendments to and interpretation of the Canada Citizenship Act and regulations (1947-1952); and the citizenship status of Governor General Lord Alexander, Lady Alexander, and Igor Gouzenko (1951).
Other miscellaneous files include: minutes and correspondence of the National Advisory Committee on Manpower (1951-1952); files on the production of privileged federal documents, the War Book, payment of Newfoundland Social Security tax by federal employees, and bonding of federal surveyors; files kept by W.M. Cory as Assistant Radio Broadcasting Censor (10 February-26 March 1940) for the Manitoba Region (at Winnipeg), responsible to the federal Censorship Co-Ordination Committee. In this position he enforced the Defence of Canada Regulations relating to political broadcasting during the federal election campaign of March 1940, (see volume 70 file 44 and volume 74 file 1870).
Scattered throughout volumes 70-74 are small files which appear to relate to the personal or semi-official business of W.M. Cory and of his relative Thomas Lewis Cory. The latter was also a federal solicitor, employed by the North-West Territories Branch of the Department of the Interior, and was the son of William Wallace Cory (Deputy Minister of the Interior, 1904-ca.1929). The files deal mainly with mining claims, mechanical inventions and surveys in the North, ca.1923-1955 (e.g. volume 71, files 51 to 77 and volume 74 file 2220).
