These files consist largely of correspondence, some memos and briefing materials, and informational material (such as grey literature, press material, occasional publication and so on). The correspondence is cross-Canada, with Canadians addressing issues of concern to them to a Minister. Correspondents include, in addition to the Minister and constituents cross-Canada, governmental officials at all levels of Government, politicians, organizations and agencies, industry groups and businesses. Often the correspondence reveals the operation of a minister's office, through attached routing slips and commentary, which reflect the manner in which constituent's queries and requests were handled by Marchand's exempt staff.
File clusters 10-1 ("Subjects") and 10-2 ("Name & Company"), as well as 10-16 ("Government Department") are the largest Categories in this series. They comprise close to 70 % of all the files in this series. Files in 10-1 reflect important issues in Canadian society; for example, there are substantial blocs of files on "Firearms", "Abortion", "National Unity", "Indians", "Indian Brotherhood" and "Uranium Mines" (and opposition to them). In files in 10-2 there are significant blocs on the "National Indian Brotherhood" in its formative years and "Forestry". 10-2 has much material on British Columbia - discrete files on Indian matters (not confined to B.C. alone), and on B.C. businesses and industries. The correspondence reflects constituents' opinions and concerns about government policy, requests clarification, and often calls for the Minister to intervene on behalf of business or personal needs. A large bloc of files in 10-1, "Canada Works Program", demonstrates how a Minister worked to secure the well-being of his constituents. In sum, they reveal how government policies affected the lives of Canadians through governmental programs.
In broad terms, the 10-1 and 10-2 files hold material on commerce and trade, agriculture and forestry, business development (especially logging and timber processing), education, companies and corporations (often at their micro-level, such as tourism development and Telephone and TV service to unserviced regions), citizenship, education.
A point worth stressing, 10-1 and 10-2 are a rich source of material on Canadian Indians / Aboriginals. In addition to the 10-1-15 file cluster titled "Indians" (5 files) and "Indian Brotherhood" (3 files), there are at least 45 other files in these two clusters which, by their title, deal with Indians, Metis or Inuit matters. Additionally, there are many files which, although not reflected in the file title, hold Indian-related material.
The 10-16 "Departments" file cluster merits some commentary. This material is about Marchand's constituents, their issues and difficulties with government instance. It is rich in socio-economic history on the micro level, reflecting how government policies and programs touch individual Canadians. When constituents came with their issues (joblessness, taxation, citizenship rights, legal issues, health problems, pension difficulties and so on), the Minister's office responded. Routing and action slips, as well as memos, evidence this response, and help elucidate the working of a minister's office as it interacts with governmental bureaucracy. The records also demonstrate how MPs and ministers looked to politics, aware of the electoral consequences of policies and the need to serve their constituents. And again, needless perhaps to repeat, scattered and hidden throughout the files in this bloc are many records concerning Indians / aboriginals, who often addressed Marchand (a status Indian himself) with their issues from across the whole country.
Also of interest in this series is the audio recording which accompanied the textu-al files of the British Columbia Indian Language Project (volume 38, files 8 and 9). The recording was made on three separate audio cassettes, with the first two tapes consisting of a lexicon of spoken Okanagan, and the third type dealing with how to write in Okanagan. The recording is of lower quality, and is unfortunately incomplete with the third tape ending abruptly, but is of high enough quality for everything to still be audible (See ISN 471347 for detailed description of recording).
