CONCLUSION TO PART I^*

[268]

1. In the introductory chapter to this Report, we observed that the agenda of the public sessions which we held in the principal cities of Canada was provided by the organizations and the individuals who, through their interest in what we were doing, submitted briefs and appeared before us to discuss them. A similar observation is applicable to the content of this first part of our Report which we now conclude and in which we have recorded the views of representative organizations and citizens on the matters which we were instructed to consider. We are under no illusion that our account of these various subjects is at all complete; indeed, most of these questions, such as the press, the universities or the creative arts in Canada, could be treated fully only if we were to prepare a long series of volumes, each of them at least equal in length to this entire Report; this, within reasonable limitations of time and economy, we could not do. We do believe, however, that it has been useful to design and to compose this sketch of the Canadian scene in its principal aspects, a sketch which owes its composition to our Terms of Reference and its details to the many hundreds of our fellow-citizens who have made our task possible; we are grateful to them, and we are the richer for this experience.

2. There is a further point which should be mentioned: most of the briefs and most of the interviews came to us from organized societies. We heard little from the citizen who represented no one but himself; this, we suppose, was inevitable, since the substance of the various matters falling within our competence has attracted the organized interest of Canadian citizens. We are, however, struck by the fact that those who appeared before us, whether representing one of the arts, the sciences, labour or the farm, spoke to us primarily as Canadians deeply interested in the entire scope of the vast inquiry which we ventured to undertake; in the hundreds of briefs which we received and in the thousands of pages of evidence which we gathered, we believe we have heard the voice of Canada. We should like to think that we have recorded and reproduced this voice as clearly and as honestly as it came to us throughout our country and from so many of our fellow-citizens.

^* From: Canada. Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences. Report. Ottawa : King's Printer, 1951. By permission of the Privy Council Office.