From a blog on the process of making the Minutes:
As a child of the 70’s, “Heritage Minutes” are etched into my youth. They were on TV and they were on the big screen before the movie started. Collectively they told a nice simple tale that Canada and Canadians are akin to Green Gables — bountiful, charming, and pleasant. Who didn’t want to celebrate that kind of good-news history and afterwards wrap themselves in the Canadian flag? As a kid growing up in Ottawa the allure of a grand national identity was powerfully intoxicating. But this was always measured — given that our family only lived in Ottawa so my father Tony Belcourt, could fight for Indigenous Rights because he, along with other leaders, shamefully had to. It wasn’t about lobbying to get a bigger piece of the pie, it was fighting for justice because people were dying in our communities.
I have to admit I was initially totally stoked when we were told that we were chosen to make two new Heritage Minutes – most of us have heard or seen these things, how cool is that? However, the two Minutes in question were on “Treaty” and “Residential School” … it wasn’t celebration time. These were going to have to be very different Minutes, not the ones we saw when we were kids, and to Historica Canada’s credit, they sought and hired an Indigenous Production company because they wanted to ensure that they did their best to get these two charged Canadian issues right.
Read the rest of the behind the scenes here: http://thebreath.com/2016/06/28/the-making-of-the-minutes/