Series contains the minister's subject numbered correspondence. Most of these records were created when Gillespie was minister, 27 November 1972 until 25 September 1975. However, this correspondence extends for ten years, and was created by four other ministers of the Department of Industry, Trade, and Commerce (ITC). That department was created 1 April 1969 by the merger of the Department of Industry and of the Department of Trade and Commerce. Jean-Luc Pépin had been minister of both departments, 6 July 1968 to 31 March 1969, and he continued as the minister of the new department, 1 April 1969 to 26 November 1972. In addition to Pépin and Gillespie, Donald Jamieson, Minister 26 September 1975 to 13 September 1976, and Jean Chrétien, Minister 14 September 1976 to 15 September 1977 created some of the records in this series. In addition, there are small quantities of correspondence by CM Drury and Otto Lang as acting ITC Ministers. Thus this series consists of the correspondence of the Ministers of Industry, Trade, and Commerce during the first nine years of the first Trudeau Ministry.
This correspondence is arranged by subject classification numbers. Numbers 1-etc are Industry, Trade, and Commerce administration (vols. 57 - 65); numbers 3-etc are other government departments and agencies (vols. 65 - 69); numbers 6-2 to 6-99 are Industry, Trade, and Commerce programmes, activities, trade missions, employment, inquiries, and meetings (vols. 69 - 139); and numbers 7-etc are Parliamentary relations (vols. 139 - 142). Within the 70 volumes documenting ITC programmes and activities there are several large blocks of correspondence: companies are 6-3-1 to 6-3-275 (vols. 72 - 83); Export Development Corporation and the Dominion Bureau of Statistic (Statistic Canada from c1975) are 6-10 and 6-11, (vols. 86 - 89); textiles are 6-20 (vols. 95 - 97); relations with trading partners or groups of countries are 6-24-1 to 6-24-95 (vols. 99 - 102); programmes are 6-29-etc (vols. 104 - 108); exports or category of exports, including transportation and forest products, are most of volumes 109 to 116; Foreign Investment, including take-overs and Federal Investment Review Agency are 6-75-etc, (vols. 128 - 132); and scientific and technological issues are 6-78, (vols. 132 - 134), including computers in government 1970- 1975 (file 6-78-2, box 133), metric conversion, pollution, and Candu reactors.
The correspondence includes drafts, notes, and various memoranda with information gathered for replies. Many of the records have routing slips and marginalia by the political and departmental staff managing the correspondence. The last 3± volumes of the series are records from Gillespie's office, and were marked "Personal". They are parallel subject-numbered correspondence (vols. 142 - 145), and events during June 1973 - June 1976 (vols. 145 - 146). Events from 1976 until 1979 are in volumes 364 - 365. This series documents the politics of industrial and trade development and promotion, both nationally and internationally, during the ten years 1967 to 1977.
