The first episode covers 1873 to 1896. The 1870s and 1880s are a time of trial for the young Dominion of Canada. The country's first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, faces economic depression in the factories of the east and a new revolt in the west, led by his old nemesis, Louis Riel. The suppression of the Northwest Rebellion and Macdonald's single-minded insistence that the French-speaking Catholic Riel must hang for treason threatens to tear apart the fragile bond between Quebec and English Canada. During this same era, debates over provincial powers and the Manitoba Schools Question rage, and a dream is realized: the Canadian Pacific Railway links the country and opens the prairies to new floods of immigration. The second episode covers 1896 to 1915. A headlong economic boom, due to the growth of prairie agriculture and urban industry, and massive waves of immigration transform Canada between 1896 and 1915. Those who shape the new society include peasants from Eastern Europe in search of free land, socialists who try to mobilize an emerging urban working class, and campaigners for temperance and women's suffrage. The dizzying pace of change also brings ethnic intolerance and racism, particularly against Asian immigrants. As well, growing tensions over Canada's role in the British Empire help put an end to Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government in 1911. When World War I breaks out, a burst of enthusiasm in English Canada and resistance in French Canada foreshadows domestic conflict as wartime pressures grow.

Title from disc label. "Series 3." Special DVD features: Interactive menu; chapter indexing. Based on: Canada: a people's history / Don Gillmor and Pierre Turgeon.

Disc 1.Taking the West -- disc 2. Great transformation.