A maritime tale of struggle and betrayal

“Betrayed: the sto­ry of Cana­di­an Mer­chant Sea­men” is a hard­hit­ting new Cana­di­an doc­u­men­tary on the strug­gle of Cana­di­an mer­chant sea­men against the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment and ship own­ers which led to an inter­na­tion­al strike in 1949.

Mar­itime work­ers in New Zealand lent their sup­port to the Cana­di­an sea­men who fought a des­per­ate bat­tle to pro­tect their jobs and con­di­tions.

Doc­u­men­tary mak­er Elaine Brière is pro­mot­ing “Betrayed” in New Zealand with two screen­ings in Auck­land and Welling­ton, host­ed by the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand.

The Auck­land screen­ing of “Betrayed” is at the Mar­itime Club, 39 Beach Road, on Sat­ur­day 23 April. The Mar­itime Union is host­ing the event and will be putting on drinks and snacks before­hand at 6.30pm. The screen­ing is free and open to the pub­lic.

The Welling­ton screen­ing of “Betrayed” is at B4 café, 222 Willis St (next to Water­side House) on Tues­day 26 April at 7.30pm. The screen­ing is free and open to the pub­lic.

Elaine Brière is a well-known Van­cou­ver doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er and film­mak­er. Her first film, “Bit­ter Par­adise: The Sell-out of East Tim­or,” won Best Polit­i­cal Doc­u­men­tary at the 1997 Hot Docs Fes­ti­val. Her book,”Testimony: Pho­tographs of East Tim­or,” was pub­lished in May 2004.

Although Cana­da is sur­round­ed by three oceans, there is not a sin­gle deep-sea ship fly­ing the Cana­di­an flag today, but six­ty years ago, Cana­da had the fourth-largest mer­chant fleet in the world. Cana­di­an ships brought vital sup­plies to Allied forces in Europe dur­ing World War II. The men sail­ing those ships were war heroes who suf­fered ter­ri­ble loss­es. Their union, The Cana­di­an Seaman’s Union (CSU), brought the eight-hour day, sick leave and pay increas­es to an indus­try known for low wages and bru­tal work­ing con­di­tions.

After the war, when the Lib­er­al gov­ern­ment of Louis St. Lau­rent began to pri­va­tize the mer­chant fleet, the CSU strong­ly opposed the sell-off. The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and ship own­ers ini­ti­at­ed a cam­paign to dis­cred­it the CSU. It was a time of fear, con­fu­sion and betray­al.

This doc­u­men­tary tells the lit­tle-known strug­gle of mer­chant sea­men to save the mer­chant fleet and their liveli­hood. It traces the his­to­ry of Cana­di­an ship­ping from the inter­na­tion­al strike of 1949 to the glob­al­iza­tion of coastal ship­ping in Aus­tralia by Cana­da Steamship Lines – owned by the fam­i­ly of Cana­di­an prime min­is­ter, Paul Mar­tin.