The Fifth Estate: Enemies of the State

CBC

It seems hard to imagine today that a Canadian government would approve a plan to round up thousands of law-abiding Canadians and lock them away simply because they were perceived to be a threat to Canadian democracy.

Conceived in the early days of the Cold War, the top-secret plan called "Profunc" was to be enacted if Canadian national security was threatened. The fear was stoked by the outbreak of the Korean War, which looked as if it might become the precursor to WW3.

In Canada, the head of the RCMP drew up a plan to lock up "Prominent Functionaries," including known communists and other people deemed to be subversives. The plan is breathtaking in its scale and detail. It listed those who were to be arrested, where they would be interned and how they were to be treated. Families of targeted people were not spared: many wives and children were to be locked away as well.

Incredibly, The Profunc blueprint remained in place until the 1980s. Only today are some people learning for the first time that they and their families were deemed Enemies of the State. The names of those people will astonish most Canadians.

"Enemies of the State' also explores the targeting of possible 'subversives' today and asks what kinds of lists might exist that the Canadian public doesn't know about.

Watch this episode of The Fifth Estate HERE.