The bulk of this collection falls into five main categories: records dealing with the Brandon Packers Strike of 1960 and the subsequent legal actions against the owners, including all 2215 pages of the Brandon Packers Strike Commission; records dealing with the Commission of Inquiry into The Pas Forestry and Industrial Complex, including the complete transcript of the inquiry measuring approximately 5m (This Commission dealt with the conduct of Churchill Forest Industries, a company owned by a Swiss financial firm, which, in the 1960's, was given approximately 93 million dollars by the Roblin Provincial Government to develop The Pas Forestry and Industrial Complex. Churchill Forest Industries and its parent company subsequently came under suspicion of fraud and accused of fradulently transfering The Pas Forestry funds into other foreign business interests); records dealing with business loans awarded by the Manitoba Development Corporation during the 1970's and 1980's to businesses primarily within Manitoba; records dealing with McKenzie Seeds, and McKenzie Steele-Briggs Seeds during the early 1980's when George MacDowell was a board member of McKenzie Seeds; and records dealing with Professor MacDowell's career as a Professor at Brandon University, including records relating to his courses and to administrative activities. To a lesser extent, this collection includes records dealing with the University of Saskatchewan College of Commerce, the publication the Manitoba New Democrat, issues associated with politics, labor and union in the prairie provinces from the 1960's to the 1980's, articles from various economic periodicals including Economica and Public Finance, a variety of government reports from 1941 to 1981, and records dealing with George MacDowells' relationship with the Brandon Firefighters Association.
