Abstract
This essay focusses on an aspect of Margaret Laurence’s business correspondence: the intriguing unpublished letters between Laurence and Richard Nielsen, producer of the television and film company Nielsen-Ferns Ltd., and between Laurence and Gordon Hinch, Public Affairs Department, Imperial Oil. Nielsen and Hinch wanted Laurence to write a television script for them. Laurence refused because the show was to be sponsored by Imperial Oil. The essay examines the ways in which imperial language and values are embedded within the letters from Imperial Oil and Nielsen-Ferns. It also explains why Laurence was a particularly fitting figure to represent these companies’ aims. The essay situates this correspondence within the world oil crisis of the 1970s and the implementation of multiculturalism in Canada. Laurence’s rejection of Nielsen-Ferns and Imperial Oil’s offer, the essay argues, is an extension of her broader condemnation of imperialism, the nuclear arms race, and indeed war itself.
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