Halifax: The infamous October Crisis will be revisited in a CBC limited drama series by Barna-Alper Productions and Big Motion Pictures. But executive producer/cowriter Wayne Grigsby says October 1970 will go much deeper than just the one month when ‘terrorism’ and ‘war-torn’ were synonymous with Montreal.

The 8 x 60 series begins on Oct. 5, 1970 – the day British diplomat James Cross was kidnapped from his Montreal home – through the murder of Quebec minister of labor Pierre Laporte, the War Measures Act, the manhunt for Front de Libération du Québec members Paul and Jacques Rose, and their arrests in December. Grigsby and cowriter Peter Mitchell (Cold Squad) had a wealth of material to draw upon.

‘There is just so much stuff,’ says Grigsby, who used the Duchaine Report, commissioned by the Parti Québécois in the late ’70s, as the skeleton for the show. ‘It is such an interesting story, with so many little sidebars that some people knew about but most of us didn’t, and little things that have been forgotten.’

The project was, at one point, in the running to be a 13 x 60. They settled on eight hours just before the CTF deadline. There is a chance it will run as a 4 x 120.

According to Grigsby, the idea came from a discussion between exec producer Laszlo Barna and Slawko Klymkiw, then CBC’s executive director of network programming. Klymkiw suggested Toronto-based Barna work with Halifax’s BMP, which, under the guidance of Grigsby and David MacLeod, has put together historic ‘big tickets’ such as Trudeau and its recent prequel.

Don McBrearty (Terry) is directing. The cast includes R.H. Thomson (Human Cargo), Denis Bernard (L’Audition), Mathieu Grondin (La Petite Lili), Karine Vanasse (Séraphin), Hugo St-Cyr (Harmonium) and Olivier Morin (Watatatow).

Grigsby adds that many of the young actors, especially those playing the FLQ members, did not have a complete understanding of what happened in 1970.

‘They were as curious about what happened as we were, so we’ve all had a great time exploring the history and telling that story,’ he says.

The series, budgeted at about $10.5 million, is shooting in English. Production began on Oct. 21 in Montreal and has since moved to Halifax, where it will remain until Feb. 3. No word on when it will air, but Grigsby hopes it will be in October 2006.