The Ontario Motion Picture Bureau was established by the Government of Ontario in 1917 and was the first state-founded film organization in the world, preceding the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau by a year. Its mandate was to carry out "educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers and other classes", to promote the province and its resources and "to encourage the building of highways and other public works". An extension of a growing movement to regulate theatres and films being shown in them, it was also established in an attempt to "counter the growing tide of un-British pictures being shown in theatres" throughout the province.