This Just In: Hon. George Drew, from speech at Pembroke, Ontario (9 July 1953)

FOREWORD Drew Condemns the Internment without Trial of Arcand and his men Hon. George Drew, 14th Premier of Ontario George Drew’s speech of July 9th, 1953 arrived in my inbox on July 9th, 2019, and July 9th, 1953 is my birthday, so maybe this is a good omen.  In his draft Memorandum and Request for redress dated 1957, Adrien Arcand referred to this Drew speech.1  I was lucky to be able to get it from Drew’s own archives in Ottawa.  Drew was the 14th Premier of Ontario from August 17, 1943 – October 19, 1948. That Drew should have made the speech is particularly interesting.  Justice Minister Louis Saint-Laurent tried to send Drew to the camps as well in WWII!  He charged him under section 39B of the Defence Of Canada Regulations.  Drew defended himself, and won.2 (I like him already.) The Drew speech will be included in the upcoming eBook that I owe you.  Here it is (emphases added).

Part of Speech of Hon. George Drew, Pembroke, July 9, 1953 One of the points in our program—and a very important point (it) is—includes the promise that we will restore the rule of law.  We believe that there should be no interference with the freedom and work of the individual by order-in-council or still worse at the whim of any government official. At the root of our free democracy is the principle that no man or woman shall have their freedom threatened or their right to work denied except under a known law3, defining the offence and enforced only by our free and impartial courts. The present government abandoned that principal long ago.  During the last war, in this free Canada of ours, men were put in concentration camps without any charge being laid against them.4 They were denied any access to the courts.  They were refused their historic right to defend themselves and to be regarded as innocent until their guilt was proved.  Later it was found that innocent men had been held for long periods.  They were offered no redress. Now we are seeing a less severe but equally unjust procedure which denies the rule of law.  In the name of “Screening” we have seen witchhunts by the government in different government agencies.  For months the government refused to permit the National Film Board to take any pictures in places where some measure of security was involved.  They placed innocent and highly efficient men and women under a cloak of suspicion while they searched for what—Communist activities, which they say they are unable to define.

– 2 – Then with a great show of satisfaction they declared that they had cieansed the board of offenders who are guilty of no offence which this Government will define by law.  The same sort of witchhunt has been carried on elsewhere. They passed an order-in-council to deal with Communism among sailors6 on vessels operating on the Great Lakes.  Again there was no definition of the offence.  Again men were denied the right to work which is the right to live.  And again it was for something the Government says it is unable to define.  Who knows whether the men dealt with are innocent or guilty.  There was no trial.  No court made a decision. That is the kind of witchhunt we have promised to stop.  Our party stands firmly against Communism.  Make no mistake about that.  We believe in the rule of law for which men and women have fought and died, in years gone by, that freedom might be secure. We are told that there must be no interference with ideas.  That is our position.  This Government is denying men and women the right to work because of ideas.  Our contention is that the positive act of working to destroy our democracy in the service of the Kremlin5 or any other foreign government should be declared an offence by law.  Only our courts should have the right to deal with the freedom of any individual.  The present witchhunts must come to an end and firm steps be taken under a known law, passed by parliament, to deal with agents of an international conspiracy to destroy our freedom. The government can hardly deny that it knows that active organizers of the Communist Party, under any name they choose, are servants of the Kremlin.  The Government has published a report on

– 3 – Communist activities prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which makes that clear.  Their activities are described as treachery.  We believe that particular form of treachery can be defined. At a time our young men are fighting that international conspiracy on the field of battle we think it must be defined and the fight against Communist and other treacherous activities of that kind dealt with under the rule of law. I am surprised to read reports of a statement by the Prime Minister that the government is unaware of Communist activities in agencies of the government.  They told us of this in the House of Commons.  That is why they have been “Screening” a number of government agencies. There is however a particular reason for surprise because the press has been carrying detailed stories of Communist activities for some time.  If the Prime Minister has not been informed by the Minister responsible I would have expected that he would hear about it through the press. Canadians who understand this menace were shocked to learn just over a month ago that a Communist-led union which had been expelled by the Canadian Congress of Labour because of its Communist activities is in a position to paralyze our vital uranium industry. Among the mines and other operations where this union has been organized is the Federal Government’s own uranium operations.  At the head of that organization is a man now called Harvey Murphy.  He is a European born Communist who was trained at the Lenin Institute in Moscow where they specialize in political warfare and sabotage.  His agents, and the government knows their names, have

– 4 – been organizing in the government owned operations which are intended to provide our most vital military requirement. If the government does not know about those activities then this is an added proof that it is incapable to govern.  I am informed that at this very time there is an application by this Communist-led organization before the Labor Relations Board to be certified as the bargaining agent for the Government owned uranium operation in Saskatchewan.  If it was regarded as important to restrain Communist activities on ships in the Great Lakes it is surely equally important to deal with Communism in Canada’s most vital operations. The Government is dodging this issue by a smoke screen of appeals to the priceless name of freedom.  We will respect the true principles of freedom.  We will pass a law to define an offence for which this Government has not hesitated to send men to concentration camps without a law. We will protect the freedom of the individual by making certain that only by a decision of our courts will this law be interpreted. We will defend the freedom of Canada at home as well as abroad by taking the steps necessary to protect ourselves against treachery of this kind.  We will restore the Rule of Law.7

__________ 1. See Memorandum and Request, second paragraph, where Arcand prefaces the Drew quote at Pembroke as follows at page 14: “The Hon. George Drew, speaking in a public meeting in Pembroke, Ont., on the 9th of July 1953, stated …”. 2. “Drew is politically and physically brave.  He once saved a man from drowning in Lake Ontario.  An hour before appearing in court on a charge of infringing section 39B of the Defense of Canada Regulations, he slipped and broke his war-shattered left arm.  He appeared in court with the arm unset and unattended, spoke in his own defense for some 20 minutes.” (Maclean’s, “George Drew” by Pierre Berton, October 1, 1948. Anecdote: I was a fact-checker for Reader’s Digest (Westmount office, Montreal) in the early 1970s.  I had to take apart books and articles, sentence by sentence, and verify each alleged fact with three independent sources to prove or disprove it, and recommend corrections.  Only one writer ever crossed my desk who never needed correction.  Pierre Berton. 3. The concept of being subject to “known” law seems to derive in UK and thus in Canada, from the principle of promulgation advanced by Saint Thomas Aquinas.  Webster includes a definition of promulgate stating, “to make known or public the terms of (a proposed law)” and “to put (a law or rule) into action or force”.  In other words, law must be known in advance to allow the public to comply.  (Or, also in Canada, to contest it as void or ultra vires.)  The Orders in Council of William Lyon Mackenzie King banning the National Unity Part of Canada and then “declaring” Arcand and his men members of an illegal association (by surprise while they were imprisoned), were not “law,” but a trap.  Arcand and his men were not allowed to comply in advance because it wasn’t passed as law, which in Canada undergoes debate in the Legislature and is promulgated when passed.  Mackenzie King was notorious in his day for ruling by decree using Orders in Council, which is what George Drew is referring to when he promises to restore the “rule of law” as opposed to Liberal dictatorship.  In other words, when Arcand, in his 1957 Memorandum and Request, talks about “tyranny” and “despotism”, he isn’t kidding.  He’s talking about the Liberals, who then as now have no liking for Parliament or democratic procedures.  AAB 4. Drew possibly means the charges laid were not proved in court before the men were interned, arbitrarily.  AAB 5. This being 1953, and Fred Rose being in jail for espionage, Drew must be alluding to the obvious… that Communists can hardly take office in Canada (their oaths being void) since they work for a foreign power geared to overthrow the country.  AAB 6. Not on the Great Lakes, but a great story otherwise on point.  In my article, “Blockbuster: The Testimony of Patrick Walsh to the Un-American Activities Subcommittee (1953)” at my Anticommunist Archive, I said of Pat Walsh—a great Canadian defector from the Communists: “Walsh, under Communist orders to get on a ship and become a member of the Canadian Seamen’s Union, is accompanied to the dock by his fellow Communists. Shortly before the Mont Rolland lifts anchor to sail out of Montreal, the Communist strong-arms board the vessel, grab the hired galley boy with his baggage and throw him off the ship.  In his place, our man Walsh is brought aboard.  The Reds put Walsh in charge of Communist propaganda amongst the crew.  For his full-time Communist activities, Walsh receives the pay for the job of a galley boy, a job he now holds in name, but never does.  In his place, Communist sailors from deckside visit the galley each day on orders of Walsh’s fellow agitators.  The conscripted seamen obediently swab and paint the galley, and peel Walsh’s potatoes for him!  Walsh, a former student of Fred Rose (Soviet spy), hands free, teaches Communism to the sailors.” 7. In a footnote on page 160, in the section Labor/Travail, segment VIII “Critics of Government Repression”, Reg Whitaker, author of Official Repression of Communism During World War II (published January 1, 1986), offers more on George Drew’s opposition to internment by decree.  “Even George Drew, usually in favour of repression of Communists, spoke out eloquently against internment without trial:  Toronto Telegram, 7 November 1940 and Saturday Night, 16 November 1940.  Drew himself ran afoul of the regulations by criticizing government war policy, although the Liberals finally thought better of acting against a leading Tory.  PAC, Brooke Claxton Papers, Claxton to King, 12 October 1940: FRS, Vol. 30, file 13, 14 January 1940; Cook, ‘Freedom in Canada,’” 45-6. At page 143, Whitaker also footnotes “Montreal Star, ‘Probe of Reds Urged by Drew.’ 15 November 1939; WLMK/M&N, Vol, 355, File 3814, J.A. Gibson, ‘Re: Defence of Canada Regulations,’ 23 May 1940.”  AAB Source:  The file title of the George Drew typewritten speech transcribed above, in the files of the National Library and Archives of Canada, is: “Speech.  Pembroke [General election issues] – Manuscript 9 July 1953”.  It is archived in “362 ( 3 B ) SPEECHES 9-21 JULY, 1953,” “The Hon. George Drew fonds, p000000128.pdf Volume 315, File 361”, 5 pages.  The fifth page is covered in apparently randomly scribbled names of people and organizations.  I haven’t given you a “part” of the speech, I’ve given you everything the Archives gave to me, this “part” seems to be all they have. – 30 –

Welcome to “Down With Hate!” for the 74th Anniversary of Adrien Arcand’s release from Internment during WWII

To celebrate the 74th anniversary marking the end of “the longest internment of its kind in the whole British Empire,”1 Adrien Arcand Books is proud to present rare source materials on the arrest, internment and release of Adrien Arcand.  We focus in particular on a document by communist defector Pat Walsh and another by Adrien Arcand, himself. “Memorandum And Request Re: Claims of Canadian Nationalists Against The Government of Canada for Unjust Internments,” submitted by Adrien Arcand, 1957 Additional materials complement the choice, including excerpts from Hansard, photos of Arcand and his men in the interment camps, a rare audio tape of Louis Saint-Laurent telling the U.N. it’s the “basis of the world government” (required to put an end to wars), and our third new eBook in less than a month, Adrien Arcand’s 1957 Memorandum and Request Re: Claims of Canadian Nationalists Against the Government of Canada for Unjust Internments, to complete our launch trio. The other two new eBooks are already up.  Heading for Ottawa! Canadian Corporatism, and The Inevitability of a Social Reconstruction. First up, Pat Walsh:  Who is he? Pat Walsh defected from the Communists on Catholic radio and in the Catholic press on 27th February 1953. His French radio and newspaper interviews are online along with English translations at the Anticommunist Archive. Pat Walsh was a well known anticommunist of his era. Yet his life and work seem to have gone down George Orwell’s “Memory Hole”. Walsh has no profile in The Canadian Encyclopedia (in contrast, say, to influential Communist, Stanley Bréhaut Ryerson). Walsh has no profile in Wikipedia, either – odd, given the pleasure taken by Wikipedia in trashing people they call “far right”. Despite the public vacuum, lecturer Eric Bédard in 2013, at the Quebec library and archives (BAnQ) knew who Walsh was, and mentioned Walsh, along with Robert Rumilly, in a talk Bédard gave on the 1960 Quebec provincial elections.1 Walsh and Rumilly were trying to warn the public about the Jean Lesage Liberals, who nonetheless won a minority government and set up a Council to report to Lesage himself on a communist plan to run Quebec. Pat was born in Quebec City, Canada, on March the 17th, 1916. His wife’s name was Rose. At the time Pat defected from the Communists, he and Rose had three children. Walsh was fluently bilingual and had a habit of apologizing for his Quebec French accent when speaking English. His interviewers described him as “stocky,” “ruddy-faced,” “a strapping man”. As an unemployed teen in 1935, Pat Walsh joined the Young Communist League where he was trained in Marxism in Montreal. One of Pat’s professors was none other than Soviet spy and member of Canadian Parliament, Fred Rose, aka Fischel Rosenberg (code name: Dabouz), tried and convicted for espionage in 1946. After his training, Walsh moved into the Communist party (without a Party card) to become one of its “old-time” reliable agitators. He also led numerous “grass-roots” and trade-union Communist front organizations here in Canada, and was often used as an agitator by the Communists in French-speaking countries. On learning the truth about the Communists from the gritty inside, Walsh, in secret alliance with other anti-Communists, turned informer and helped to save lives by stopping the Communist scuttling (sinking) of the SS Mont Rolland. Walsh gave voluntary testimony in 1953 to the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), adding information to their data on convicted traitor Alger Hiss. Pat Walsh, in his life and writings, gave us a crucial record of some of the Communist penetration of the WWII war effort, and of Canada generally – especially the federal level – in the period from the late 1930s onward. I recommend Pat’s Secret Communist Agents (1968) and his Inside The Featherbed File (circa 1982).  The latter was purchased by me from The State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Exactly two items by Walsh are found in container number two of Adrien Arcand’s papers in Special Collections at Vanier Campus, Concordia University. I grabbed both items on June 4th, 2019, produced one on a spy ring at the Anticommunist Archive, and the other — a 1963 letter to Mrs. Andrew Hunter “On the subject of Mr. Adrien Arcand” — is transcribed here for the 74th anniversary of Arcand’s release from WWII internment. The Amazing Letter of Pat Walsh from 1963 detailing Federal government public statements of Arcand’s innocence before and after they interned him without a trial Pat Walsh (circa 1968) Patrick Walsh’s letter of October 7, 1963, in English, to Mrs. Andrew Hunter of Ville St-Pierre, Quebec, “On the subject of Mr. Adrien Arcand”.  In this testimonial to Arcand’s innocence, Walsh denounces Arcand’s internment and the fact that “he never had a trial” (Walsh’s underline).  Pat Walsh was a well known anticommunist in his day who defected from the communists publicly on 27 Feb 1953, on Catholic radio and on the front page of the Quebec daily paper, L’Action Catholique.  Before he defected, Pat Walsh worked for years, under cover, exposing communist activities to Canada’s national police.  For background on Pat Walsh, and some of his writings, in French and in English, visit the Anticommunist Archive. Arcand’s 1957 plea to the Federal government for war-time internment reparations This is not a translation.  It is a complete transcript of Adrien Arcand’s typewritten manupscript in English enttled:  “Memorandum And Request Re: Claims Of Canadian Nationalists Against The Government Of Canada For Unjust Internments,” submitted by Adrien Arcand, 1957.  This originally 13-page document on long paper (8.5″x14″), is from Adrien Arcand’s personal papers in the Special Collections at Concordia University’s Vanier Library.  In transcribing it, typographical errors have been corrected for ease of reading. MEMORANDUM CITATION, Chicago style: Author (Walsh, Pat). (Typed Draft) Memorandum and Request:  Re: Claims of Canadian nationalists Against the Government of Canada for Unjust Internments submitted by Adrien Arcand [1957]. Identifier (C004). Box number 002, folder number or item number 538-550. Adrien Arcand Collection. Concordia University Library, Special Collections, location of repository (Montreal, Quebec, Canada.)

HERE’S WHAT I OWE YOU Here’s what I owe you, as promised:  Arcand’s 1957 Memorandum and Request as an eBook (Flash flipbook, PDF and ePub); and a cover Editorial for the 74th Anniversary of Adrien Arcand’s release from WWII internment. The Editorial is underway, but I haven’t slept in a couple of days.  I will finish it this week and post it later. Also coming:  Hansard of Justice Minister Louis Saint-Laurent, from October 1st, 1945, precisely as quoted by Pat Walsh to Mrs. Andrew Hunter, admitting there was no wrongdoing by Arcand and his National Unity Party of Canada. Thank you for your patience!  Happy End-of-Internment Day!

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¹ My exclusive English translation of Eric Bédard’s lecture, “Le 22 juin 1960 — L’élection de Jean Lesage : « un changemen de la vie »?” (June 22nd 1960 — the Electionof Jean Lesage : “a change of life”?) at the Grand Bibliothèque on 28 March 2013.

Patrick Walsh’s letter of October 7, 1963, to Mrs. Andrew Hunter of Ville St-Pierre, Quebec, “On the subject of Mr. Adrien Arcand ”

LETTER FROM PAT WALSH TO MRS. ANDREW HUNTER ON OCTOBER 7TH, 1963 FILE: Arcand, Adrien. COPY Pat Walsh, P.O. Box 130, Flesherton – Ont., October 7, 1963. Mrs. P. Andrew Hunter, 75 Hillcrest Avenue, Ville St. Pierre – P. Que. Subject: On the subject of Mr. Adrien Arcand. … Dear Mrs. Hunter:- A close Flesherton friend requested that I drop you a line in answer to your request for information on Mr. Adrien Arcand, the leader of the National Unity Party of Canada. Undoubtedly because of the smear campaign directed by the big press it is not surprising that you are not acquainted with the true facts of Mr. Arcand’s background. It would only be elementary British justice not to condemn a man until he has been found guilty. Yet in Mr. Arcand’s case (as well as in the case of many others) when he was interned during WWII he never had a trial. If you will permit the undersigned to give you a few background facts on this case:- 1. Pursuant to pressure of the Canadian Jewish Congress, on May 29th, 1940, Mr. Arcand was arrested with ten other National Unity Party members. Prior to this Mr. Arcand had notified the RCMP that he was at their disposal and gave word of his exact address. 2. Mr. Arcand was charged with violating articles 29 and 29A* of the Defence of Canada Regulations, was denied bail, was remanded for three days in the Provincial Police Headquarters, then transferred for nineteen days solitary confinement in the Montreal-Bordeaux jail. 3. In the course of a so-called preliminary enquiry no evidence of any illegal action was offered in court or anywhere else against Mr. Arcand and the other arrested National Unity Party members. 4. From April to the end of May 1940, an artificial campaign of propaganda was unleashed throughout Canada by the Jewish organizations and the Communist Party (ironically masterminded by Fred Rose(enberg) later to be tried and convicted for Soviet espionage), accompanied by an evidently manufactured mass hysteria with the purpose of presenting Mr. Arcand and his followers as a “Nazi Fifth Column in Canada”. 5. At the start of the war in 1939, Commissioner Stuart S. Wood of the RCMP publicly declared: “THE NATIONAL UNITY PARTY IS A PURELY CANADIAN ORGANIZATION, THE ONLY REAL INTERNAL FOE IN CANADA IS THE COMMUNIST PARTY”. 6. Mr. Arcand, before the war and after, was an Officer in the reserve unit of the Canadian army. 7. On Mr. Arcand’s suggestion, all the able-bodied members of the NUP offered their services to the armed forces of Canada. Many of these were refused because “they had been opposed to International Jewry”. 8. The private and public meetings of the NUP were always opened by a salutation to His Majesty the King. (cont’d). – 2 – 9. The Minister of Justice in 1945 stated officially on October 1st of that year, quoting from an official enquiry report made to him by Mr. F.P. Varcoe, his deputy-Minister, and Mr. G. Fauteux, K.G. (later to be Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec) who had acted as Crown Attorney at the preliminary inquiry referred to in (3):- “There is no evidence that his (Arcand’s) activities and those of the party did any injury or in the slightest degree prejudiced the successful prosecution of the war”. 10. The federal government abandoned legal proceedings in 1940 against Mr. Arcand and his NUP followers. The Minister of Justice stated that “these people (Arcand et al) will be given a fair trial after the war”. 11. Commissioner Stuart S. Wood of the RCMP submitted a report to the Minister of Justice which stated formally:- “The National Unity Party is an essentially Canadian organization”, and this report was tabled in the House of Commons. 12. Federal cabinet ministers have publicly admitted that Mr. Adrien Arcand and his followers were illegally detained during World War II. One of these Federal Cabinet Ministers, Honorable C.G. “Chubby” Power (now Senator) the war-time Minister of Aviation, publicly stated in Montreal in 1947 that “Arcand and his followers were unjustly arrested and later detained for five years and five weeks. The whole procedure was one of the most flagrant violations of British justice in Canadian history.” 13. Mr. Arcand and his followers were not allowed to take judiciary proceedings against the Government of Canada. Trusting that those facts will enable you to get a better outlook on the whole Arcand case I would wish to add a few words of personal comment. The undersigned having worked for municipal, provincial and federal police agencies in general against subversive movements throughout the better part of the past thirty years, and in particular with the RCMP Special Branch of the Intelligence and Security Directorate has had the occasion to ascertain that Mr. Arcand and his followers were patriotic Canadians who dedicated their lives for Canada and always wished to retain our link with the British Commonwealth in general and the Crown in particular. I have always considered Mr. Arcand as one of the outstanding Christian journalists of our times and a world-wide recognized authority on the Jewish question. Because he believed in Christian principles, the Canadian Jewish Congress were responsible for his internment and his health was impaired and his family subject to physical and moral distress during these five long years of unjustified internment. It is not without stupor that the same Federal government later realized that the main Jew responsible for Mr. Arcand’s internment, Fred Rose, was himself utilizing the “Nazi Fifth Column” smear as a convenient smokescreen to hide the elaborate setting-up of a Soviet spy network WITHIN the Liberal government in Ottawa. Thanks to Igor Gouzenko, this Soviet ring was exposed and Fred Rose, Sam Carr and the other communists (mostly Jewish) were sent to the penitentiary. Truly yours, Pat Walsh. ______ WALSH LETTER, CITATION Chicago style: Author (Walsh, Pat). (Copy) Letter from Pat Walsh (Flesherton, Ontario) to Mrs. Andrew Hunter, October 7, 1963. Identifier (C004). Box number 002, folder number or item number 644-645. Adrien Arcand Collection. Concordia University Library, Special Collections, location of repository (Montreal, Quebec, Canada.) Nota bene: Underlines in the letter are those of Pat Walsh. Walsh’s numbered para-graph 9 is confirmed word-for-word in Hansard. The speaker was Canada’s future prime minister, Louis-Stephen Saint-Laurent, Minister of Justice of Canada at the time. See page 590 in Debates of the House of Commons, First Session—Twentieth Parliament, years 9-10 George VI, 1945, Volume I, 1945, online at http://parl. canadiana.ca/?usr lang=en. AAB __________ * Other sources, including Hansard, and Arcand himself, indicate that the charges were under sections 39 and 39A. SUMMARY: Arcand and his men never had a trial. Interned due to pressure from Canadian Jewish Congress. Pressure from other Jewish organizations in Canada. Pressure from Communists (led by Fred Rose, Soviet spy). Rose publishes slander: “Nazi Fifth Column in Canada”. There is another book by Rose not mentioned by Walsh, called “Fascism Over Canada”. 1939, RCMP Commissioner publicly states NUPC not a foreign enemy, but purely Canadian. 1940, no evidence offered at the so-called “preliminary inquiry” or at any other time. Federal Government “abandoned” preliminary inquiry instead of going to trial against Arcand and the NUPC, and interned them directly. 1940, Justice Minister Ernest Lapointe promises “fair trial” after the war (promise broken by successor Saint-Laurent) 1945, October 1, Justice Minister Saint-Laurent admits in Hansard, NUPC did not hamper the war effort as charged under sections 39 and 39A. RCMP Commissioner submits report to Minister of Justice, tabled in the House, NUPC “essentially Canadian organization” (not a foreign instrument) 1947, Senator Chubby Power publicly states, Arcand et als were unjustly arrested and detained. Nonetheless, Arcand et als were denied all legal recourse against those who had abused them.

New eBook: Memorandum and Request Re: Claims of Canadian Nationalists Against the Government of Canada for Unjust Internments submitted by Adrien Arcand, 1957

“Memorandum And Request Re: Claims of Canadian Nationalists Against The Government of Canada for Unjust Internments,” submitted by Adrien Arcand, 1957.  Download the free Flash flipbook, PDF and ePub in a zip file.

The download isn’t quite ready yet.  I’m giving you a preview, Arcand’s 1957 text from the upcoming eBook, with a 1930 Editorial and a few cartoons to illustrate why the Liberals would have interned Arcand and his men, in part as “political revenge”.  It’s been a hairy three days, sleepless with a party animal under my window all night before Canada Day, who lives in a condo upstairs; then a plumbing emergency at 7:00 a.m. for a pipe-leak in the laundry room, and that’s all it took to delay the big celebration.  But, it’s coming, excuse me!  Hang in there!  More is on the way. The Memorandum and Request is not a translation.  This is Adrien Arcand writing in English.

MEMORANDUM AND REQUEST RE:

Claims of Canadian Nationalists Against The Government of Canada for Unjust Internments”

submitted by Adrien Arcand

Draft dated 1957 by the Archivist in Special Collections at Vanier Campus, Concordia University.  See citation below the document. Cartoons from Arcand’s magazines and excerpts from documents and correspondence are added to illustrate Arcand’s points. Pagination follows the new eBook.

L-R:  William Lyon Mackenzie King and Ernest Lapointe, PC.  William Lyon Mackenzie King, “our American Prime Minister” in WWII, interned Arcand and his men without proof and without trial.  Meanwhile, Ernest Lapointe, PC, a top adviser to Mackenzie-King on legal affairs, Quebec and French-speaking Canada, apparently tried to frame Arcand before the arrests for violating war-time regulations as Editor in Chief of a newspaper, L’Illustration Nouvelle.

The claimants are members of the National Unity Party of Canada. (Appendixes I & II) of the present document explain the origin of this educational group, and the reason why it dealt with the politically dangerous Jewish question. The claimants have been interned during the last war for periods from one year to over five years. As they all have affirmed in their petitions of right, their internments were unjust and unjustified, despotic tyrannic, ordered without any semblance of reason or pretext, for motives of political revenge. All avenues of justice to which loyal citizens and faithful subjects of His (then) Majesty the King are entitled under a British system and tradition of law, were closed to them. In their case, all prerogatives and privileges issuing from the Magna Carta, from their citizenship and even from the Canadian Parliament were sus-pended – whilst granted to other internees or associations –, and the letters de cachet issued against them were extorted from the King by willful deception of His Majesty. When their judi-cial cases were to be taken up by the Court of the Exchequer, the Deputy-Minister of Justice, Mr. J. P. F. Varcoe was in-structed to raise a point of law which could be summed up thus: “The claimants have been interned by an Order in Council, viz.: by the King, and since the King can do no wrong, the claimants cannot prosecute”. This closed the door to any trial on facts through which, with official parliamentary and governmental documents, the claimants could prove that H.M. the King had been deceived by his Minister of Justice for Canada (the Rt. Hon. J. Ernest Lapointe, who had been waging for years a per-

2 personal feud against Adrien Arcand for the latter’s anti-Liberal campaigns of 1930 and 1935 for Bennett, of 1935, 1936 for Duplessis). When that point of law was raised, the claimants, after consulting with their legal councillors, came to the conclusion that their judicial effort was still kept in the political realm, that the political party in power which had taken the responsibility of punishing them could not admit that it had been wrong, and that nothing could be expected before a change of political regime. That change having happened, the claimants have decided to resume their request for a redress in court on FACTS and see if, under a non-Liberal regime, the expression “British justice and fair play” means more than under a Liberal government.

3 Synopsis OF FACTS AND EVENTS For several months prior to the Second World War (Sept. 3, 1939), the National Unity Party of Canada campaigned against “a plot to impose a new world war upon humanity”, publishing prints 1 and organizing meetings in several provinces to that effect, affirming with numerous quotings that it was intended to spread communism which had been established in the First World War. The party leader, Adrien Arcand, had redacted 2 in May 1939 an article which was printed in more than 400 periodicals throughout the world; after numerous quotations from numerous books, speeches and editorials from Jewish world leaders and publications, the article went on: “so, war is announced as made inevitable and imperative by those people, if western statesmen are light-headed to fall in for it and throw humanity into a new world war desired and willed by the Jews, what will be the outcome of it? The spreading of communism over Europe, its overwhelming of exhausted, mutilated and ruined western nations, of many crushed states and shattered peoples.” This drew against the claimants and their movement an unprecedented broadside of smearing from the communist and Jewish press of Canada, faithfully repeating the slogans screamed in the House of Commons and across the country by Mr. Fred Rose, M.P., Secretary Caiserman of the Canadian Jewish Congress and a United States citizen known by the name of Rabbi Eisendrath, of Toronto. – (In the first few weeks that followed the declaration of a state of war, according to “The Forrestal Diaries”, Sir Neville Chamberlain stated that…“Poland was no cause of war either for France or the __________ 1 This is “franglais”, a French word converted to English. He’s thinking in French: “imprimés,” (“prints”) printed papers. 2 This is more “franglais”. By “redacted” Arcand means that he “wrote,” he “drafted”.

4 United Kingdom… England was forced into this war by Washington and the world Jews”. Which statement is not yet accounted for as a possible reason for his unexpected and premature passing away, and later the unexpected sad end of James Forrestal who had dared reproduce it in his Diaries). – – – – – When Great Britain issued its second ultimatum to Germany, the Council of the National Unity Party was summoned on the same day, Sept. 2, 1939, for an appraisal of the situation and of policy. Rightly or wrongly, the party leadership saw in the German move into Poland the last step to meet the Soviet armed forces, which had been forewarned by the leaps across Austria and Czechoslovakia, the immediate preparation for a fight to a finish with communist Russia as forewarned by the Anticomintern Pact, the Third Reich leitmotiv of “Drag Nach Osten” and its frequent allusions to the necessity of “Lebensraum” and of developing “the plains of Ukraine and the mines of Caucasus” for western Europe’s needs. It was felt that the best interest of Canada and of the Empire would be to keep their strength intact whilst Germany and the USSR would wear out and exhaust themselves, by striving for localizing the conflict; that a generalization of the conflict would in the end make us fight only for the survival of the USSR and the spreading of Communism everywhere with a corresponding destruction of Christian civilization. Consequently, the following was agreed upon and the Leader was requested to instruct the Party accordingly: 1. The British prestige makes it impossible to withdraw her second ultimatum to Germany and war is certain; Canada will inevitably be drawn into that war; when Germany engages a conflict with the Soviet Union, it is evident common sense that Britain will not allow the destruction of the balance of power upon which the Empire rests and in which it finds its justification; 2. When Canada becomes in a war, unity of political pur-pose and action will be imperative for as long as that state en-

5 dures, and a Union government will most probably be formed and with which all political entities will have to cooperate; 3. The National Unity Party having no official responsibility nor representation in the House of Commons and being known to deal with the influence of world Jewry in national and international affairs, and the coming war being related with the Jewish question, it will be wiser for the N.U.P., in order not to embarrass the government in power, to suspend its publications and public activities for the duration of the war. – Immediately after that council meeting, the latter issued instructions for the cessation of publications and public activities, which instructions were transmitted throughout Canada by telephone, telegram and mail. After Canada had been voted into a state of war by Parliament, the war-time censor of the French press paid a visit to Adrien Arcand, then Editor of L’Illustration-Nouvelle, in his office, stating he had come under special instructions from the Rt. Hon. J. Ernest Lapointe, to loan him (Arcand) a copy of the War Regulations and warn him that his paper was under particular surveillance. Later, the same censor addressed a letter of severe reprimand to Arcand because, in reporting the naval battle of La Plata, L’Illustration-Nouvelle had printed that the German cruiser Graf Spee was … “an enemy ship”, the letter saying that such an expression was beyond all limits and threatening the paper with due action if another breach of the war regulations were committed. After that baffling letter, no other correspondence was received from the censor. As the then “Phoney War” dragged along, Mr. Fred Rose, M.P., published a booklet under the title of “Hitler’s Fifth Column in Canada”, attacking the claimants and their organization as led, controlled, organized, financed, etc., by Hitler or his government or his party. Already in 1937, in his yearly report (“Not for Publication”) to the Canadian Jewish Congress, reading the report of the ‘Committee of Public Relations’ of the B’Nai B’Rith and CJC, said and had it mimeographed that ‘The Committee had succeeded in making the Canadian public believe

6 that Arcand’s movement was a German affair’ (which had been denied many times in public meetings and publications of the party). That kind of propaganda was carried on with an increasing intensity in the communist, socialist and Jewish press until the Spring of 1940. Meanwhile, in October 1939, a party member of military rank was instructed to offer to the Department of Defense the im-mediate formation of a whole brigade from among the party membership for the defense of Canada. Major-General Laflèche acknowledged the letter with thanks and a commendation for loyalty, advising individual enlistment in existing regiments. Several party members who offered their services were not accepted because, as they were answered orally and in writing, they “were against international Jewry”. By the end of April 1940, Lord Lothian, British Ambassador to Washington, sent to Montreal someone to ask Arcand “Can you pull through?” after telling that the pressure of the Jews and F.D.R. against you is so great that you will have to be interned for the duration”. He added: “You will be arrested in about thirty days”. On May 28, 1940, about nine months after the beginning of the War, the claimants were arrested, charged, denied bail and brought to preliminary enquiry. This enquiry, with the postponements, lasted for three weeks, and no shred of evidence relating to the charge was ever brought by the only witness to be heard and for whose cross-examination no opportunity was given to the defense. The preliminary inquiry was abruptly postponed sine die by the presiding judge who overruled the protests of the defense. The claimants were sent back to jail, denied bail again and ordered to be kept incommunicado. While they were in jail, under a postponement sine die of their preliminary inquiry, an Order

7 in Council was passed making the National Unity Party illegal, and another Order in Council passed for their internment for their being members of an illegal association. The official pretext for outlawing the party was that it was “suspected of intending to take power by force or violence”; such a pretext was ridicule to the utmost since the official party program, regulations of membership and constant teachings condemned formally the preaching and use of force or violence in all situations, and particularly that relating to the assumption of political power. On the same day that the internment of the claimants was announced to the public, the Rt. Hon. J. Ernest Lapointe, Minister of Justice, speaking in the House of Commons, explained the motives of his government for issuing the Orders in Council. Profiting by the fact that his victims were in no position possible to answer, he deceitfully spoke of a plot to seize power by force after which he was to be executed. “I have ordered their internment so that we know they are not at large”. He also said: “It is not the only PUNISHMENT that they will incur, for after the war they will undergo trial on the charges proffered against them”. He stated that the internments would last for the duration. For several months, at Petawawa internment camp, the claim-ants were invited to appeal for their liberation to a Commission of Inquiry, which invitations they declined. When pressed and urged to agree to appeal by the authority of the camp, they answered that they had lost all faith in the integrity, morality and honour of the political power then in office, but that they would willingly refer their particular case to H. M. The King if the military would agree to transfer their explanations to their Supreme Commander in Chief or his representative the Governor General. The camp commandant declared himself agreeable to such transfer, and the claimants gave him a

8 letter to the Sovereign containing the following: The only forms supplied for appeal are intended, in their printed headings, for “enemy aliens” and “prisoners of war”. The internees, feeling that they are neither “enemies” nor “aliens” nor “prisoners of war” cannot accept to use such forms. The Minister of Justice is the highest and final appeal to rule over the recommendation of the Commission of enquiry hearing the internees. The said Minister of Justice has notified the nation officially that we internees would be captive for the duration of the war, so lodging an appeal in our particular cases, would be a mockery of justice. As internees we have to answer questions under oath; as defendants in a criminal court, under a preliminary enquiry simply postponed, our right not to answer is jeopardized by the obligation to answer if we appeal from our internments. So that all avenues of justice have been closed to us, a situation which we lay at the foot of the Throne. For the above reasons, it is impossible for us to appeal from our internments. Yet, if Your Majesty deems it fit for us to appeal, for reasons of obedience, service and good order, we shall. After several weeks, the camp commandant came with an answer which he said had been through the Secretary of State 3 and had orders to read to the claimants as many times as they would. In the secrecy of an empty hut surrounded by guards; he asked the claimants to memorize the letter since he could not leave the document with them nor let them touch it or copy it. The letter gave to understand that the claimants were not enemy __________ 3 The “Secretary of State” is a government minister for foreign relations. AAB

9 aliens nor prisoners of war, but rather political prisoners who, having not been condemned or sentenced, could not be placed in prisons or penitentiaries; that, for certain reasons which they could surmise, they were put under the “protection” of the Geneva Convention.4 And the letter advised them to enter appeal of their internments, against their loathing it, answering them that they would receive true justice. The claimants have appeared before the Commission set up for hearing the appeals of the internees. Those commissions proved to be, rather than bodies reaching for the truth, simply enterprises for intellectual trapping, trying to extort from internees answers which would justify their internment. In many instances, the questioners ordered the answers to be put off the record because they might compromise politicians in office. The claimants, interned as suspects of intending to take power by force, were questioned for hours on all kinds of irrelevant and often silly subjects and not on the motives alleged for their internment. In the first months of 1941,6 the department of war services published and distributed throughout Canada, in both languages, a booklet entitled “Canadians All” – “Tous Canadiens”, under the authority of the Minister of that department and with the coat-of-arms of Canada. That booklet described the claimants as members of an organisation founded by Germany in Canada, financed by Berlin, inspired by and under the leadership of the German government. When, after several months, __________ 4 The Geneva Convention is an agreement first drawn up in Geneva in 1864 and later revised concerning the treatment of captured and wounded military personnel and civilians in wartime. AAB 5 Ernest Lapointe was Liberal Justice Minister when the booklet defaming Arcand and the NUPC was produced. Lapointe was in office from October 23, 1935 to November 26, 1941. Louis Saint-Laurent was Justice Minister next from De-cember 10, 1941 to December 9, 1946. AAB

10 Adrien Arcand received a copy of that booklet, he immediately wrote to his lawyer instructions to apply for a Writ of Prohibition for the cessation of publication and the repeal of circulation of the said booklet by the Government of Canada, and to take proceedings against the government for libel and defamation. It was evident that the government of Canada had published the said booklet only to justify the internment and its continuation of the claimants, in the public opinion. After two weeks, the Petawawa Camp censor (Sgt. Marquand) summoned Arcand to his office and informed him that his letter would not be transmitted to his solicitor, as per orders from Ottawa. Shortly after that, Brig. General Woods,6 national commissioner of the R.C.M.P., in a report to the Minister of Justice and tabled in the House of Commons, stated that The National Unity Party was essentially a Canadian movement, after having given the foreign connections of the Communist Party of Canada, the Canadian Fascio and the Canadian German Bund. In the summer of that same year (1941), a parliamentary committee of the House of Commons was appointed, under the chairmanship of the Hon. Mr. Robichaud, Minister of the Department of Fisheries, to hear the appeals of outlawed organizations against the Orders in Council making them illegal. The National Unity Party was the first to enter appeal but the chairman of the committee would never grant it a hearing, and house publications give no indication that the Hon. Mr. Robichaud even showed his correspondence with Adrien Arcand to the Committee. The Communist Party of Canada, the wit- __________ 6 Keep in mind again, this is a typed draft from 1957; this may be a typographical error. Arcand might mean Stuart S. Wood of the RCMP, or he might mean Mr. W. S. Woods, C.M.G., a Deputy Minister. It’s difficult to clarify, because it is hard to find anything using the search form for historical Hansard at parl.canadiana.ca. Also, that form searches OCR’d materials, and OCR is not always perfect. AAB

11 nesses of Jehova and Technocrats, Inc. were granted a hearing and relieved of the illegality decreed against them. After months of vain communications tried in various ways to reach the then Minister of Justice, the Hon. L. S. Saint-Laurent, three ladies, Mrs. H. Bouchard, Mrs. G. Lanctôt and Mrs. M. Gatien succeeded in reaching him in his home in Quebec City. They had tried everywhere in the department to have an answer to a clear-cut question: for what wrongs are our husbands kept interned? To which Mr. Saint-Laurent answered: “Mesdames, I do not know any more than you for what reasons your husbands are interned, and I do not know any more than you do when they will be released. In 1953 7 Mrs. A. Arcand obtained a special permit to visit her husband in Fredericton internment camp. The only purpose of that visit was to notify him to get prepared to come out, for it had been arranged with a personal friend and… a minister of the Crown that Arcand’s release would be ordered within a fortnight for a sum of $10,000.00. The repulsive deal was “killed” in the camp. Arcand was the last member of the National Unity Party to be released, July 3rd, 1945. Fred Rose, M.P., two days later petitioned the Minister of Justice for hanging Arcand after due trial for being a traitor and a spy in the service of a German fifth column. Arcand and his friends also requested that their __________ 7 The year is unclear, it looks as though a “4” was typed over by a “3”. “1953” or “1954” is a typographical error in Arcand’s manuscript. He was released on 3 July 1945, so the visit from his wife was more likely in 1943 or 1944. Jean Côté says an attempt was made on Arcand’s life by poisoning in the camp. Did his wife try to bring him home before or after the attempt? Another document in Jean Côté (1994) suggests that a Liberal minister initiated the $10,000.00 offer to release Arcand. See: “Gérard Pelletier fausse la vérité”. (This title is odd, however; it doesn’t seem to reflect the article’s contents.)

12 preliminary enquiry started in 1940 and postponed sine die be resumed so that they could be judged in regular courts. On October 1st, 1945, the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Mr. Saint-Laurent issued an official statement which was distributed to the press. The statement announced that the government would not carry on legal proceedings against Arcand and his friends on the following grounds: The charges, dating from 1940, might be found stale. If the accused were found guilty, the maximum sentence would be less than half the time they have been in captivity. The trials would probably not end in a way which certain people desire. “In the case of Mr. Arcand and his friends, I had an enquiry made by the Deputy Minister of Justice, Mr. J. P. F. Varcoe, and Mr. Gérald Fauteux, Crown Prosecutor. The report on that enquiry revealed that never did Mr. Arcand and his friends, directly or indirectly, in the least way possible, injure the war effort.8 The claimants then petitioned the Chief Justice of the Court of __________ 8 The precise statement on Arcand was this, also reported by Pat Walsh in a letter in 1963: “There is no evidence that his activities or those of the party in fact did any injury or in the slightest degree prejudiced the successful prosecution of the war.” See page 590, Debates of the House of Commons, First Session—Twentieth Parliament, in years 9-10 George VI, 1945, Volume I, 1945, available at Canadiana.org. Adrien Arcand and his men were obviously “set up” for incarceration without grounds by 1) the Canadian Jewish Congress, 2) a Soviet spy sitting as a federal MP, Fred Rose(nberg) who two days after Arcand’s release on 3 July 1945, asked for him to be tried and “hanged” for “treason”, and 3) by the Liberals who, to this day, continue their unrelenting attack on the country for these same Red-Zionist interests. Eventually, Rose himself was tried and found guilty of treason, but he wasn’t executed as he had wanted the innocent Mr. Arcand to be.

13 the Sessions of the Peace to order the continuation of their preliminary enquiry postponed sine die against their opposition in 1940. In a written decision, the Chief Justice stated that the postponement sine die of the preliminary enquiry had had the effect of taking the cases off the roll, that the judge presiding in 1940 (Mr. De Serres) was dead, that there was nothing left over which to issue an order about, etc., etc. The claimants requested the Governor General to grant them petitions of right for claiming damages for unjust and unjustified internment against the Canadian government in the court of the Exchequer. The petitions were granted. In order to prepare their cases the claimants, through their solicitor, requested copies of certain documents in the possession of the Department of Justice, especially the R.C.M.P. Those documents are false reports, fabrications, malicious inventions, deceptive memoranda, etc., addressed to authorities of and in the Department of Justice, emanating from official Jewish sources, especially the public relations committee of the B’Nai B’Rith and Canadian Jewish Congress, which documents have been used to deceive the King and his Council, and have been effective in influencing them into prosecuting, smearing, defaming and keeping in prolonged captivity some of His Majesty’s loyal and faithful subjects. In the request of the claimants, Mr. Varcoe, the Deputy-Minister, wrote that such documents were confidential and privileged, and he could not issue copies of them. A few days before the date set for the hearing of the claimants’ case in the Court of the Exchequer, the Deputy-Minister of Justice notified the claimants that he would raise a point of law before any hearing on facts. That point of law summed up to the axiom “The King can do no wrong”. The claimants, in search of establishing truth and justice would

14 not fall into that political trap set under a judicial dressing, knowing that they had been willfully wronged by ministers who wronged the King in deceiving him—the whole of which can only be established by producing documents in a case of facts. They decided to await a change in government, since the culprit politicians would always manipulate the official power at their disposal for perpetuating the wrongs done to the claimants and prevent a true discharge of justice. The Hon. George Drew, speaking in a public meeting in Pembroke, Ont., on the 9th of July 1953, stated about it all: “In the last war, men were thrown in concentration camps without any charge brought against them, and they were denied any resort to the courts of the country. After these men had been kept in captivity for long years, it was found out that they were innocent. And no compensation was offered them for the many wrongs done to them” (Canadian Press). – – – – – For all of the above, the Claimants respectfully petition the Minister of Justice to: See to it that, at long last, avenues of justice be open to them. Allow them to proceed on facts in their cases against the Canadian Government in the Court of the Exchequer. Allow them permission to obtain copies of all the deceptive documents against them and addressed to the authorities of the Department of Justice by Jewish agencies, such documents being not privileged unless the said agencies are sworn officials and members of the Department.

15 4. Allow not expediency to supersede the justice owed by the Sovereign to his loyal subjects as fundamental basis of order, a superseding which was committed and prolonged for years by the Liberal Party in office to the detriment of the claimants. (Adrien Arcand)

16 Appendix I Adrien Arcand — born in Montreal. Age 58. Journalist. In 1929, started weekly papers of his own and a youth political association which were to combat left liberalism, socialism and communism, both the papers and the movement, responding to a need, met with quick success. In 1930, R. B. Bennett, then leader of the Conservative opposition, summoned Arcand to Ottawa to ascertain whether he could get his support in the coming federal election. Arcand agreed upon one only condition: that the government do really something to counteract the fast increasing red propaganda and organisation. Arcand teamed his efforts with those of J. H. Rainville, and the Bennett government came into office thanks to 24 seats won in Quebec. In 1931, Bennett began to counter the Komintern action in Canada: application of Art. 98 Criminal Code, embargo on products from the USSR, etc. Once, after an interview in his office with Sen. Jos. Rainville and Senate Speaker P. E. Blondin, he told Arcand: you deal with the Jewish question as related to the origins, expansion and financing of socialism and communism, and you are right. Yet, you don’t know one hundredth of the evil they inflict upon our world. On that question, you will never go too far, go to the last limits. I have to rub elbows with them and I know quite a bit. I cannot raise that question in the House but if it ever be, the whole country will know where I stand and you will be satisfied. The anti-Red campaign continued with increasing vigor, corresponding with the increase of Red propaganda and agitation during those economically dark days. In 1932, Arcand’s printing plant was completely destroyed in a third attempt of sabotage and incendiary. Bennett helped equip another one through John C. Newman and Rainville.

17 In 1934, Arcand was asked by Bennett if he would take charge and begin preparing the Conservative propaganda for French Canada for the 1935 election. He agreed to it. Sir Robert Bor-den wrote of that work (Memoranda for organizers, speakers’ manuals, weekly bulletins addressed to partisans and advertisements): “In its whole history never has the Conservative party been equipped in Quebec with more thorough and enlightening presentation. The unfortunate result is to be found in other causes”.9 In Sept. 1934, Bennett hinted that, after the 1935 session, there might be changes in the Cabinet and he asked Arcand how he would react to the idea of being Minister of Labor and a candidate in Montreal-St. Mary’s. There ensued a long conversation. Arcand: “Communism, the ultimate conclusion of the Liberal idea, is out to conquer the world and will attract in its orbit the cooperation or at least the passive laisser-faire of all schools of reddism. The more Liberalism will go left, the more Conservatism will have to go right, for the only answer to internationalism is nationalism. I think my generation will have to face the final onslaught of both ideas in their extreme form. Out of Conservatism there must spring a more rightist group, just as Liberalism gave birth to Socialism, or else our Conserva-tives too much in earnest may flock leftwise. I think I would be more useful in such a movement which [I] intend to create out-right”. Bennett only said: “You may be right, who knows? The future is such a riddle”.10 __________ 9 The “unfortunate result” would seem to be that the Liberals lost the election. AAB 10 In The Universal Republic (1950), Arcand said: “But for the leaders in authority, the directors, the elites, there is no excuse for blindness, incomprehension and lack of vision. Since ‘to govern is to foresee’, their role and duty as rulers or leaders is to clearly foresee the inevitable consequences of the actions of men.” La République Universelle: “Mais pour les chefs en autorité, pour les dirigeants, les élites, il n’y a pas d’excuse à l’aveuglement, à l’incompréhension, au manque de vision. Puisque ‘gouverner c’est prévoir’, leur rôle et leur devoir de gouvernants ou de chefs est de prévoir clairement les conséquences inévitables des actes posés par les hommes”. AAB

18 After 1935, Arcand participated actively in all political campaigns, provincial and federal (except when interned), against the Reds of all shades, and considers it an honor to be held as a curse by them.

19 Appendix II THE NATIONAL UNITY PARTY OF CANADA In the Fall of 1934, a nationalist political association founded by Adrien Arcand and some of his friends was launched in Montreal under the name of Parti National Social Chrétien. It was intended to deal only with federal politics and to combat in all circumstances Liberalism & its offshoots Socialism and Communism in the Province of Quebec. Up to 1938, similar groups cropped up in other Canadian provinces, as a reaction to Communist propaganda, the sitting strikes and violence of the mid thirties and the Spanish Civil War. Those various groups got in touch with one another and, after long negotiations, decided to try and merge into a national organisation. A convention was called and delegates from eight provinces met for the formation of committees to prepare resolutions in Toronto. Empowered delegates declared the eight provincial separate parties dissolved and founded a new national organization called the National Unity Party of Canada, with a torch as its emblem and the word “Serviam” as its motto. A program was adopted, rules were drafted, and Adrien Arcand, the only name suggested by all delegations for leadership, was chosen unanimously. As predecided by the delegates, all documents were signed by chief delegates in Kingston, Ont., for historical reasons, on July 1st 1938. The National Unity Party operated as a school of thought from its inception until September 2, 1939 when its activities and publications were suspended.

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POLITICAL CARTOONS

Long before Facebook “memes,” there was Adrien Arcand.

On January 31st, 1930, in “The Editorial Corner,” under the title “The Strength of an Idea”, Adrien Arcand announced (translation):  “A healthy and vigorous idea, well directed and well launched, can accomplish more than all the combinations and all the capital in the world; like the drop of water that always strikes the same place, with the same fore, it can pierce the hardest rock, overcoming the most tenacious opposition.  With this in mind, with a well set goal, I decided one day to launch the “Goglu”, with no other capital than my humble wooden pen, but supported and aided by the ideal printer, a devout patriot, a brilliant organizer, the complement and necessary adjunct …”. On May 30th, 1930, illustrating the effectiveness of Arcand’s Le Goglu, the following headline appears on the front page of Le Goglu: “The Clique Set the Fire” There were sub-headings and a conclusion (translation):  “They set a second fire in our workshops, causing heavy damage.”  “A real petty attack”  “Five employees, surprised by the sudden flames, were hard-pressed to save their lives.” WE WILL BEAT THEM NONETHELESS. By “Clique,” Arcand means the Liberals.  The triumphant lead story continues and we now see precisely why these Liberals might have had “political revenge” in mind while interning Arcand and his men in 1940: “The people of this province were plunged into keen distress last week, when the news spread like a lit fuse to the four corners of the country: “The Goglu is on fire!” Telegrams, phone calls and letters arrived by thousands from almost every county asking if the people’s newspaper, which has never yet been gagged, would publish nonetheless. As our readers have noted, and once again will note this week, the Goglu is the most stalwart bird and always emerges unscathed from traps that are set for it, from attacks waged against it. Likewise, the valiant “Miroir” and the funny little “Chameau” have published and will publish again, to the greatest bewilderment and definitive downfall of the Clique. After a meticulous and carefully conducted investigation, we can say that, as with the first fire set in our workshops nine months ago, the one last week was an act of violent-tempered vengeance by the Clique. From our first week of publication, we have been in a running battle against the most violent attacks by the Clique which sensed in us, from the start, the force which would break it into a thousand pieces like fragile porcelain, in spite of its extraordinary power. There were threats, lawsuits, financial combinations, offers, seamy proposals, ultimatums, disguised attacks, a first fire, the considerable fire of last Tuesday, then even worse threats. But we always emerged unscathed, more courageous and determined to achieve our duty until the end. Each time, adversity strengthened our energy and our convictions, each new misfortune redoubled our ardor, for we will never cease believing that good faith, honesty, frankness, justice and patriotism will always triumph over perfidy, crookedness, lies, intimidation and treason. The necessity of our cause is enough to sustain us and we will give all that a man can give of himself to arrive at our triple objective: the purification of our political practices dirtied by the Clique, the economic restoration of the country, betrayed in every way by the Clique, and the dominance of the French-Canadian on the soil of his fathers. The fire last Tuesday night, according to our investigation, was lit deliberately by someone who was instructed to do so. A flammable liquid, apparently benzol, supplied by a paid bandit for the Clique, was used to spread the flames. The arsonist, who knew the place, chose the area most favorable to his criminal work: the bindery department, where huge masses of paper were stacked. In the twinkling of an eye, the immense room became an inferno, where 42,000 copies of the “Chameau” and 35,000 copies of the “Goglu” were consumed that had been printed in advance, and considerable works consisting of luxury editions, hundreds of copies of books, in short over $9,000 in printed matter alone, not counting precious, unique collections. Superb pieces of machinery were distorted, causing huge losses. Traveling to the upper floor, the flames and smoke continued their ravages in considerable proportions. It took only a few seconds to incur these fatal losses, because five of our employees were busy with their presses whose noise prevented them from hearing the criminal enter. They were suddenly surprised by the flames and barely had time to escape by a staircase which then went up in a raging fire. Fortunately for all, and especially for the treacherous Clique, they all escaped without any injury. A charming little dog, named Goglu, spent the night in the burnt-out room, hosed by the water jets, and was found the next morning, to general stupefaction and joy, alive and well. It can hardly be understood except as a symbol of the fact that anything called Goglu will withstand the worst attacks. But the Clique will be back, we are warned. It will always arrive with the same treacherousness, “by a back door”, secretly, at night. The blows will be hard, we know, it will take everything a man can deploy of courage to resist, but we will resist. We know how far the Clique can go in terms of crookedness and crime, but that doesn’t frighten us. We know the Clique has Jewry, the underworld, banditry, and dirty money at its disposal; we also know how far its offshoots go, and it will one day be the most astonishing surprise for our readers to learn how some unsuspected people are in the ranks of the Clique, worshippers of the Golden Calf. Our readers can count, as in the past, on our incorruptible loyalty, and if we are not always quite so funny or energetic, they will understand that physical fatigue can momentarily make itself felt by so many worries and assaults. UNSIGNED Editorial.

No, this cannot be the successor to Laurier  (Mackenzie King, seen serving up the Canadian Pie to foreigners instead of keeping our wealth at home.) Le Goglu, July 11th, 1930

“Crush Him on Election Day!”

NO, THIS CANNOT BE THE SUCCESSOR TO LAURIER (Mackenzie King, seen serving up the Canadian Pie to foreigners instead of keeping our wealth at home.) Caption (translation): Our great Laurier was patriotic enough to defend our wealth against foreigners. But King, who took pleasure in destroying his work, has for 9 years passed laws to hand over all we have to foreigners. We do not recognize him as the successor to the great Canadian and the whole people will crush him on July 28th to replace him with devout patriot, Bennett. LE GOGLU, July 11th, 1930.

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Mackenzie King, Enemy of the People.  18 July 1930, Le Goglu

“Enemy of the People”

MACKENZIE KING, ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. Extract from the Editorial with subtitles (translation:) How Mackenzie King shafted the workers before he came to power. A New Machiavelli. Official texts now make clear the reason for misery and unemployment. Persecution of the little fellow. Machiavelli, in the Middle Ages, taught Princes how to dash the hopes of the humble classes, how to keep them in tutelage, how to dominate those without power or influence. We think that in the 20th Century we have found a new Machiavelli who counsels and advises the Trusts, today’s powers, on how to keep the workers in servitude and dash their hopes. 18 JULY 1930, LE GOGLU.

CARTOON CAPTION: A MAN WITH HEART AND APPRECIATION. The province of Quebec supplied 62 MPs to Mr. King. The rest of all of Canada only gave him 56. When the time came for awards for the railways last year, Mr. King only gave Quebec $19,500,000 out of a total of $207,230,000 voted for all of Canada. This ingrate Prime Minister has always treated us this way. We need to unload him and replace him with Mr. Bennett, a man with a heart. “Mackenzie King, Enemy of the People”. LE GOGLU, July 18th, 1930.

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William-Lyon Mackenzie King, our American Prime Minister

“Our American Prime Minister”

WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING, OUR AMERICAN
PRIME MINISTER.

CARTOON CAPTION: (Translation:) “Seen here in his true colors is he in whom Canada put its confidence and who for nine years has passed laws and tariffs only to benefit the USA, while imposing here American fruits, vegetables and industries, even killing our alcohol industry in deference to American prohibition; imposing on Canada the principle of American divorce courts, bleeding dry our metallurgical, textile and agricultural industries to encourage those of the United States, where he took his training at Chicago and Harvard Universities, where he served the interests of billionaires against the working class. He has passed laws in favor of the United States, New Zealand, Australia and the Empire, but not a single one in favor of Canada. Again, the Canadians want to chase out this damaging American who has brought us unemployment, ruin and misery in order to answer the comforting cry of the great patriot, Bennett: ‘Canada first!’.” Plaques on the wall: Rockefeller Institute; New Zealand. Source: Front page of LE GOGLU, July 25th, 1930.

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A NEW EXPERIMENT BY THE AMERICAN  Goglu, July 25th, 1930

“A New Experiment by the American”

CARTOON CAPTION: A NEW EXPERIMENT BY THE AMERICAN. Floating at the caprice of a balloon inflated with bluff and unfulfilled promises, our American Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, has no pity for our so depressed Canada, when with the ridiculous parachute of the Dunning tariff, he launched the country on the most disastrous economic adventure of our history. LE GOGLU, July 25th, 1930

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Headline: Taschereau Next!  In the Grand Caucus Hall, says the cartoon, the Quebec Liberals, led by Alexandre Taschereau, gather to read the 1930 Federal Election Results.  The cartoon caption reads:  “SCENES OF HYSTERIA IN THE GRAND CAUCUS HALL”.  Hysteria as in panic.  Under the front-page headline, the subtitle reads:  “Having offloaded the American King, the Goglus will now scorch Smoked Herring.” (Goglu nickname of Taschereau).

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SUMMARY: POLITICAL REVENGE

1. Political revenge by Liberals for Arcand’s “anti-Liberal campaigns of 1930 and 1935 for Bennett, of 1935, 1936 for Duplessis)” (Arcand delivered Quebec to the Conservatives.)
2. Political revenge by Jews, Communists and Jewish-controlled Roosevelt since Arcand widely published months before WWII his warning that the Jews were setting up a new war for communism (aka Jewish interests).

SUMMARY: ABUSES

1. Denied Magna Carta (denied a trial; property confiscated and destroyed.)
2. Denied their rights as citizens
3. Imprisoned and interned arbitrarily (letters de cachet)
4. Harassment from Justice Minister Lapointe at L’Illustration Nouvelle (looks like attempt to frame Arcand for violating war regulations)
5. Arcand and NUPC attacked and branded as Nazis by communist and Jewish press.
6. Arcand and NUPC attacked and branded as Nazis by communist MP Fred Rose.
7. Arcand and NUPC attacked and branded as Nazis by Secretary Caiserman of Canadian Jewish Congress.
8. Arcand and NUPC attacked and branded as Nazis by B’Nai B’Rith, who in 1937, internally claim they have succeeded in making Canadian public believe Arcand and NUPC a German instrument.
9. Late April, 1940, Lord Lothian, British Ambassador in Washington, tells Arcand he and his men will be interned in 30 days’ time: pressure from Roosevelt. (Arcand knows this before the Canadian government knows it; obviously, once the King Liberals “knew” they were under orders from Roosevelt, they had to come up with a pretext to intern Arcand and his men.)
10. Official pretext for outlawing the NUPC: “suspected of intending to take power by force or violence”. (Yet, after the war, no evidence of anything, thus no evidence is new pretext for still no trial.)
11. In House of Commons, Lapointe claims Arcand & NUPC: plot to seize power by force and execute Lapointe: pretext for the illegal internment.
12. Lapointe promises “fair trial” after the war; but none forthcoming.
13. Arcand and his men unable to apply for a hearing because all the form are for “enemy aliens” and “prisoners of war”.
14. Camp commandant admits they are “political prisoners”.
15. Commissions set up to hear appeals from internments are fronts to fish for pretexts to confirm the illegal internments.
16. Early 1941: King’s Liberal government slanders Arcand and his men in booklet alleging they are German organization: pretext to continue the illegal internments.
17. Arcand is denied legal right to instruct his lawyer to file for prohibition against the booklet.
18. Shortly afterward, likely Stuart Wood, RCMP commissioner, states no, they are a Canadian movement, not a foreign arm, like the communists.
19. 1941, parliamentary committee fails to summon and hear its first applicant: Adrien Arcand. All others get a hearing, but not Arcand and his men.
20. Wives of Arcand and interned men reach Louis Saint-Laurent, now Justice Minister, who says he has no idea why they are interned or when they will be freed.
21. 1943 (circa), Arcand’s wife comes with news he is to be released in exchange for $10,000 to be paid by a friend: Arcand refuses to have his freedom purchased.
22. Arcand is finally released on July 3rd, 1945, the last member of the NUPC to be freed from the “longest internment of its kind in the whole British Empire”.

Happy Canada Day! Adrien Arcand’s National Unity Party of Canada was founded on July 1st in 1938

Joyeuse fête du Canada! Le Parti de l’unité nationale du Canada d’Adrien Arcand a été fondé le 1^er juillet 1938

FIRST CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL UNITY PARTY OF CANADA 1 JULY 1938.  First row, from left to right: Henri Arcand, Gaétan Racicot, Daniel O’Keefe, John Cole, Maurice Scott, Adrien Arcand, Joseph Farr, William Duncan, Stanley Chopp, C.S. Thomas, William McDuff. Second row: John S. Lynds, Marius Gatien, A.G. Smale, John Schio, Jean T. Ramacière, Orner E. Gobeille, Fortunat Bleau, François Padulo, Roméo Biaise, Jean Mercier.  Third row:  Dr. Massina, Hugues Clément, Blaise Lavoie, Louis Leroux, W. Sketcher (or Schecter), Donat Boulanger, E.C. Miller, Leo Brunet, J. Duncan, Gérard Lanctôt.
 
PREMIER CONGRÈS DU PARTI DE L’UNITÉ NATIONAL DU CANADA, 1^er JUILLET 1938. Première rang, de gauche à droite:  Henri Arcand, Gaétan Racicot, Daniel O’Keefe, John Cole, Maurice Scott, Adrien Arcand, Joseph Farr, William Duncan, Stanley Chopp, C.S. Thomas, William McDuff.  Deuxième rang:  John S. Lynds, Marius Gatien, A.G. Smale, John Schio, Jean T. Ramacière, Orner E. Gobeille, Fortunat Bleau, François Padulo, Roméo Biaise, Jean Mercier. Troisième rang:  Dr. Massina, Hugues Clément, Blaise Lavoie, Louis Leroux, W. Sketcher (or Schecter), Donat Boulanger, E.C. Miller, Leo Brunet, J. Duncan, Gérard Lanctôt.
 
Source:  Library and Archives Canada, RG146, volume 3516, file “PUNC, Montréal”, pocket 2.  Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, RG146, volume 3516, dossier « PUNC, Montréal », pochette 2.

The National Unity Party of Canada This “history” comes directly from the typewriter of Adrien Arcand in 1957, as the entire text of Appendix II to his “Memorandum and Request Re:  Claims of Can­a­dian Nationalists Against The Government of Canada for Unjust Intern­ment”. Adrien Arcand circa 1938 “In the Fall of 1934, a nationalist political association founded by Adrien Arcand and some of his friends was launched in Montreal under the name of Parti National Social Chrétien.  It was intended to deal only with federal politics and to combat in all circumstances Liberalism & its offshoots Socialism and Communism in the Province of Quebec. Up to 1938, similar groups cropped up in other Canadian provinces, as a reaction to Communist propaganda, the sitting strikes and violences of the mid thirties and the Spanish Civil War. Those various groups got in touch with one another and, after long negotiations, decided to try and merge into a national organisation. A convention was called and delegates from eight provinces met for the formation of committees to prepare resolutions in Toronto.  Empowered delegates declared the eight provincial separate parties dissolved and founded a new national organization called the National Unity Party of Canada, with a torch as its emblem and the word “Serviam” as its motto.  A program was adopted, rules were drafted, and Adrien Arcand, the only name suggested by all delegations for leadership, was chosen unanimously.  As predecided by the delegates, all documents were signed by chief delegates in Kingston, Ont., for historical reasons, on July 1st 1938. The National Unity Party operated as a school of thought from its inception until September 2, 1939 when its activities and publications were suspended.” Admin:  Adrien Arcand reactivated the National Unity Party of Canada after his release from five years and five weeks of internment without trial at the end of WWII.  As Arcand’s health waned toward 1967, he nominated Gérard Lanctôt to fill in as leader.  Lanctôt succeeded him as leader after Arcand’s death, and the party was still active as late as 1991.  Current status yet to be confirmed.

GOOGLE FRENCH:

Le Parti de l’unité nationale du Canada Cette “histoire” provient directement de la machine à écrire d’Adrien Arcand en 1957, constituant l’intégralité du texte de l’Annexe II de son “Memorandum and Request Re:  Claims of Can­a­dian Nationalists Against The Government of Canada for Unjust Internment”. Adrien Arcand circa 1938 Adrien Arcand vers 1938 – «À l’automne 1934, une association politique nationaliste fondée par Adrien Arcand et certains de ses amis est créée à Montréal sous le nom de Parti national social chrétien.  Il visait uniquement à traiter de la politique fédérale et à combattre en toutes circonstances le libéralisme et ses branches, le socialisme et le communisme dans la province de Québec. Jusqu’en 1938, des groupes similaires ont surgi dans d’autres provinces canadiennes en réaction à la propagande communiste, aux grèves assises et aux violences du milieu des années trente et à la guerre civile espagnole. Ces différents groupes sont entrés en contact et, après de longues négociations, ont décidé de se fondre dans une organisation nationale. Une convention a été convoquée et des délégués de huit provinces se sont réunis pour former des comités chargés de préparer des résolutions à Toronto. Les délégués habilités déclarèrent les huit partis provinciaux séparés dissous et fondèrent une nouvelle organisation nationale appelée Parti de l’unité nationale du Canada, avec pour emblème une flamme et avec le mot «Serviam» pour devise. Un programme a été adopté, des règles ont été rédigées et Adrien Arcand, le seul nom suggéré par toutes les délégations pour le leadership, a été choisi à l’unanimité. Comme prévu par les délégués, tous les documents ont été signés par les délégués en chef à Kingston, en Ontario, pour des raisons historiques, le 1er juillet 1938. Le Parti de l’unité nationale a été une école de pensée depuis sa création jusqu’au 2 septembre 1939, date à laquelle ses activités et ses publications ont été suspendues.» Admin:  Adrien Arcand a réactivé le Parti de l’unité nationale du Canada après sa libération de cinq ans et cinq semaines d’internement sans procès à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Alors que sa santé s’est détériorée vers 1967, il a nommé Gérard Lanctôt au poste de chef. Lanctôt lui succéda à la tête du parti après la mort d’Arcand. Le parti était toujours actif jusqu’en 1991. Le statut actuel n’a pas été confirmé.

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Document source:  Author (Arcand, Adrien).  (Draft) Memorandum and Request:  Re : Claims of Canadian nationalists Against the Government of Canada for Unjust Internments / submitted by Adrien Arcand.  1957, identifier (C004).  Box number 002, folder number or item number 538-550.  Adrien Arcand Collection.  Concordia University Library, Special Collections, location of repository (Montreal, Quebec, Canada.)

Errata – Two Corrections

I corrected an historical term today in the current web site.  I had been translating “drôle de guerre” as “funny war”.  The well known correct term in English is actually the “phoney war”.  Ebooks already online do not have the correction.

I have also corrected the name “Major H.J. Scott”, which was wrong in a Maclean’s article of 1938, part of which I had extracted.  The name of Adrien Arcand’s right-hand was Major Joseph Maurice Scott.