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.