Spying on Canadians: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and the Origins of the Long Cold War 9781487513702

Citation preview

SPYING ON CANADIANS The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and the Origins of the Long Cold War

Award-winning author Gregory S. Kealey’s study of Canada’s security and intelligence community from the 1860s to World War II depicts a nation tangled up with the imperial interests of first the United King­ dom and then the United States, and a state focused on the political repression of the labour movement and the political left. Spying on Canadians brings together over twenty-five years of research and writing about political policing in Canada, centring on three themes: the nineteenth-century roots of political policing in Canada, the development of a national security system in the twentieth century in response to the Red Scare in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolu­ tion, and the ongoing challenges associated with research in this area owing to state secrecy and the inadequacies of access to information legislation. This timely collection alerts all Canadians to the need for the vigilant defence of civil liberties and human rights in the face of the ever-increasing intrusion of the state into our private lives in the name of counter-subversion and counter-terrorism. gregory s. kealey is a professor emeritus in the Department of ­History at the University of New Brunswick. He is the editor of University of Toronto Press’s Canadian Social History Series and former president of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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SPYING ON CANADIANS

THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE SECURITY SERVICE AND THE ORIGINS OF THE LONG COLD WAR

G R EG O RY S. K E A L E Y

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2017 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0166-2 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-2158-5 (paper) Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetablebased inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kealey, Gregory S., 1948–, author Spying on Canadians : the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and the origins of the long Cold War / Gregory S. Kealey. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4875-0166-2 (cloth).  ISBN 978-1-4875-2158-5 (paper) 1. Royal Canadian Mounted Police – History – 20th century.  2. Secret service – Canada – History – 20th century.  3. Police – Political activity – Canada – History – 20th century.  I. Title. HV8157.K387 2017   363.2097109'04   C2016-907475-7

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the government of Ontario.

Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement du Canada of Canada

For Linda (li)

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Contents

Acknowledgments  ix Introduction: Spying on Canadians  3 Part I: Nineteenth-Century Roots 1 The Empire Strikes Back: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Canadian Secret Service  17 2 “High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”: Radicalism, Anti-Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860–1914  35 Part II: The Origins of the Long Cold War 3 State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–20: The Impact of the First World War  71 4 The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–21  106 5 The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the RCMP Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–26  143 6 Spymasters, Spies, and Their Subjects: The RCMP and Canadian State Repression, 1914–39  167 7 A War on Ethnicity? The RCMP and Second World War Internment 189

viii Contents

Part III: The Archival Trail 8 Filing and Defiling: The Organization of the State Security Archives in the Inter-war Years  211 9 The RCMP, CSIS, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale  231 Permissions  265 Index  267

Acknowledgments

This collection of essays has been many years in the making. The social and political issues that it addresses, however, have grown ever more grave. The many individuals who provided me with research and archival help and intellectual stimulation over the past decades are legion, far too many to name individually without slighting someone omitted in error.1 The individual essays do include specific acknowledgments and I renew my gratitude to those folks and to many others. At the University of Toronto Press, Len Husband has displayed the patience of the most stoic of editors. I am also grateful to managing editor Lisa Jemison, copy editor Kimberly Booker, and indexer Catherine Plear. At the University of New Brunswick I received excellent support in pulling the final copy together from Rebecca Stieva and the folks at the Harriet Irving Library’s Centre for Digital Scholarship, especially James Kerr. I am also most appreciative of my co-authors Kirk Niergarth, Andy Parnaby, and Reg Whitaker for their support and col­ laboration on some of this material. And thanks to Kerry A. Taylor of Massey University in New Zealand, my most recent collaborator on our new research on the post–World War II renewal of the domestic security and intelligence apparatus of the junior Commonwealth partners in the emerging Five-Eyes Alliance. Finally, thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its support of this research.

1 For complete lists of my doctoral students, many of whom were involved in these projects, see Gregory S. Kealey, “Community, Politics and History: My Life as a Historian,” Canadian Historical Review, 97, no. 3 (2016): 404–25.

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SPYING ON CANADIANS The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and the Origins of the Long Cold War

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Introduction: Spying on Canadians

Some twenty years ago I published a collection of essays from my research on Canadian labour and working-class history.1 At the time I took considerable care not to include any essays that derived from my then more recent research passion, the history of political policing and state repression in Canada, despite the clear overlap between those subjects and labour history. At the time I had two reasons for that editorial choice: first, I was working with Reg Whitaker on a monograph on  the subject, subsequently published as Secret Service2; second, I thought that some day these papers might constitute a separate essay collection. This volume transforms aspiration into reality. The essays in this collection first appeared as articles or book chapters in the years between 1988 and 2003. From the pages of national and international journals and edited collections of essays and documents, these individual studies are brought together here to provide readers one convenient and accessible anthology. While covering some of the same terrain as Secret Service, they provide considerably more detail on themes covering the years from the 1860s to World War II than the ­Whitaker, Kealey, and Parnaby study that carries the story forward to 2012. My interest in the origins and early history of the Canadian state’s domestic security apparatus emerged from my studies of Canadian labour and the Left. In my earliest work on Toronto workers,3 I first encountered the curious correspondence between Sir John A. Macdonald and Gilbert McMicken, his anti-Fenian spy chief (see chapters 1 and 2). Although I regarded it at the time as fascinating, I nevertheless placed it on the margins of my study of Toronto workers’ earliest encounters with industrial capitalism. I failed to understand how rare such documentation that not only identified spies but also provided copious

4  Spying on Canadians

­ etails of their work was in the documentary historical record.4 It was d only in my later work on the workers’ revolt of 1917–25 that I became more fully aware of the sharp focus of the Canadian state on political repression of labour and the Left after the Bolshevik Revolution and I  began to encounter the true travails of any attempt to research the national security state.5 In other words I began to appreciate far more fully how unique the Macdonald Papers were as a source on spies and spying. As I was pursuing my labour revolt research at the then National Archives of Canada, I was becoming ever more conscious of the tortured history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) fonds that I was reviewing (for details see Chapter 9). The then recent revelations of the Keable and McDonald royal commissions were reverberating throughout Ottawa and the nation and would soon result in the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 1984 to ­replace the thoroughly repudiated RCMP Security Service.6 Similar revelations from congressional investigations by the Church Committee in the United States following the guerrilla raids on an FBI office in Medina, Pennsylvania, by Catholic pacifists had led to the posthumous public disgracing of J. Edgar Hoover, and a chastened FBI found itself operating under a far more restrictive mandate, as would the new CSIS. In the heady spirit of those days of revelations about political police wrong-doing, both countries also introduced, in the Canadian case, or strengthened, in the US case, transparency legislation that gave the public far greater access to government records. In Canada this was the new Privacy and Access to Information acts (1985).7 For the first time in Canadian history, researchers and the public were empowered to seek government information in a relatively untrammelled fashion. For historians interested in the records of the RCMP Security Service and other intelligence agencies, this provided a remarkable research opportunity. I was only too happy to pursue this new opening and for the next decade became a continuous user of the ATIP process and a frequent complainant to the Information Commissioners of the day. The complaints involved unwarranted time delays and unnecessary redactions, and the subsequent investigations invariably led to the release of additional materials. The results of this research are evident in publications such as Secret Service, this collection of essays, and the eight volumes of RCMP Security Bulletins, co-edited with Reg Whitaker.8 This volume is organized in three parts. Part I, “Nineteenth-Century Roots,” commences with my Canadian Historical Association Presidential Address of 1999, which explains some of my personal interest in



Introduction 5

s­ecurity and intelligence history and then analyses the use of secret agents in the Canadian and British states’ wars with Irish nationalists beginning in the 1860s. (I think it worth highlighting that scholars ­expressing interest in researching the history of the RCMP SS found themselves targeted by an RCMP agent or source at the Canadian ­Historical Association meetings themselves in the late 1970s, as the document obtained under ATIP legislation included in Chapter 1 demonstrates.)9 In the second essay, co-authored by Andrew Parnaby with the help of Kirk Niergarth, we extend the theme of the first essay beyond Fenianism to demonstrate the Canadian state’s service to, and defence of, the empire in the case of its pursuit of Indian nationalists in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In both cases the C ­ anadian state wholly identified its self-interest with that of its imperial master and pursued ethnic “others” with a vengeance all too recognizable to readers today. The familiar whiff of anti-Asian racism reinforced this service to the empire. Part II moves the story of Canadian political policing into the twentieth century and argues that the Cold War domestic security state was simply a natural extension of the post–Bolshevik Revolution Red Scare arising from the labour revolt of 1917–25.10 While the post–World War II Gouzenko affair reanimated Canadian state anti-communism and created or renewed Commonwealth and US security alliances, it remained consistent with RCMP ideological commitments that had been present at its birth in 1920.11 For, as John le Carré so aptly argued on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, “I watched the ramparts of the Cold War going up on the still-warm ashes of the hot one. And I had absolutely no sense of transition from the one war to the other, because in the secret world there barely was one. To the hard-liners of east and west the Second World War was a distraction. Now it was over, they could get on with the real war that had started with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and had been running under different flags and disguises ever since.”12 Chapters 3 to 5 provide detailed descriptions of the RCMP’s emergence from the shell of the wartime security responsibilities of the ­Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) amid the fears engendered by the workers’ revolt and the emergence of revolutionary socialism, especially the birth of the Communist Party of Canada. Again there is a continual pattern of ethnic victimization, but in the 1920s and thereafter such targeting of the “other” became more closely tied to ideological and political positions as well. A more generic overview of the RCMP’s security role in the inter-war years is provided in Chapter 6. In the

6  Spying on Canadians

c­ o-authored Chapter 7, Reg Whitaker and I analyse the RCMP’s role in internment during World War II. As readers will have recognized, the interplay of the internal and secret state security archives with the emerging, but never complete, publicly available archival record lies at the heart of writing the history of spies and spying. This theme is central to Part III, which contains one essay on the organization of the inter-war RCMP Registry, Canada’s internal secret security archives, and another on the complex, problematic, and ongoing fight to gain public access to these records. Perhaps ironically given the great promise of Canada’s ATIP regime when first introduced in the 1980s, the access situation actually worsened considerably in subsequent years under both Liberal and Conservative federal governments. While politicians, most often while in opposition, have reflected eloquently on the importance of such legislation, the reality in practice has been very different. Hence the sadly unfulfilled potential of Ontario Liberal Cabinet Minister Ian Scott’s eminently quotable phrase, “We do not now and never will accept the proposition that the business of the public is none of the public’s business.”13 For Canadian governments of all political stripes, however, ­especially since 9 / 11 access to information has not been the citizens’ right that the original legislation had envisioned. In 1997 in the most important court challenge to the ATIP regime, Supreme Court of ­Canada Justice Gerard Laforest famously drove a citizens’ rights argument home by asserting “The overarching purpose of access to information legislation, then, is to facilitate democracy. It does so in two related ways. It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry. Parliament and the public cannot hope to call the government to account without an adequate knowledge of what is going on.”14 Similarly almost ten years later and in the significantly different context of the investigation of the Chrétien government’s “sponsorship scandal,” Justice John Gomery argued that “an appropriate access to information regime is a key part of the transparency that is an essential element of a modern democracy.”15 Despite recent Liberal electoral promises to reform the Access to ­Information Act, the usual political foot-dragging is occurring yet again. Minister Scott Bryson has announced that any such reform will come only towards the end of the current government’s mandate. In  2015 ­Suzanne Legault, the information commissioner of Canada, published



Introduction 7

an excellent review of the history of the Canadian access legislation and offered a set of recommendations to bring the legislation back into step with individual provinces’ and other nations’ access regimes.16 Such reform is sadly overdue in Canada. When it comes to the intelligence services, the necessity of democratic access to at least the historical records of their activities is further mediated by the reasonable necessity to limit contemporary access for state security reasons. While this contemporary reasonable denial is currently far too all-embracing, nevertheless the logic of limiting access to contemporary files greatly increases the onus on government to grant access to the historical archive. For how else are citizens to judge the elusive claims made for ever more pervasive infringements of privacy and other freedoms in the name of increased security? Justice Noah captured this notion well in his decision in the Tommy Douglas records case: “This case addresses how the passage of time can assuage national security concerns. Furthermore, this case highlights the importance of transferring information to the public domain for the benefit of present and future Canadians, as well as our collective knowledge and memory as a country.”17 Le Carré in his powerful fiction also caught the ambiguities of the state security systems for democratic countries. As he had Smiley explain to student spies in the early 1990s, In the Cold War, when our enemies lied, they lied to conceal the wretchedness of their system. Whereas when we lied, we concealed our virtues, even from ourselves. We concealed the very things that made us right. Our respect for the individual, our love of variety and argument, our belief that you can govern fairly with the consent of the governed, our capacity to see the other fellow’s view – most notably in the countries we exploited, almost to death for our own ends. In our supposed ideological rectitude, we sacrificed our compassion to the great god of indifference. We protected the strong against the weak, and we perfected the art of the public lie. We made enemies of decent reformers and friends of the most disgusting potentates. And we scarcely paused to ask ourselves how much longer we could defend our society by those means and remain a society worth defending.18

If true at the end of the Cold War, how much truer still in the post9 / 11 world where the enemy has changed but state security marches on with an array of new technologies to make its surveillance ever more pervasive.19

8  Spying on Canadians

The RCMP Security Service is, of course, now ancient history. The McDonald and Keable royal commissions of the late 1970s ensured the creation of a civilian state security agency that, at least in its early years, had a narrower mandate and was subject to far more oversight and public scrutiny than its predecessor agency. But how distant that all seems today in the aftermath of 9 / 11 and after the 2006–15 rule of the Harper government. In the past decade CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) have been given extensive new powers and massive budgets, including vast new edifices in Ottawa.20 In addition the Harper regime stripped away many of the oversight mechanisms provided in the original CSIS Act by eliminating the role and function of the inspector general and by trivializing the Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), with a series of risible appointments, including that of the infamous late Arthur Porter as its chair.21 CSE has never had any adequate oversight as has been recently pointed out by numerous commentators decrying the unconvincing postSnowden apologias of CSE commissioners Robert Décary and later Jean-Pierre Plouffe. Their assertions that CSE complied with its legal mandate have reassured few and instead have led to renewed demands for parliamentary oversight and review.22 Moreover, there are no review agencies of any significance for the RCMP and none whatsoever for the Canadian Border Agency. Thus, the review mechanisms are siloed and have no legal mandate to speak to one another. While the recently elected Trudeau government promises progressive change on these fronts, their previous parliamentary support for Harper’s “­Terror” Act, C-51, while in opposition, should give us all pause. For now, the jury is out on the new government’s security agenda. Indeed, the recent announcement by Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale of a public consultation puts reform off even further and in the meantime allows the security agencies to entrench the dangerous infringements of human rights engendered in Harper’s “terror” legislation.23 Basically, this recent, sad trajectory translates into the depressing fact that we have apparently learned little or nothing from the history of our domestic security efforts of the past 165 years. The transparent transgressions of the RCMP Security Service lovingly chronicled in royal commissions, investigative journalistic accounts, and historical scholarship were totally ignored by the Harper government that apparently did not “do history” in addition to its better chronicled declaration, “We do not do Sociology.” Bills C-44 and C-51 of the last Harper parliament, now enshrined in Canadian law, are invitations to our spy



Introduction 9

a­ gencies to repeat, indeed to compound, the errors of their and our western allies’ past domestic security and intelligence histories.24 For as Canadian Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien recently argued to augment his opposition to C-51, “History has shown us that serious human rights abuses can occur in the name of national security.”25 C-44 and C-51 give CSIS the legal right to engage in all the illegal excesses of the 1970s’ RCMP SS, including the right to override Charter rights.26 Let us hope that our current spymasters know that history better than their previous political masters, although there has been little sign to date of such insight. This collection of historical essays is intended to add to the political demands for a new commitment for a transparency in national security appropriate to our purportedly democratic society. Significant reform to our ATIP legislation as recommended by the current commissioner, Suzanne Legault, many of her predecessors, and parliamentary committees would be a strong start. This will only happen if political activists maintain strong pressure on the new government. And, moving forward, no matter what success there is in this area of reform I suspect that we shall continue to be dependent on what Reg Whitaker has recently termed “guerilla accountability.”27 Surely there are some serious issues in democratic societies when only acts of illegality reveal the extent of surveillance by the state’s security agencies.28 We can only hope that the new Trudeau Liberal government ­actually brings its allegedly “sunny days” to the grim, dark world of national security.29 NOTES 1 Gregory S. Kealey, Workers in Canadian History (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995). 2 Reg Whitaker, Gregory S. Kealey, and Andrew Parnaby, Secret Service: The History of Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). 3 Gregory S. Kealey, Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1867– 1892 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980; second edition with new preface, 1991). 4 For exciting new work on the Fenians and Canadian spying, see David A. Wilson, “Cornelius O’Sullivan: A Patriotic Irishman,” paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association meetings, Ottawa, May 2015, a study of Canadian spy, Charles Clarke, and Wilson’s forthcoming book on the subject.

10  Spying on Canadians 5 Gregory S. Kealey, “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44, and Craig Heron, ed., The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 6 The Royal Commission of Enquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP, more commonly known as the McDonald Commission, est. 6 July 1977, First Report, 1979, Second Report in 2 vols., 1981; Third Report, 1981; and Supplement to Third Report, 1984; Commission d’enquête sur des opérations policières en territoire québécois, or the Keable Commission, est. 1977, Report, 1981. 7 Privacy Act, http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-21/FullText.html; Access to Information Act, http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/a-1/ FullText.html. 8 Kealey and Whitaker, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins, 8 vols. (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1989−97). John Manley provided excellent introductions to the five volumes covering the years of the Great Depression. 9 Steve Hewitt, “Intelligence at the Learneds: The RCMP, the Learneds, and the Canadian Historical Association,” Journal of the CHA, N.S. 9 (1988): 267–86, esp. 279–82. 10 Whitaker, Kealey, and Parnaby, Secret Service, and the critical reviews by Rod MacLeod in Literary Review of Canada 5, no. 8 (September 1996): 19–21, and American Historical Review 118, no. 4 (2013): 1171–2. For our response to the first review see LRC 5, no. 10 (November 1996): 22. The initial exchange with MacLeod concerned his review of various volumes of Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins. 11 Dominique Clement, “‘Freedom’ of Information in Canada: Implications for Historical Research,” Labour / Le Travail 75 (2015): 101–31. 12 John le Carré, “Preface,” The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition (London: Penguin Classics, 2013). For an excellent discussion of Le Carré’s life and work, including his role as an MI5 informant and later agent see Adam Sisman, John le Carré: The Biography (Toronto: Knopf, 2015). 13 As quoted in Ann Cavoukian’s “Foreword” to Mike Larsen and Kevin Walby, eds., Brokering Access: Power, Politics, and Freedom of Information Process in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2012), xiii. 14 In Dagg v. Canada (Minister of Finance), 1997, 2 S.C.R. 403, cited by ­Cavoukian in Larsen and Walby, Brokering Access, xiv. 15 Gomery Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Programme and Advertising Activities, First Report, November 2005 and second report, February 2006.



Introduction 11

16 Suzanne Legault, Striking the Right Balance for Transparency: Recommendations to Modernize the Access to Information Act (Gatineau: Office of the Information Commissioner, 2015). For an editorial supporting the position argued here, see “Why Is Ottawa Stalling on Reform?” The Globe and Mail, 4 April 2016. 17 Bronskill v. Minister of Canadian Heritage and Information Commissioner of Canada, 11 August 2011, FC903. 18 John le Carré, The Secret Pilgrim (Toronto: Viking, 1991), 116. 19 A useful how-to-use-it guide to the access regime and its issues is provided in James Brownlee and Kevin Walby, eds., Access to Information and Social Justice (Winnipeg: Arp Books, 2015). See also Jim Bronskill and David McKie, Your Right to Know: How to Use the Law to Get Government Secrets (North Vancouver: Self-Counsel Press, 2014) and by the same authors, Your Right to Privacy: Minimize Your Digital Footprint (North Vancouver: Self-Counsel Press, 2016). 20 For the CSE edifice see their website and the praise for the P3-built and operated Edward Drake Building. The CBC on 8 August 2013 estimated the building cost at $1.2 billion and claimed it was the most expensive building in Canadian government history. The CSE website estimates a life-cycle cost of over $4 billion. I should note here that this volume focuses on human intelligence or humint, as it is known in the trade, not signals intelligence or sigint. This is because the pre–World War II intelligence world was almost totally focused on the former. Sigint came into prominence during World War II and of course has found primacy in the digital age and also significant publicity in the post-9 / 11, post-WikiLeaks, and post-Snowden era. On Snowden see Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2014); Luke Harding, The Snowden Files: The Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (London: The Guardian, 2014); and Laura Poitras’s important film Citizenfour (2014), distributed by Radius-TWC. 21 Arthur Porter was a prominent physician and health administrator who died in jail in Panama on 30 June 2015, while fighting extradition to Canada to face fraud charges related to the corruption scandals surrounding the contracts for the McGill University Health Centre. In 2008 Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed him to the Privy Council to allow him to chair the Security Intelligence Review Committee. He resigned that post in disgrace in November 2011. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that he had no particular experience or qualifications for the post in the first place. 22 Kent Roach, “Permanent Accountability Gaps and Partial Remedies,” in Michael Geist, ed., Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada in the Post-Snowden Era (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2015).

12  Spying on Canadians 23 For a telling editorial critique, see “Promise Made, Promise Delayed,” The Globe and Mail, 12 September 2016. In the same issue, see the op-ed article “Making the Spies Accountable: Real Change or Illusion,” by Ron Atkey, Craig Forcese, and Kent Roach. 24 For the record C-44 was named the “The Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act,” consistent with the quaint nomenclature practices of the Harper government. It primarily amended the CSIS Act specifically to mandate CSIS to engage in foreign intelligence efforts (the original CSIS was explicitly limited to Canadian soil), allowed Canadian courts to issue warrants permitting CSIS to break foreign laws and suspend Canadian Charter Rights abroad, and to make the naming of CSIS sources illegal. C-51, “The Anti-Terror Act,” received far more political attention. It is an omnibus bill bringing together a range of more or less outrageous expansions of security intelligence powers with no regard for civil liberties. The two pieces of legislation have been dubbed by critics as Harper’s “Terror” Acts. For critiques of the Harper “Terror” legislation see Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015), and their pertinent blogs including postings on The Walrus on 13 February 2015, 15 April 2015, and 9 June 2015, and at craigforcese.squarespace.com / national-security-law-blog, as well as those by Michael Geist at michaelgeist.ca / blog. See also the important articles in Geist, ed., Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada by Steve Hewitt, “Forgotten Surveillance: Covert Human Intelligence Sources in the Post-9 / 11 World,” 45–67, and Reg Whitaker, “The Failure of Official Accountability and the Rise of Guerilla Accountability,” 205–24. 25 Globe and Mail, 6 March 2015, as quoted in Whitaker, “Guerilla Accountability,” 220. 26 Forcese and Roach, False Security, provides the best and most detailed critique of the Harper “terror” legislation and its threat not only to human rights but also, ironically, to national security. 27 Whitaker, “Guerilla Accountability”; see also his “The Surveillance State,” Socialist Register 52 (2016), 347–73. 28 Here I am thinking of the Snowden and WikiLeaks documents that have done so much to illuminate the security and surveillance reach of the NSA and its Five Eyes partners including Canada’s CSE. 29 Some satisfaction might be taken from the important scholarly leadership in contemporary surveillance studies in Canada. The Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University under David Lyon is producing excellent work, including Lyon’s Surveillance After Snowden, Cambridge: Polity, 2015, and his edited work with colleagues Colin Bennett and Kevin Haggerty,



Introduction 13 Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2014). In addition the Munk School at the University of Toronto hosts Ronald Deibert’s The Citizen Lab, an international focal point for the heated debates surrounding the Internet. For an example, see his Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet (Toronto: Signal, 2013). For useful policy initiatives, see Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, “Bridging the National Security Access Gap: A Three-Part System to Modernize Canada’s Inadequate Review of National Security,” Working Draft, 11 January 2016, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2714498.

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PART I NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROOTS

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1 The Empire Strikes Back: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Canadian Secret Service CANADIAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 1999

For the past dozen or so years I have been studying Canada’s secret service, our own domestic political police. While much of that work has focused on World War I and the inter-war years, you will not be surprised to hear that I also have ongoing concerns with more recent events. Not surprisingly, much of my interest in the history of political policing and in the larger questions that account raises about the nature of civil liberties in a democratic society stems from contemporary considerations. Recently, this intersection of the personal and the political and of the activist and the academic became somewhat less abstract for me. This afternoon I would like to commence with that personal experience as a way of delineating some of the serious issues encountered in the historical study of our national security and intelligence apparatus. I shall then turn to a rather longer historical view of the origins of ­Canada’s secret service, returning firmly to the terrain of the long nineteenth century.

Last year in Ottawa at the first Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a session of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies garnered considerable media attention. A historical panel featuring papers on the RCMP Security Service and the Far Right in the 1930s, on the targeting of student radicals in the 1960s and 1970s, and, more surprisingly, on surveillance of the annual meetings of the Learned Societies themselves generated front-page coverage and national television programming. University of Saskatchewan historian

18  Nineteenth-Century Roots

Steve Hewitt captured part of this media barrage with a paper that covered the RCMP Security Service and the Learneds in the period from the early 1960s until the Service’s demise in 1983.1 Undoubtedly, his most compelling discovery was a five-page document on the 1977 ­Fredericton Learneds. Our increasing suspicion is that it was the work of an informer, not an under-cover Mountie. One reason for this surmise is the uncharacteristic humour conveyed in the contextual material on the meetings, such as “The most popular pastime at the Learneds is drinking and this year there was a lot of it, possibly spurred on by the weather.”2 On a more ominous note, the RCMP source provided the following rationale for such academic surveillance: “These conventions provide an excellent opportunity to chart and observe the continuing growth of a marxist academic tradition in Canada, to discover who is involved, to assess them, to learn how they are organizing, what their long term goals are and what traditional academics are doing about it.” Downplaying the importance of Communist Party of Canada academics, he focused full RCMP attention on the emergence of “the more academically minded of the student radicals of the 1960s,” who, he alleged, were using “friendships formed during the radical years” to “form the basis of new marxist academic associations, i.e. the Labour History Group and the Political Economy Network” (PEN). The informant worried that “the marxists are becoming much better organized” and charged them with “a semi-religious fervour” in pursuing their “moral duty to use their intelligence and teaching positions to spread the cause of marxism.” Also on three occasions in the five pages he mentioned the use of federal monies to support conference travel and research, a not-too-subtle suggestion for possible RCMP remedial action. Needless to say, the allusions to the “Labour History Group” caught my attention. In perusing some of the passages exempted by the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) process, I found it plausible that at least some of the deletions were for reasons of privacy: “Two of the key marxist organizers are former student radical leaders. was easily the most active academic at the conference. (another traditional feature at these conferences).” Perhaps displaying unseemly personal vanity, I made a privacy ­request of my own for this document. This request led to this further release, which confirmed my suspicion: “Two of the key marxist or­ ganizers are former student radical leaders. Greg Kealey, now at Dalhousie, was easily the most active academic at the conference. He is Secretary of the Labour History Group, spoke



The Empire Strikes Back  19

at sessions of at least five separate organizations or societies, was program chairman for Socialist Studies and assembled the Hogtown Press booth at the publishers’ exhibit (another traditional feature of these conferences).” Twenty years later reading this exaggerated account exhausts me. (I should also add that the document was not part of the personal file released to me in the late 1980s by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service as the result of a privacy request for my personal file, which primarily contained materials covering my undergraduate years at the University of Toronto.) Why was the RCMP interested in scholars, Marxist or not, who created bodies such as the Canadian Committee on Labour History (CCLH) within the Canadian Historical Association, or the Political Economy Network (PEN) in the Canadian Political Science Association? The informant made this case: “The marxists are very realistic. Over and over again, their leading spokesmen repeat that they are involved in a very long process, that the hoped for revolution will not occur overnight, that it will be a long struggle. But they are equally clear on their goals: to create a tradition of marxist academic scholarship in Canada; to get government funding for marxist-oriented research; to convert their students to marxism; to destroy the academic credibility of the capitalist social and government system ... their goal might be called long range ideological subversion.”3 Subversion demands highlighting because this allegation provides a putative legal rationale for the RCMP Security Service’s interest in the Learneds. In a further intriguing sidebar to history, the source also warned that “Marxist scholars can be expected to make serious demands in the next few years for the release of confidential RCMP material ... they will claim that it is vital to their research but their goal, as stated several times in the company of other marxists, is to prove that the RCMP is, in their terms, ‘an agent of state repression,’ and then to try to discredit the RCMP.” Beside this, one RCMP reader has noted in the margin, “They’ve missed the boat.” Whether this cryptic comment is a sarcastic allusion to the destruction of the Security Service’s historical materials, to the withdrawal of such material from the Public Archives of Canada earlier that decade, or is simply a contextual comment about the public relations disaster the RCMP Security Service already faced in 1977, we can only conjecture.4 I also wonder, however, what internal RCMP and CSIS processes were generated when I started making access requests in subsequent years.

20  Nineteenth-Century Roots

So in 1977 the RCMP Security Service surveilled the Learneds and took special interest in the CCLH and the PEN. Indeed, the last unexempted part of the document indicates that “identifying information on the Political Economy Network and on the Labour History Group is being developed.” In RCMP parlance, this probably meant the two groups were to be honoured by the creation of a security file. While, as Steve Hewitt has pointed out, there was controversy within the RCMP Security Service about this report, at the end of the day the Force continued to cover the Learneds until they lost their secret service mandate to the new civilian CSIS. My point here today is not to evaluate these actions of the RCMP Security Service. I shall happily leave that for subsequent discussion. Instead, I want to emphasize that such discussion, assessment, evaluation, and debate are essential and healthy both for the larger society and, indeed, for the intelligence community itself. Consequently what we need is openness not secrecy, both about the past and about the present. Only Access to Information and Privacy legislation allowed Steve Hewitt and me to see this document: no legislation, no document; no document, no debate. The message should be absolutely clear. The passage of ATIP legislation and a new National Archives Act in the 1980s enabled scholars to begin a historical assessment of the history of Canada’s secret service. Over the past decade scholars such as Steve Hewitt, Reg Whitaker, Larry Hannant, Wesley Wark, Bill Kaplan, Dean Beeby, and Gary Kinsman, to name only a few, have begun to chip away at the immense state security archive now, finally, safely housed at the National Archives of Canada (NAC), even if still far from adequately accessible.5 While the history of the RCMP Security Service is becoming better known, what of its nineteenth-century predecessors? The English historiography of the development of the secret service in that country highlights a contradiction at the core of Victorian liberalism. Both Christopher Andrew and Bernard Porter, whose work dominates the field, make much of the English reluctance to embrace a domestic political police, a concept that the English viewed as dangerously continental and associated with unseemly nations such as France, Italy, and Russia.6 Indeed, Porter’s major thesis in The Origins of the Vigilant State concentrates on how these tensions were overcome, finally, only during World War I, after halting starts in the 1880s. His argument, however, highlights a rather different matter for the Canadian reader. For this Victorian liberalism, as he notes, “did not seem to work abroad.



The Empire Strikes Back  21

In most of the countries of the world ruled from Britain ... the expansion of her free enterprise system had not yet had the same politically liberating effect it had had back home.”7 To the few English critics who detected this contradiction, the putative explanation lay in the political immaturity of the colonial peoples, especially easy to attribute if those people were of colour (India, Africa) or Roman Catholic (Ireland, ­Quebec). For Porter, the ultimate dual irony was that the successful counter-revolution against liberalism’s distaste for a domestic political police was, simultaneously, a product of imperial issues brought home (Fenian bombs) and implemented by men from Ireland and India, who stood outside the failed Victorian consensus. As he put it, “The empire was striking back. The contradictions always implicit in Britain’s situation in the world were coming home to roost.”8 Canada, as is often the case, stands somewhere between the British model, as outlined by Porter and Andrew, and that of Ireland and India, but, as we shall see, perhaps uncomfortably closer to the imperial experience than to the home country. In matters of political policing, imperial policy provided ready models for colonial administrators to mimic, albeit at considerable distance from English domestic practice. For example, in the aftermath of the 1837 rebellions one could detect little liberalism as direct military rule slowly gave way in the Quebec case to a rural police under stipendiary magistrates directly modelled on the Irish Constabulary and on the post–slave revolt Jamaican system. As ably described by Elinor Senior, Allan Greer, and Brian Young, the Special Council, which ruled Lower Canada from 1839 to 1841, created a rural police force whose primary aim was the suppression of subversion.9 As the civil secretary of Lower Canada put it, “The immediate object of its institution was to prevent the recurrence of those combinations of the people which in the two preceding years had led to such disastrous results, and to supply the Government with a means of intelligence in those localities where discontent and disaffection appeared to have taken deepest root.”10 Indeed, the instructions to the stipendiary magistrates ordered that the rural police were not only “to know, but in their intercourse with the people, to respect their manners and usages” so that authorities could “obtain the confidence of the people and ... destroy the pernicious influence which produced the disturbances of 1837 and 1838.” This centrally controlled police force, most active in the rebellious rural areas surrounding Montreal, proceeded to spy, to intercept mail, to prohibit public gatherings, to suppress open political discussion, to police

22  Nineteenth-Century Roots

the taverns, and, in general, to pacify the countryside. Not surprisingly,  given that eighty per cent of the police were English and most of those were army veterans, they failed to win the hearts and minds of the people. They did succeed, however, as their leader, Commissioner ­Augustus Gugy, explained in 1839, in making “the government visible to the most ignorant.”11 As both Young and Greer have argued, “the decisive defeat of republican opposition in the Canadas paved the way for a major transformation of imperial rule” in which the “colonial ­regime was not so much restored as reconstituted.”12 These changes dramatically transformed the Canadian state in ways that facilitated the ongoing development of capitalist structures on both sides of the Ottawa River. Some twenty years later in September 1864 the United Provinces of Canada created two secret police forces to protect the border and to prevent the warring United States from intruding on Canadian neutrality. Using the now-familiar model of stipendiary magistrates, GeorgeÉtienne Cartier placed the force in the East under the control of William Ermatinger, a Montreal police administrator with extensive experience handling labour unrest and urban crowds.13 In the West, John A. Macdonald inexplicably chose Gilbert McMicken, a political ally with no such experience, to establish the new Western Frontier Constabulary.14 The two forces enjoyed but limited success in their initial attempt to prevent infringements of Canadian neutrality. While there were no further dramatic incursions such as the Confederate raid on St Albans, union recruiters or “scalpers” continued their work relatively unimpeded for the remaining months of the Civil War. The secret police, however, did not disappear with the Civil War’s ­denouement. Instead, it was invigorated by a new threat, one that was simultaneously domestic and foreign, national and imperial. The new menace came in the form of Irish nationalist revolutionaries, the Fenian Brotherhood. In the following seven years they would launch no fewer than five invasions against Canada from US soil: Campobello (April 1866), Fort Erie, Ridgeway, and Quebec (June 1866), Franklin and Cook’s ­Corners (May 1870), and, finally, Pembina (October 1871). Neither the military events nor the impact of the Fenians on Confederation, both ­established staples of Canadian historiography, need detain us here. ­Instead, I shall trace the development of the constabularies, and their successors, the Dominion Police and the North-West Mounted Police, in the context of state formation. In addition, I shall explore the tension ­between imperial practice in the realm of intelligence and security and



The Empire Strikes Back  23

the prevailing English ideological context and consider Canada’s place  therein. It should also be noted that the Canadian efforts in this realm, while performed within the ambit of imperial co-operation, simultaneously reflected Canadian impatience with British consular intelligence and a nascent sense that Canadian and British interests were not always identical. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was founded in Dublin on 17 March 1858 by James Stephens, a veteran of the Irish risings of 1848 and 1849. In October 1858 Stephens travelled to New York and with the aid of Irish exiles helped to form an American support group, the ­Fenians, under the leadership of John O’Mahony. The name chosen in the United States became the generic name for the international movement. An avowedly revolutionary organization committed to staging an armed rebellion in Ireland to overthrow British rule and to establish an Irish republic, the Fenians grew rapidly in Britain, Canada, the U ­ nited States, and Ireland. Its membership was overwhelmingly working class, although its leaders tended to be lower-middle class. Fenian strategy in Ireland continuously focused on the need for strong American support. Splits within the American movement and especially the rise of the strategy to invade Canada dissipated the potential for successful revolutions in Ireland. In fall 1865 the American Fenians split into two wings. O’Mahony’s opponents, the Senate or Roberts wing, named for its leader, William Roberts, proposed an invasion of Canada. In an attempt to restore his slipping leadership, O’Mahony launched a feeble attempt to seize Campobello in April 1866. The Roberts faction in turn made more ambitious forays into Canada West and East in early June. Despite a minor victory at Ridgeway, the Fenians’ initial attacks gained them little. They did help, however, to prevent a serious effort in Ireland, which, when it finally occurred in March 1867, came too late. The Fenians have enjoyed poor historical press in both Canada and England. Not surprisingly, they have done somewhat better in traditional Irish nationalist historiography. While this paper concerns the Canadian state response to the Fenians, not the Fenians themselves, it seems appropriate to define my view. I would accept the forceful arguments of scholars such as Peter Toner, George Sheppard, and Brian Clarke that have documented the strength and pervasiveness of Fenianism in Canada.15 In addition, I would also accept their conclusion that the Canadian Brotherhood was largely working class in composition and that, although it existed in considerable tension with the

24  Nineteenth-Century Roots

­ oman Catholic hierarchy, it was not predominantly anticlerical. NeverR theless in Canada, as well as in England, Ireland, and the United States, as John Newsinger has argued, it was a significant, popular, workingclass nationalist revolutionary movement that posed a major challenge to the Protestant ascendancy, British rule, and the Irish Catholic middle class.16 In Canada and the United States it also played a major role in bringing Irish workers into the labour movement, a process best seen in the close relationship between Irish nationalism and the leadership of the Knights of Labor. The constabularies under McMicken and Ermatinger, and we know much more about the former than the latter, initially focused on defence of the border with agents being placed not only in Canadian towns but in US cities as well. In Canada West McMicken recruited some fifteen agents before the end of the Civil War and an estimated total of fifty between 1865 and 1870.17 In Canada East Ermatinger also ran a string of some six agents. Preliminary social analysis of the agents suggests that McMicken initially recruited from young men in their late twenties and early thirties with military and police backgrounds, including the Irish Constabulary. Of seventeen who can be identified, seven were Irish (six Roman Catholics), six were Scots (one Roman Catholic) and five were English, all Protestants. Fully thirteen of the seventeen had police or military backgrounds or both. When they were paid, which initially was infrequently, they did well, making $1.25 per day and up with all expenses covered, including the purchase of information. By the autumn of 1865, McMicken had ordered the agents to obtain jobs in their towns to allay any suspicions of how they were supporting themselves. While healthily suspicious of his agents’ reports, the open Canadian invasion aims of the Roberts wing of the Fenian movement (ironically, fuelled by Canadian Fenian leader Michael ­Murphy’s inflated claims) and the increasing fear at home of Canadian Hibernian activities led McMicken to a renewed focus on the domestic threat. Agent Patrick Nolan, by far the most reliable of McMicken’s US implants, was brought back from Chicago to penetrate the Ontario ­Fenians. Running a spy in Toronto set off considerable controversy in the government, and McMicken was forced to defend his source in a letter to Macdonald. In a passage redolent of John le Carré, McMicken reflected on the psychology involved in handling a spy: I feel quite provoked at all this for it is a very difficult thing to find a capable and reliable Irish Roman Catholic who will undertake such service



The Empire Strikes Back  25 and it is extremely imprudent to say the least to place a detective working in secret in communication with too many he is apt to become demoralized to think what he has to inform so many is of little consequence and may be got up for the occasion. He loses the attachment, as I may say, between himself and the person he deals in secrecy with. He fears for his own exposure and is apt to become careless and indifferent and in some case the result might be a “change of face” to save himself.18

McMicken’s arguments won the day and Nolan vindicated himself. (McMicken later formed a similar close relationship with Henri Le Caron whom we shall discuss below.) Nolan’s success confirmed McMicken’s and Macdonald’s worst fears, as he identified some seventeen Fenian lodges in Canada West, nine of them in Toronto. Nolan correctly revealed that the Hibernian Benevolent Society contained within it a sufficiently large Fenian presence to allow the radicals to control it. His most important report contained a cutting commentary on the Toronto police’s intelligence capabilities, suggesting an ongoing theme in intelligence history: conflict between regular and secret police: “Capt. Prince had a lot of his men out in plain clothes some time ago watching for the Fenians. They went to the Catholic Church to look for them there. One of them thought he had a lodge full one night on Nelson St., but it turned to be an O ­ range Lodge. I think the Capt. got tired of them telling lies, as they are all on their beats now.”19 Canadian spies, such as Nolan, successfully infiltrated Fenian circles, and McMicken had multiple agents present at most of the Fenian conventions throughout the 1860s. Hence, Toronto Fenian leader Michael Murphy, who had been identified as such by Patrick Nolan, was under close and continuous scrutiny. Thus, when the call came to support the O’Mahony-led Fenian effort to seize New Brunswick’s Campobello ­Island in April 1866, the Canadian authorities were fully apprised. Dissent in government ranks, however, led to the arrest of Murphy and his group at Cornwall, which was ordered by Galt and Cartier. Macdonald had wanted to keep him under surveillance to gather stronger evidence against him. Indeed, no fewer than four of McMicken’s agents had been endeavouring to collect evidence against Murphy, and Macdonald had ordered Ermatinger to trail him once he entered Quebec. Such tensions between open prosecution and longer-range intelligence gathering ­remained a core issue for all political police forces. Murphy’s arrest proved an embarrassment as repeated spying efforts, including ­planting

26  Nineteenth-Century Roots

a phony Fenian to spy in the jail, failed to generate adequate evidence to prosecute. Only the suspension of habeas corpus after Ridgeway and the eventual escape of Murphy to the United States allowed Macdonald to avoid losing a state trial. Despite considerable intelligence, the Canadian authorities, largely owing to confused communications, were not ready for the Fenian invasion of Fort Erie two months later on 31 May 1866. Led by John O’Neill, an experienced Civil War officer, the Fenians won a modest victory at Ridgeway, their only modest success during their various invasion attempts, but then quickly retreated back to the United States. A foray into southern Quebec a week later also failed. In the aftermath of the Fenian raids, the provincial parliament extended to Lower Canada the Upper Canadian treason legislation of 1838, which allowed the trial by military court martial of foreigners or British subjects who took up arms in the province and, simultaneously, suspended habeas corpus for one year. Some fifty men were initially arrested and held. Parliament later in the session also passed legislation “to prevent the unlawful training of persons to the use of arms,” and made a huge military appropriation, which included $100,000 for detective and secret service work to which was added another $50,000 in 1867 and $75,000 more in 1868.20 While considerable money was being expended, the results were rather limited. One promising scheme, which infiltrated Charles Clarke, a.k.a. Cornelius O’Sullivan, into New York’s Fenian Commissariat in 1867, ran afoul of an unhappy woman who recalled that he had fought with the Canadian volunteers at Ridgeway and so informed the Fenian leadership. Fortunately for him, he was in Quebec when exposed, and other Canadian agents managed to warn him. A related scheme to have a Canadian agent (Philip Kavenagh) found a Fenian circle in Kansas also failed. More successfully, John ­Dakers (a Potsdam, New York, telegraph operator) agreed to forward all Fenian messages to Ottawa before sending them to their proper recipient. Two other agents, William McMichael in New York and John W. McDonald in Philadelphia, developed into extremely successful spies. McMichael, who received one hundred dollars a month for his efforts, worked in Fenian headquarters in New York City after 1868 and provided much detailed information. In addition to McMicken’s and Erma­ tinger’s agents at home and in the United States, Macdonald also asked Charles Joseph Coursol, a cavalry officer with considerable police and militia experience, to run agents on the Quebec–US border after Erma­ tinger’s resignation owing to poor health.21 By late 1868, Macdonald



The Empire Strikes Back  27

now had three quasi-independent sources of information for Fenian intelligence. Macdonald used them to verify one another, and it is clear that Coursol was kept unaware of other intelligence efforts. In the aftermath of the April 1868 assassination, allegedly by a Fenian, of D’Arcy McGee, the moderate Irish nationalist political leader, the ­Canadians gained perhaps their most valuable source. In June 1868 ­McMicken travelled to Detroit to meet Henri Le Caron. Dubbed the “Prince of Spies” by one biographer,22 Le Caron, a pseudonym derived from his years in France (and perhaps the source for David Cornwell’s pseudonym, Le Carré), was actually Thomas Beach, an Englishman who had left France in 1861 to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. On the basis of his military credentials and his Fenian acquaintances from those days, he had been recruited by British spymaster, Robert Anderson, to work for the nascent British secret service in 1867. After Le Caron founded a Fenian circle in Illinois, John O’Neill, the new Fenian president and the hero of Ridgeway, recruited him as a major and military organizer with a mandate to organize throughout the eastern states and a Fenian salary of one hundred dollars a month. Le Caron had initiated the Canadian contact when he wrote directly to Macdonald offering his services. The deal McMicken struck with Le Caron was that he would “furnish from time to time with correct information as they proceed with work and in due season inform me of the actual points of attack with all particulars in order that we may be prepared for them.”23 Macdonald, apparently impressed with Le Caron’s connections, authorized McMicken to hire him for $150 a month but warned, “A man who will engage to do what he offers to do, that is, to betray those with whom he acts, is not to be trusted.”24 From the date of his recruitment, Le Caron provided McMicken with copious intelligence often on a daily basis. Much ink has been spilled about Le Caron, most of which treats him as an exceptional, romantic character. Instead, I think it important to realize that he was only one of a considerable number of Canadian and English agents in the field, whose fame derived from the British decision to allow him to testify before the special Commission in L ­ ondon in 1889 and the subsequent 1892 publication of his memoirs.25 His efforts to place Parnell in the revolutionary camp, and to defend The Times, which had made such inflammatory charges, received massive public attention in Britain. Other agents, such as McMichael, accomplished their tasks with few ripples on the sea of secrecy. The 1868 McGee assassination led to a series of arrests of some seventy Hibernian (allegedly Fenian) leaders across Ontario. Among those

28  Nineteenth-Century Roots

incarcerated were Patrick Boyle, the editor of the Irish Canadian, and John Nolan, Toronto’s Hibernian treasurer. Despite considerable use of the secret service fund to try to link the Fenians to McGee’s murder, including monies paid to the putative eyewitness, Jean-Baptiste ­LaCroix, and to the prosecuting attorney, James O’Reilly, the government could not convincingly connect the accused, James Whelan, to the Fenian organization. Indeed, Le Caron himself reported to the Canadian government that the O’Neill wing had nothing to do with the murder. A longer-lasting effect of the assassination was the creation of the Dominion Police, which received royal assent in May 1868. The following year McMicken and Coursol became its first commissioners, and McMicken relocated to Ottawa to take control. Its mandate included the protection of Parliament and other government buildings, the investigation of federal offences such as mail theft and counterfeiting, and, most importantly for our purposes, secret service work. In many ways, McMicken and Coursol simply continued the secret service arrangements they already had in place. The new Dominion Police provided a convenient and permanent home for the secret service, which constituted one of its three departments. By 1870 the various streams of intelligence provided the Macdonald government with almost complete knowledge of Fenian planning. Indeed, so good was the information that the Canadians debated how to respond. As Le Caron wrote, “The thing to be decided is will you let the move take place and kill it or crush it forever? or will you prevent it for many years by seizing all the arms and munitions of war? You can do either, if the latter you must look out for me that’s all.”26 Whether the last issue proved crucial in the decision-making is hard to judge, but in February McMicken was said to believe “that with the present perfect means of gaining information at his command, it is better to let the raid take place so as to give the raiders a lesson which will not be easily forgotten and will probably squash the Fenian organization ­altogether.”27 Apparently McMicken’s advice won the day, and when the final, major Fenian raids came in May 1870 the Canadians knew everything and were fully prepared. The combination of Le Caron, M ­ cMicken’s other American spies, and Coursol’s agents provided full details of the plans for the invasion from New York and Vermont. C ­ anadian forces met the Fenian invaders in considerable numbers and easily defeated them. Le Caron’s important military role during the invasion further threw the Fenians into disarray as he intentionally subverted aspects of the battle plan. Similarly, one year later, Le Caron warned McMicken of O’Neill’s



The Empire Strikes Back  29

final effort, the abortive attempt to ally Fenian with Métis forces in the 1871 raid on Pembina. Ironically, Riel’s success in gaining provincial status for Manitoba in the rebellion the previous year delayed the creation of the other federally controlled police force, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP). In 1869 ­Macdonald had proposed for the newly acquir­ ed west “that the best Force would be, Mounted Riflemen, trained to act as cavalry, but also instructed in the Rifle exercises. They should be instructed, as certain of the Line are, in the use of artillery, this body should not be expressly Military but should be styled Police, and have the military bearing of the Irish Constabulary.”28 Indeed, in February 1870, Macdonald sought as much information as possible from Sir John Rose in London regarding the organization of the Royal Irish Constabulary.29 For a variety of reasons, the creation of the NWMP was delayed until 1873, but its organizational structure and vision derived from the 1869– 70 discussions, and  the final implementation fell to Deputy Minister of Justice Hewitt Bernard, Macdonald’s former secretary and brotherin-law, who had been fully involved in the earlier plans. An overall assessment of these early Canadian security and intelligence efforts is difficult, although we have far more historical data to base our judgment on than is normally the case in this field. In three of the four actual invasion attempts, Canadian authorities had considerable advance notice. In the case of the fourth (Fort Erie), the failure lay more in the interpretation of intelligence data than in its gathering. Moreover, it is difficult to assess McMicken’s claims that, in March 1865 and again in November 1869, Fenian invasion plans were thwarted by Canadian military readiness. Perhaps more important than such strategic assessment, however, is the question of precedent, and here one must be less sanguine. It is notable that English Victorian liberalism’s pervasive suspicion of a political police, of detectives, and of secrecy itself appears to have had little resonance in Canada. The only controversy about the secret service came in 1877 when the Mackenzie government investigated Macdonald’s use of the funds. While the investigation raised significant questions about Macdonald himself, it did so only in terms of misappropriation and political corruption. The parliamentary committee consciously refused to question the propriety of the secret service itself and of the secrecy that surrounded it. While it basically found Macdonald guilty as charged, its mild reassertion of parliamentary control fell far short of the equivalent sentiments found in England in the same period. While the intensity of secret service activity waned in the 1870s,

30  Nineteenth-Century Roots

the precedents had been effectively established. Hence, when the Irish nationalist movement again emerged as a significant force in the early 1880s the Macdonald government knew exactly what to do. In 1881 Macdonald hired a female agent, a Mrs. E. Forest, who had access to American Land Leaguers. Macdonald’s recourse to a woman informant was unusual. All the previous spies had been men, although McMicken had considered using a female agent in the 1860s to discover Fenian secrets. The prime minister also called on McMicken to reactivate Le Caron, who had continued to provide information to the British. After a February 1881 meeting in Chicago, McMicken put Le Caron back on the Canadian payroll. In his renewed spying role, Le Caron ­attended the Chicago Clan-na-Gael convention and proceeded to provide information for the bulk of the decade. Only after his return to England in 1889 and his public testimony to the Special Commission did his ­illustrious career as a spy end. The Dominion Police also played a role in gathering intelligence on the resurgent Irish nationalists. Percy Sherwood, a Dominion Police superintendent and, subsequently, commissioner, trailed Fenian leader “Big Jim” McDermott when he visited Canada in 1883. (Apparently no  one had bothered to inform the Canadians that McDermott was a British informant.) Similarly, Sherwood described running “paid agents in the various large cities just now who are employed temporarily. Their duty is to report what occurs at the various secret meetings of these dynamite conspirators.” Somewhat ambivalently, he noted, “I need scarcely tell you that my informants are of the same stripe and have a finger in the pie. The only way to deal with this class of crime is to buy up the principal. It goes against the grain but has become a necessity.”30 The Fenian threat and the development of both a state response and, indeed, a new state were inextricably intertwined in these crucial years. The new state’s response was simultaneously related to its colonial ­legacy and at some remove from it. For if, as Porter argues, England was slow to develop a political police because of its extraordinary self-­ confidence, even in the face of Fenian bombs, the same cannot be said of the slowly emerging new nation state north of the United States.31 Macdonald showed few hesitations in creating a secret police; indeed, he exercised tight control over his subordinates, personally controlled the secret service fund, and developed this independent intelligence in recognition of emerging Canadian interests. As Wayne Crockett has demonstrated, he proved eminently willing to use it for partisan political purposes as well as for the protection of the new nation.32



The Empire Strikes Back  31

Hence, even at its birth, Canada’s secret service went unchallenged. No political debate surrounded it; no one criticized its creation. The profound suspicion so prevalent in Victorian England of spies, spying, and secrecy found few reflections in Canada. The suspension of habeas corpus, political arrests without charges, mail seizure, penetration agents, perhaps agents provocateurs – all were present in these formative years of the new nation state, and all went unopposed except by the victims. One can only surmise that the immense self-confidence of Victorian liberalism which underlay the powerful association of a secret police with oligarchy found little resonance in the Canadian outpost of the empire. Instead, republicanism (be it of a Quebec nationalist, Irish nationalist, or even American stripe) was cast as antithetical to the new nation state created to counter them. That new nation state, largely imposed from above, contained a secret service from its inception. As Allan Greer has argued, “The Rural Police episode was not the last occasion on which a Canadian government instituted a new police force in order to meet a revolutionary challenge.”33 In leap-frogging from 1838 to 1919, however, he ignored one other significant occasion, namely the crucial years from 1864 to 1873, which saw the birth of no fewer than four new political police forces in response to the Fenian and Métis threats.

My thanks to Linda Kealey and Stephen Bornstein for the useful comments. I am indebted to Ingrid Botting, Jillian Murphy, Andy Parnaby, and Rick Rennie for research help. The longer project from which this is extracted was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. NOTES 1 Steve Hewitt, “Intelligence at the Learneds: The RCMP, the Learneds and the Canadian Historical Association,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, N.S. 9 (1998): 267–86, esp. 279–82. 2 This and subsequent quotations are from NA, RG 146, V. 2910, file 97-A00062, Pt. 1,[deleted] to the Officer i/e Security Intelligence II, Re: Learned Societies – Canada, 4 July 1977.

32  Nineteenth-Century Roots 3 Emphasis is mine. 4 For the unseemly story of the RCMP and the PAC, see my “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (1988): 199–226 [Chapter 9 in this book]. For further discussion of these issues see my “In the Canadian Archives on Security and Intelligence,” Dalhousie Review 75 (1995): 26–38. 5 Steve Hewitt, “September 1931: A Reinterpretation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Handling of the 1931 Estevan Strike and Riot,” Labour /  Le Travail (Spring 1939): 159–78; Reg Whitaker, Cold War Canada: The Making of the National State, 1945–1957 (Toronto, 1994); Reg Whitaker, The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality (New York, 1999); Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins, 8 vols. (St. John’s, 1989–97); Larry Hannant, The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens (Toronto, 1995); Larry Hannant, “Access to the Inside: An Assessment of Canada’s Security Service: A History,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (1993): 149–59; Larry Hannant, “Using the Privacy Act as a Research Tool,” Labour / Le Travail 24 (Fall 1989): 181–5; Larry Hannant, “The Origins of State Security Screening in Canada,” unpublished PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1993; Wesley Wark, ed., Past, Present, Future? (Ilford, Essex; Portland, OR, 1994); Wesley Wark, “Beyond the Missing Dimension: The New Study of Intelligence,” Canadian Journal of History 24, no. 1 (1989): 82–9; Wesley Wark, “The Evolution of Military Intelligence in Canada,” Armed Forces and Society 16, no. 1 (1989): 77–98; Wesley Wark, “Security Intelligence in Canada, 1864–1945: The History of a ‘National Insecurity State,’” in Keith Neilson and B.J.C. McKercher, eds., Go Spy the land: Military Intelligence in History (Westport, CT, 1992), 153–78; William Kaplan, “The Access to Information Act: A 1988 Review,” Labour / Le Travail 22 (Fall 1988): 181–98; Dean Beeby, Cargo of Lies: The True Story of a Nazi Double Agent in Canada (Toronto, 1996); Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: Sexuality in Canada (Montreal, 1987); Gary Kinsman, “‘Character Weaknesses’ and ‘Fruit Machines’: Towards an Analysis of the Anti-Homosexual Security Campaign in the Canadian Civil Service,” Labour / Le Travail 23 (Spring 1989): 133–61. 6 Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London, 1985); Bernard Porter, Plots and Paranoia: A History of Political Espionage in Britain (London, 1989); and Bernard Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State: The London Metropolitan Police Special Branch Before the First World War (London, 1987). 7 Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State, 188.



The Empire Strikes Back  33

8 Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State, 194. 9 See for example, Elinor Senior, British Regulars in Montreal: An Imperial Garrison, 1832–1854 (Montreal, 1981); Allan Greer, The Patriots and the People (Toronto, 1993); Allan Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” in Allan Greer and Ian Radforth, eds., Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-­ Nineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto, 1992), 17–49; Brian Young, “Positive Law, Positive State: Class Realignment and the Transformation of Lower Canada, 1815–1866,” in Colonial Leviathan, 50–63. 10 NAC, Lower Canada Stipendiary Magistrates, vol. 3, Gugy to Murdoch, 4 November 1839. Quoted in Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” 40–1. 11 NAC, Lower Canada Stipendiary Magistrates, vol. 3, Gugy to Murdoch, 4 November 1839. Quoted in Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” 40–1. 12 Allan Greer, “1837–38: Rebellion Reconsidered,” unpublished paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association, Calgary, June 1994, 25–6. 13 Elinor Senior’s biography in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB), vol. IX (Toronto, 1976), 242–3. 14 See Carl Betke’s biography in DCB, vol. XII (Toronto, 1990), 675–80. 15 Peter M. Toner, “The Military Organization of the ‘Canadian’ Fenians, 1866–1870,” Irish Sword 10, no. 38 (Summer 1971): 26–37; Peter M. Toner, “The Home Rule League: Fortune, Fenians, and Failure,” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 15, no. 1 (July 1989): 7–19; Peter M. Toner, “The Rise of Irish Nationalism in Canada, 1858–1884,” unpublished PhD thesis, National University of Ireland, 1974; George Sheppard, “‘God Save the Green’: Fenianism and Fellowship in Victorian Ontario,” Histoire Sociale /  Social History 20, no. 39 (May 1987): 129–44; and Brian Clarke, Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Organizations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 (Kingston, 1993). 16 John Newsinger, Fenianism in Mid-Victorian Britain (London, 1994). 17 Much of this account is based on Jeff Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger: Canada West’s Secret Police, 1864–67,” Ontario History 79 (1987): 353–77. 18 Much of this account is based on Jeff Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger: Canada West’s Secret Police, 1864–67,” Ontario History 79 (1987): 353–77. 19 NAC, Macdonald Papers, McMicken Reports, vol. IV, E.C. Burton [Patrick Nolan] to McMicken, 31 December 1865. Quoted in William D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement in the United States: 1858–1886 (New York, 1947), 97–8. 20 Carl Betke and S.W. Horrall, “Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline, 1864–1966,” RCMP Historical Section, Ottawa, 1978, unpublished manuscript in possession of the author, 70, 113ff.

34  Nineteenth-Century Roots 2 1 On Coursol, see Lorne Ste Croix in DCB, X (Toronto, 1982), 206–7. 22 John Alfred Cole, Prince of Spies: Henri le Caron (London; Boston, 1984). 23 NAC, Macdonald Papers: McMicken Reports. VIII, 48. McMicken to Macdonald, 8 June 1868. Quoted in D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement, 296. 24 NAC, Macdonald Letter Books, XI, Macdonald to McMicken, 15 June 1868. Quoted in D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement, 297. 25 Henri Le Caron, Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service: The Recollections of a Spy (London, 1892). 26 NAC, Macdonald Papers: Fenians, Vol. 5, Le Caron to A. Liddell, 7 ­November 1869, Quoted in D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement, 322. 27 Sir John Young [Governor General of Canada] to Earl Granville, 10 ­February 1870. Quoted in D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement, 338. 28 NAC, Macdonald Papers, vol. 516, Macdonald to McDougall, 12 December 1869. Quoted in S.W. Horrall, “Sir John A. Macdonald and the Mounted Police Force for the Northwest Territories,” The Canadian Historical Review 53 (1972): 181. 29 Horrall, “Macdonald and the Mounted Police Force,” 182. 30 Dominion Police Records, vol. 3090, A.P. Sherwood to “My Dear Livy,” 14 May 1883. Quoted in Betke and Horrall, “Canada’s Security Service,” 133. 31 For example, Porter writes of Britain’s lack of “political police” and that “nearly everyone in Britain regarded this as a matter for national self-­ congratulation; one proof, among others, of Britain’s superiority over all other societies everywhere.” The Origins of the Vigilant State, 2. 32 Crockett, “The Uses and Abuses of the Secret Service Fund,” 197. 33 Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” 41.

2 “High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”: Radicalism, Anti-Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860–1914 Co-authored by ANDREW PARNABY, with KIRK NIERGARTH

Surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that targeted political dissidents were a part of the Canadian state from its inception. This is not surprising. Not only had such practices – furtive, repressive, and legal in equal measure – long served military and diplomatic objectives in British North America but the development of a Canadian system of political policing was tied to Canada’s status as an outpost of the British Empire. Indeed, early political police structures in Canada were modelled after those created in other colonial contexts, and, by the 1860s, agents of the Canadian state had become integrated within an imperial network of intelligence gathering and sharing.1 Furthermore, it was the mobilization of anti-colonial activists, whose primary target was ­Britain itself, that spurred the Canadian government to develop and expand a political police force that could serve the interests of both the Dominion and the empire. In the late 1860s, in the aftermath of the American Civil War, North American Irish radicals became the principal focus of Canadian secret police operations. If the Fenian threat helped boost the idea of Confederation, it also provided the impetus to normalize the use of spies and spymasters as part of the federal civil service.2 British imperial personnel, however, remained significant players in Canadian intelligence gathering, just as the imperial tie shaped the way the Canadian state perceived its enemies. This pattern persisted into the early 1900s when South Asian radicals in Canada agitated for an end to British rule in India. While the Dominion had become geographically larger and economically more complex by this time, the Canadian state remained willing to engage in political policing to maintain the security of the British Empire.

36  Nineteenth-Century Roots

This chapter focuses on the careers of spymaster Gilbert McMicken and spy William Charles Hopkinson. It examines the influence of imperial politics on Canada’s early forays into political policing, as well as the overt and covert methods deployed by the Canadian state to curb the growth of anti-colonial activism at home and abroad. Gilbert McMicken and the Fenians With an ideological pedigree that stretched back to the United Irish rebellion in the 1790s, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was founded in Dublin in 1858. It was an avowedly revolutionary organization that was committed to overthrowing British rule in Ireland and establishing an Irish republic.3 Yet, as its leaders understood well, success at home required the support of Irish immigrants abroad, most notably in the United States, where tens of thousands of Irish men and women, many of whom had fled Ireland during the depths of the Famine, swelled the ranks of working-class populations in New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Cincinnati.4 Thus, seven months after the IRB’s founding, an American support group, the Fenian Brotherhood, was established. As David Wilson has noted, Fenianism found a receptive audience in Canada as well. In Toronto, members of the Hibernian ­Benevolent Society, an Irish self-help organization founded by cooper and tavern keeper Michael Murphy, created a clandestine Fenian circle in 1859. Its members were mostly working class, and, like their counterparts south of the border, they were drawn to a heady mix of camaraderie, nationalism, and collective action at a time when politics often turned on the power, privileges, and prejudices that differentiated the Orange from the Green. “It is time to cast off the habiliments of wretchedness and come forth clothed in the manly garb of equality,” the Hibernian’s newspaper, Irish Canadian, exclaimed. “We Irish will yet stand erect in Canada.”5 The British Empire took action against Irish nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic in 1865. In Ireland, alarmed by the steady growth of the IRB and the arrival of Irish-American veterans of the US Civil War, British officials raided the organization’s offices, closed its newspapers, and arrested many of its high-profile members. In Canada, John A. Macdonald, attorney general and minister of militia affairs in Upper Canada, aware that American Fenians were debating the politics of “freeing Ireland on the plains of Canada,” empowered Gilbert ­McMicken, the head of the Western Frontier Constabulary, to covertly



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  37

investigate the Fenian organization on both sides of the Canadian– American border. “The Fenian action in Ireland is serious and the Imperial government seems fully alive to it,” Macdonald observed. “We must not be caught napping.”6 McMicken’s Canadian résumé, at first glance, seems unsuited to a career in political policing compared to the military credentials of Colonel Frederick William Ermatinger, who was McMicken’s equivalent in Lower Canada. With border security of paramount concern, however, McMicken’s personal experience and political ties help explain his selection by Macdonald. After his arrival in Canada in 1832 and marriage into a prominent family in 1835, McMicken’s career in business was directly connected to cross-border transportation, communication, and trade.7 McMicken eventually became both a civil servant and a politician. He had received his first government appointment as a customs inspector in 1838 and was elected to the Upper Canadian Legislative Assembly in 1857. He was a loyal ally of Macdonald, who had arranged for him to be appointed an excise officer in Windsor only two months before choosing him to head Canada’s first under-cover security force, the Western Frontier Constabulary, in 1864.8 McMicken’s varied crossborder activities and connections prepared him to lead a force created initially to reassure US officials of Canadian neutrality during the American Civil War, after a group of Confederate soldiers had launched a raid on St Albans, Vermont, from Canadian soil.9 By the end of the Civil War, McMicken had about fifteen under-cover operatives patrolling the border under his command.10 The Fenian threat prompted McMicken to increase significantly the number of Canadian secret police. By 1870, approximately fifty agents, working both in the United States and in Canada, were attending Fenian meetings, frequenting “Irish Saloons,” and shadowing suspected “Irish Rebbles.” Fragmentary evidence suggests that McMicken’s recruits were usually men in their late twenties and early thirties who possessed military and / or police backgrounds; of the eighteen agents who can be positively identified, seven were Irish (six Roman Catholics), six were Scottish (one Roman Catholic), and five were English (all Protestants). Paid relatively well, many informants nonetheless took up employment in the areas under their supervision in order to allay any suspicions of how they were supporting themselves and what their real motives were. “I was impressed with the idea that he was capable and had proven his being a very intelligent Irish Roman Catholic,” ­McMicken wrote to Macdonald, assessing the credentials of one of his

38  Nineteenth-Century Roots

latest recruits. “This, in connection with his integrity and loyalty, led me to engage his services for a time. He was to put himself in communication with the British Consul there [Buffalo] and be instructed by him and through him by me.”11 When it came to monitoring the machinations of Fenian rebels in the United States, the Canadian government worked cheek by jowl with British consular officials in several large American cities, most notably in Buffalo, a key border crossing, and New York, a hive of Green activity. The British consuls in these cities, H.W. Hemans and Sir Edward Mortimer Archibald respectively, recruited a network of informants and were often in direct contact with McMicken’s men. Consular officials channelled information to various British officials, including the colonial secretary (who, in turn, informed police forces in London and Dublin), the commander of British forces in North America, the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick, and the governor general of Canada, Lord Monck. Combined, the Canadian government and British diplomats marshalled a far-flung and eclectic battery of informants. Drawn from inside and outside the Fenians’ ranks and scattered along the Canada–US border, it pumped information through the capillaries of communication that linked governments and law-enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic.12 By April 1866, when the Fenians attacked Campobello Island, New Brunswick, the Canadian government was well informed about both American and domestic Fenian activity.13 Patrick Nolan, one of McMicken’s most reliable informants in Chicago, had been recalled to ­Toronto where he submerged himself in the local Green scene. Nolan learned that there were approximately seventeen Fenian lodges in ­Upper Canada, nine of them in Toronto; that, while the Hibernian Bene­volent Society and the Fenians were not the same thing, there was substantial overlap between the two organizations; and that the ubiquitous Michael Murphy was indeed a Fenian and was in touch with like-minded individuals in the United States.14 In March 1866 Nolan reported that Murphy and a coterie of supporters were preparing to leave the city to assist their American comrades in a cross-border raid of some kind.15 At Campobello, the Fenian raiders were met by the combined force of six British warships and scores of US troops and easily turned back. North of the border, Michael Murphy and a group of supporters, who had been under surveillance since they left Toronto, were apprehended in Cornwall, Upper Canada, on their way to assist their American counterparts.16 ­McMicken had no fewer than four agents keeping tabs on the prominent Irish leader at the time of his arrest.



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  39

The Fenians’ defeat at Campobello did not, however, dampen the organization’s enthusiasm for the “Canada option.”17 They launched more successful attacks in June 1866, one in Upper Canada (Ridgeway and Fort Erie) and another in Lower Canada.18 This time Canadian authorities were forewarned, but they were not, surprisingly, forearmed. Poor communication between government, secret service, and military officials, coupled with conflicting reports from some secret agents, generated a mix of confusion and complacency in official circles. The failure of the secret powers of state to prevent these attacks prompted the Canadian Parliament to make use of the more conventional repressive tactics. On 8 June it amended the “quasi-treason” offence of lawless aggression, originally enacted in Upper Canada after the rebellions of 1837 and 1838. Detailed in the throne speech and given royal assent on the same day, the changes permitted the government to try by military court martial any foreigner or British subject who took up arms in the province. It also suspended habeas corpus for a year, enabling police in Upper and Lower Canada to arrest dozens of men suspected of Fenian sympathies without the burden of due process. Parliament later passed legislation “to authorize the seizure of Fire Arms collected for purposes dangerous to the public peace” and made a huge military appropriation – $1,897,085 on a total budget of $7,003,236 – which included $100,000 for “detective and secret service work.” It added an additional $50,000 and $75,000 in 1867 and 1868 respectively.19 In the wake of the Fenian attacks of 1866, Macdonald pushed ahead with significant changes in the operation and structure of the secret service. Of particular importance was the establishment of more independent and reliable sources of intelligence. The career of informant Henri Le Caron highlights this new priority well. Born in England to a modest family, Le Caron, whose real name was Thomas Beach, worked in France as a banker in the late 1850s, eventually leaving Europe for North America in 1861 to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. Once in the United States, Beach, who was in his early twenties, enlisted in the 8th Pennsylvania Reserve as a private and adopted the name Henri Le Caron. After the war, he settled in Illinois and later took a position as a medical officer at the Illinois State Penitentiary. On the basis of his military credentials and knowledge of Fenianism – he had served with Irish soldiers in the Union Army – Le Caron was recruited by British officials in the autumn of 1867 to be a paid informant. Early on, he reported directly to the British Home Office, but, as he wormed his way into the Fenians’ inner sanctum, he looked for a closer, more secure contact, and wrote to the Canadian government. Macdonald,

40  Nineteenth-Century Roots

a­ pparently impressed with Le Caron’s connections, authorized McMicken to hire him for $150 a month, but warned, “A man who will engage to do what he offers to do, that is, betray those with whom he acts, is not to be trusted.” Macdonald’s scepticism was misplaced. From the date of his recruitment, Le Caron, dubbed by one biographer “The Prince of Spies,” provided the Canadian government with copious and prescient intelligence, often on a daily basis.20 Additional changes to the secret service were spurred on by the assassination of journalist, member of Parliament from Montreal, and “Father of Confederation,” Thomas D’Arcy McGee, on 7 April 1868. McGee’s death led to the arrests of some seventy Hibernian leaders on suspicion of Fenian sympathies. In addition to the intimidation of suspected Fenians, the assassination prompted the ruling Conservatives to create the Dominion Police in May with a mandate to protect government buildings, investigate federal crimes such as mail theft, and undertake political policing. The foundation of a permanent Canadian secret service had thus been laid: it had an institutional home in the form of the newly minted Dominion Police force, possessed a stable source of funding, and, significantly, depended more and more on the expertise of its own well-paid and highly placed agents – not the British diplomatic service. When rumblings of another Fenian invasion emerged in 1869 and 1870, government officials enjoyed almost complete knowledge of ­Fenian planning. Le Caron was in the thick of things, stashing guns and ammunition at key border points while simultaneously communicating the Fenians’ whereabouts to McMicken. (On one occasion, two government informants reported on Le Caron’s actions, unaware that the highly respected Fenian commander was himself an under-cover agent.) Not surprisingly, then, when about two hundred Fenian soldiers finally crossed the border from Vermont on 25 May, they were met by a sizeable Canadian force – one that had been called up and prepared well in advance – and were easily defeated. In the fall of 1871, McMicken was personally involved in thwarting another perceived ­Fenian threat, this time in Manitoba, where a raiding party of between forty and eighty men with Fenian connections was captured by American authorities before it reached the Canadian border. In McMicken’s own account of this apprehended insurrection, he describes, in a style fit for Boy’s Own Annual, his surreptitious journey from St Paul, ­Minnesota to Fort Garry, Manitoba, during which he slipped by the Fenian raiders en route; his assistance to the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, Adams George Archibald, in raising a militia of “loyal Canadians”; and his unflagging devotion to queen and country.21



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  41

What McMicken called the “abortive raid” on Manitoba was not, officially, a Fenian operation. Organized by William Bernard O’Donoghue, who had served as treasurer of Louis Riel’s provisional government during the Red River rebellion of 1869–70, the attack was not sanctioned by the leadership of the Fenian Brotherhood in Canada or the United States, though O’Donoghue did gain the support of Fenian ­generals John O’Neill and J.J. Donnelly. O’Donoghue later explained that he viewed the action as an attempt to revive Riel’s rebellion of 1869. The raiders clearly anticipated that they would gain the support of Manitoba’s Métis community, with whom they shared both a religion and an anti-colonial perspective. A Fenian–Métis alliance was precisely what Archibald and McMicken feared, but it failed to materialize. Riel and other Métis leaders, in this instance, remained loyal to the government. A grateful Archibald became infamous in the eyes of Ontario Orangemen for shaking hands with Riel after inspecting ­Métis troops who volunteered to help defend the province against O’Donoghue’s Fenian-assisted incursion.22 As it happened, the so-called Fenian threat to Manitoba only hastened McMicken on a journey already in progress. Even before the fateful handshake with Riel, Prime Minister Macdonald and other federal politicians were concerned that Lieutenant Governor Archibald was too sympathetic to Métis’ demands that they be granted the lands guaranteed them in the Manitoba Act. McMicken was dispatched to, as he put it to Macdonald, ensure that “actual settlers” received land without enraging “French half breeds” over violations of their “fancied rights.”23 In addition to his duties as Dominion Police commissioner, then, McMicken was appointed to a number of civil-service offices in Manitoba: he was simultaneously an agent of the Dominion lands branch, the province’s assistant receiver general, the secretary of the Intercolonial Railway commission, and an immigration officer. While in Manitoba, as Macdonald’s intelligence agent, McMicken surreptitiously monitored both Archibald’s activities and the security threat posed by the Métis. As lands agent, McMicken proposed a scheme for a random distribution of lands to the Métis that undermined the arrangements already made by Archibald.24 When Canada’s sovereign interests shifted from border security to westward expansion, McMicken’s combined bureaucratic and security career travelled on a parallel track – a blending of roles that foreshadowed the tactics deployed by the federal government in the early decades of the next century. That the use of under-cover agents had become so routine by the late  1860s and early 1870s underscores just how uncontroversial the

42  Nineteenth-Century Roots

e­ mergence of the secret service was among Canada’s political classes. The only dissent came in 1877 when Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberal government investigated Macdonald’s (ab)use of the secret service fund. Yet at issue was not the legitimacy, purpose, or secrecy of the fund but simply its misappropriation. During his tenure as a political leader, Macdonald expressed no reservations about creating a secret police; indeed, he exerted a firm grip on his subordinates, personally controlled the secret service fund, and developed the mechanisms necessary to gather intelligence in recognition of personal, national, and imperial  interests. Significantly, the constellation of forces arrayed against the Fenians – domestic and imperial – were still at the disposal of the ­Canadian state in the early 1900s when it confronted another anti-­ colonial movement that hoped, like the Fenians, to strike a blow for independence at home by generating support in North America. Even specific strategies, like the overt and covert actions undertaken by ­McMicken, were reactivated, as the Canadian government sought to ­resolve its “Hindoo crisis” on the west coast and, in so doing, help preserve the stability of British rule – the Raj – in India. William Charles Hopkinson and the “Hindoo Crisis” Between 1857 and 1914, a period bracketed by the revolt of Indian soldiers serving in the Bengal army – the Great Mutiny – and the outbreak of the First World War, British officials in London and Calcutta undertook a far-reaching inquiry into many areas of imperial policy, including the administration of land, settlement, and the military and Indian access to education, the civil service, and other political institutions. At the same time, Indians – many of whom were educated at newly created schools and universities – remained politically active. By the turn of the century, pockets of collective action, increasingly dedicated to Indian self-determination, had emerged at home and abroad. In England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, South Asian radicals mixed with left-wing and liberal intellectuals, socialists and trade unionists, and other immigrants and exiles. They rejected the moderate approach charted by the Indian National Congress, which was founded in 1885, and articulated instead a vision of independence achieved through militant tactics. Canada, like other nations where South Asian immigrants pooled, was home to a vibrant radical milieu.25 Between 1904 and 1908, about 5,200 South Asians, most of whom were Sikhs from the Punjab, immigrated to British Columbia. Drawn by



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  43

the promise of work and wages in the industrializing west, they arrived at a time of intense anti-Asian agitation. Spurred on by the inflammatory rhetoric and violent demonstrations of many white British Columbians, actions that only intensified as the local economy faltered in 1907, the federal government sought to curtail Asian immigration by raising the head tax on newcomers from China and negotiating a “gentleman’s agreement” with Japanese authorities. For the ruling Liberals, the outright exclusion of South Asian immigrants posed a problem, for, unlike the Chinese and Japanese, they were British subjects and, at least in theory, possessed all the rights and freedoms associated with that status.26 The broader connection between the plight of South Asians in Canada and the political (in)stability of the Raj was also a key concern. A Canadian ban on Indian immigration would have revealed the hollowness of the rights the Raj claimed to guarantee and fanned the flames of antiimperial sentiment among South Asians at home and abroad.27 In March 1908 William Lyon Mackenzie King, the young deputy minister of labour, was dispatched to England to confer with British and ­Indian authorities about Canada’s immigration policy. King found that imperial officials agreed that it was “natural” that the Canadian government should wish to restrict Asian immigration: “That Canada should desire to remain a white man’s country is believed to be not only desirable for economic and social reasons,” he reported, “but highly necessary on political and national grounds.” On the other hand, King reported that all thought it was best to avoid “enacting legislation in either India or in Canada which might appear to reflect on fellow British subjects in another part of the empire,” since “nothing could be more unfortunate ... than that the impression should go forth that ­Canada ... is not deeply sensible of the obligation which citizenship within the empire entails.” Fortunately, according to King’s analysis, the “dovetailing” of new Canadian immigration restrictions with Indian emigration laws created an “effective bar” to further South Asian immigration to Canada.28 Especially effective, King thought, would be the Canadian order-in-council PC 27, passed on 8 January 1908, which prohibited the entry of immigrants who did not travel by “continuous journey” from the country of their birth to Canada. Since the only company that had been selling a “through ticket” from India to Canada was the Canadian Pacific Railway, and since the government had used its influence to convince this company to stop selling such tickets, PC 27 achieved its purpose: between 1908 and 1915 only about one hundred South Asians were admitted to Canada.29

44  Nineteenth-Century Roots

If PC 27 was politically sly, it was legally dubious. Declared invalid by the British Columbia Supreme Court even while King was praising it in England, the government moved quickly to replace it with a ­reworded order-in-council, PC 662. The measure was put on firmer legal footing on 27 May 1908, when it was underpinned by an amendment to the Immigration Act passed in the House of Commons.30 If the  government’s extraordinary efforts to maintain the “continuous journey” stipulations dampened the spirit of anti-Asian agitation in British Columbia  – so toxic in the months and years leading up to ­Ottawa’s intervention – on the other side of the racial divide, members of the South Asian community were incensed. Not only did the “continuous journey” requirements cut them off from family and friends who wished to join them in Canada but it cast in bold relief the emptiness of the crown’s claim that all British subjects were equal before and under the law. That the Sikhs had remained loyal to the Raj during the Great Mutiny of 1857 and had played a key role in the Indian army in subsequent decades only added insult to injury. In this hothouse of intolerance and confrontation, nationalist, anti-British sentiments started to germinate – drawing many in the South Asian community, including a small yet influential group of Western-educated students and entrepreneurs, into a political debate that was at once local and global in its consequences. Mindful of the situation in British Columbia and the broader politics of imperial rule in India, especially at a time when unrest was rocking parts of the Punjab and Bengal, the federal government was anxious to keep tabs on this pocket of agitation, both for its own benefit and for the benefit of its counterparts in London and Calcutta. Its principal resource in this regard was William Charles Hopkinson. The son of a British officer in the Indian army and a Brahmin mother, Hopkinson was born in Delhi in 1880. At the age of sixteen, he joined the Indian police, working first in the Punjab, then later in Calcutta from 1901 to 1907, two locales that, during this period, were seedbeds for various political movements. Fluent in English, Punjabi, Hindi, and other Indian languages, Hopkinson left the Calcutta police force sometime in 1907 and surfaced in British Columbia later that year (or early in 1908), taking up a permanent position as an interpreter with the Vancouver immigration service in February 1909.31 Shortly after his arrival, yet several months before officially taking up his post in the immigration service, the diminutive former detective had convinced local authorities to shut down a night school for South Asian workers in New Westminster and a



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  45

newspaper called Free Hindusthan, which routinely published anti-­ British material. Both were run by Taraknath Das, a young activist and university graduate who at one time played a role in nationalist protests in Calcutta against the partition of Bengal.32 Fragmentary evidence suggests that Hopkinson had been on the radical’s trail for some time – more than likely at the behest of India’s Department of Criminal Intelligence, which was created in 1904. Whatever the impetus for Hopkinson’s journey to North America, the Canadian Department of the Interior, which was responsible for immigration, and the federal cabinet understood just how valuable his skills were in managing potential political unrest, both as an interpreter and later as a spy.33 Having all but stemmed the flow of South Asian immigrants to ­British Columbia, the Canadian government next considered a plan that would relocate those who had already arrived. In the fall of 1908, Ottawa devised a plan to transplant South Asians from British Columbia to British Honduras. The scheme was first formulated by J.B. H ­ arkin, private secretary to the minister of the interior, the summer before. “It  has been pretty well established that physically and mentally the Hindoo is unfitted to compete successfully with whites or with other Orientals in a country like this,” Harkin told W.D. Scott, the superintendent of immigration. “[This proposal] avoids the possibility of a precipitation of trouble in India consequent on the return of Hindoos enraged at their treatment in British territory.”34 The federal government concurred, and, within weeks of receiving the Colonial Office’s blessing, it permitted Harkin to assemble a delegation to investigate the feasibility of the central American colony as a home for British Columbia’s South Asians. The special group included Hopkinson, who was brought on board as a secretary and interpreter, and two representatives from the city’s South Asian community: Sham Singh, a Hindu, and Hagar Singh, a Sikh. They travelled to Belize in late October. From Harkin’s and Hopkinson’s points of view, the trip, which lasted several weeks, was a great success. The demand for agricultural labour in ­British Honduras was higher than expected, and by all accounts the South Asian delegates were impressed by the working conditions there and desirous of seeing the scheme through. Or so the trip’s organizers thought. Upon returning to Vancouver, Sham Singh and Hagar Singh rejected the relocation plan and went so far as to accuse Hopkinson of trying to bribe them into delivering a more positive assessment. Harkin, who was not in British Columbia at the time the delegates made their views public, was incensed. “Evidently agitators [are] at work,”

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he informed W.W. Cory, the deputy minister of the interior, after receiving an assessment of the situation in Vancouver from Hopkinson. “It is to be regretted that the efforts of the Government to better their condition and ensure their welfare in another part of the British Empire should be thus thwarted by foreign influence, over which we seem to have little control,” Cory replied.35 The “mischievous agitator” in question was Teja Singh, an articulate, multilingual, and highly educated Sikh who came to Vancouver in ­October 1908 and quickly emerged as a local leader.36 Shortly after the delegation’s return from British Honduras, the suspected seditionist made several speeches outlining his opposition to the relocation plan, the existence of corruption in the immigration service, and, more ominously from the government’s point of view, “the present unrest in ­India.” Teja Singh’s remarks, whereabouts, and personal relations were carefully tracked by Hopkinson and forwarded to local officials with the Department of the Interior who, in turn, kept senior bureaucrats, cabinet members, and the prime minister well informed.37 Not surprisingly, all of this was of great concern to the governor general, Lord Grey. Like his predecessors at Rideau Hall, he was an aristocrat, a ­veteran of the civil service, and an official link between Ottawa and ­London. As such, he handled the voluminous correspondence that flowed back and forth across the Atlantic and advised the Dominion government on issues of national and imperial concern. Indeed, when it came to this particular realm of political affairs, Lord Grey’s opinion  still carried considerable weight on Parliament Hill, despite the largely ceremonial and administrative character of his position. “A vigilant watch must be maintained on all events, statements, and news­ paper reports which, if repeated in India, might be likely to inflame the minds of those who are tools and victims of sedition,” he cautioned the prime minister in early December 1908.38 Sound intelligence was, of course, key to this approach, and the governor general worked hard to ensure that it found its way to the Colonial Office and India Office in London and the Department of Criminal Intelligence and viceroy in Calcutta. (The words “Copy Sent To India” are stamped on many of these documents.)39 But Lord Grey was not the only imperial official to play a decisive role in the expansion of political policing in Canada. When Ottawa first proposed the idea of relocating South Asians, Colonel E.J. Swayne, governor of British Honduras and an “Old Indian officer,” was in London on other business; evidently, he offered up his colony as a possible



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s­ olution to Canada’s “Hindoo” problem. On his way back to Belize in early December 1908, the governor travelled via Canada and met with the governor general and prime minister, and later undertook his own investigation of “matters affecting the East Indian Community in British Columbia.”40 Less anxious than Lord Grey about the potential risks posed by the likes of Teja Singh, Swayne nevertheless possessed strong opinions on the future of South Asian immigration to Canada. It should be “controlled,” he wrote forcefully, because “the terms of close familiarity which competition with white labour has brought about, do not make for British prestige.” Swayne understood well that, for a small, yet influential group of whites and South Asians, familiarity did not breed contempt; rather, on occasion, it produced solidarity.41 “Socialists of a very undesirable type have made it their business to tamper with the East Indians in Vancouver,” he wrote bluntly, referring specifically to the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC). The return of the Sikhs to the Punjab amongst their friends, spreading as they will, new, ill-digested socialistic ideas, and the familiar knowledge of such defects amongst their white fellow labourers, such as labour rivalry would have been only too ready to pick out, cannot but tend to re-act amongst the military classes of the Punjab, to the detriment of British prestige. As, when all is said and done, looking at our position in India as a whole, it must be recognized that it is by prestige alone that India is held and not by force, the importance of a circulation of labour between Vancouver and India as affecting that prestige is such, I submit, as cannot be wisely overlooked.42

In this regard, he concluded, in addition to “strictly limiting” immigration from India to Canada, it was crucial that the “doings of the Brahmin section be closely watched” on an ongoing basis. “I do not think that a better man than Mr. Hopkinson of the Calcutta police could be found for this work,” Swayne stated, recognizing the importance of having another old India man on the job. “I suggest Mr. Hopkinson be appointed as Dominion police officer on special duty at Vancouver, for  the special purpose of this enquiry, and the Government of India be asked to place him in official communication with the head of the Calcutta police in order to further this work.”43 With the support of the Department of the Interior, the governor general, and the governor of British Honduras, Ottawa officially hired

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Hopkinson early in 1909. He was given a permanent position in the immigration department in Vancouver and was assigned to the Dominion Police, although he did not receive a formal commission in the federal force until 1911. For one hundred dollars per month, he was expected to keep tabs on the South Asian community and undertake regular duties as an interpreter. Ottawa was certainly pleased with its new agent. So, too, no doubt, were imperial officials. Just months before Hopkinson was hired, Lord Morley, the secretary of state for India, had written to Lord Minto, the viceroy, and lamented the absence of knowledgeable under-cover agents. “The whole Indian field is absolutely unfamiliar, in language, habits, and everything else,” he said. “In short, both you and I can easily understand that the ordinary square-toed English constable, even in the detective branch, would be rather clumsy in tracing your wily Asiatics.”44 Between 1909 and 1914, Hopkinson was exceptionally busy. His activities, which were initially confined to British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island but later expanded to include Washington state, Oregon, and northern California, were many and varied: he attended suspicious meetings and rallies in order to “find out their latest move and the methods they are adopting for the bringing out of their countrymen from India”; monitored the movements of community leaders and their supporters within the province and across the Canada–US border; and kept tabs on foreign-language newspapers. Taraknath Das’s Free Hindusthan, which was then based in Seattle but printed locally with the assistance of the Socialist Party of Canada, was of particular interest; so, too, was Swadesh Sewak (Servant of the Country), a Gurmukhi-language monthly published out of ­Vancouver by Guran Ditta Kumar, a former college instructor from Calcutta who arrived in British Columbia in 1907.45 Kumar, a self-­ described “Punjabi Buddhist” and “Worker in the cause of Temperance and Vegetarianism,” first came to Hopkinson’s attention as a possible “agitator” nearly two years later. At that time, he was living in Victoria and running a grocery store that had been set up with the assistance of his friend Taraknath Das. The link between the two men, which was common knowledge within the South Asian community, prompted Hopkinson to pay a visit to Kumar’s modest operation in the provincial capital in ­August 1909. Disguised as a lumberman looking for labourers, the new Dominion Police investigator discovered not only that Kumar sold Free Hindusthan and the radical, London-based Indian Sociologist but that he was in constant contact with the ubiquitous Teja



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Singh and Taraknath Das, who was then living in Washington state. The following ­November, Kumar surfaced in Vancouver, opened the “Swadesh Sewak Home,” and started publishing a newspaper by the same name early in 1910. Hopkinson kept tabs on him at all times. “The  tone of this paper gradually became more and more objectionable,” one government official’s report concluded, based in part on Hopkinson’s assessments. “It was addressed principally to the Sikhs in the Indian Army in their own language, and was being sent out to ­India in considerable numbers.”46 Hopkinson’s modus operandi – the reading of seditious publications, the tracking of suspected agitators – was the stock-in-trade of political policing; it would have been easily recognized by the likes of Patrick Nolan or Henri Le Caron. But Hopkinson was not simply an under-cover agent, he was an immigration inspector as well, and this dual role was fraught with both tension and danger at a time when ­Ottawa was making use of its wide-ranging discretionary powers to curtail immigration from Asian countries.47 Hopkinson, like other immigration inspectors, possessed the authority to admit, reject, or initiate deportation proceedings against new immigrants – powers that were invaluable for someone concerned both with the administration of immigration policy and with limiting the development of seditious behaviour. In this important respect, not only was Hopkinson deeply lodged in the day-to-day controversies surrounding the enforcement of the landing restrictions for South Asian immigrants but, ironically, his very actions in this regard helped to stoke the unnerving anti-­ British sentiment that had prompted the federal government to hire him in the first place. For Hopkinson, carrying out this dual role would in the end prove deadly.48 From the moment that the federal government imposed the “continuous journey” restrictions in 1908, the South Asian community mounted a sustained campaign to overturn it, a development that enhanced the profile of committed radicals and brought moderates in touch with more militant ideas and tactics. One of the men who was particularly forceful in his denunciation of federal immigration policy, and Hopkinson’s role in implementing it, was Chagan Kairaj Varma, a native of the Porbander district in Gujarat state who came to Canada on a tourist visa in January 1910 after spending several years working in Japan and ­Hawaii. Known in British Columbia by the Muslim name Hussain ­Rahim, the middle-aged, Westernized Hindu quickly assumed a leadership role in the South Asian community – an ascent that was driven, in

50  Nineteenth-Century Roots

part, by his own ongoing conflict with the immigration service.49 Shortly after turning up in Vancouver, Rahim, who was interviewed by Hopkinson upon his arrival, established the Canada India Supply and Trust Company and applied for permission to stay in the country. Immigration officials responded to this request by arresting Rahim and initiating deportation proceedings against him. “You drive us Hindus out of ­Canada and we will drive every white man out of India,” he said after being apprehended. Hopkinson, for one, took this threat seriously. L ­ ater that same day, city police located a notebook belonging to Rahim that contained information about explosives and the names of activists from other countries. In the weeks and months that followed this startling revelation, both men found themselves in court as Rahim, like other “Hindoos” before him, challenged the government’s deportation order – successfully arguing that particular elements of the orders-in-council that curbed South Asian immigration exceeded the scope of ­authority available to the federal government under the Immigration Act.50 Writing to the prime minister and imperial authorities, including Lord Crewe, secretary of state for India, in 1910, the Hindustani Association, a self-help organization that assisted in Rahim’s legal defence, laid bare the wider political significance of this narrow technical argument: “As British subjects, we demand our inalienable rights to reside more freely in the British Empire and request immediate redress against high-­ handed, impolite, and Empire-breaking actions of local authorities.”51 For Hopkinson, Rahim’s legal victory was infuriating for many reasons, not the least of which was that it heightened his prestige in the South Asian community, called into question the legitimacy and effectiveness of the immigration branch, and, by virtue of the issues at stake, provided further grist for the anti-colonial mill. “The failure ... of the Department to deport Rahim from Canada has so bolstered up his position in the Hindu community here as to make him a leader and a counsellor in respect to all matters concerning their community,” he informed his Ottawa-based handler, W.W. Cory. “Canada would be well rid of Rahim and the exposure of his true character would have a very beneficial effect on [the] community.”52 Significantly, the “true character” that Hopkinson had in mind was not simply Rahim’s obvious commitment to the “liberty, equality, and fraternity of the Hindustani Nation” but his immersion in Vancouver’s vibrant left-wing milieu, which was then dominated by the Socialist Party of Canada and the Industrial Workers of the World. Indeed, as the tone and content of his intelligence reports filed in the wake of the court



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case suggest, Hopkinson became increasingly preoccupied with this cross-fertilization of socialist and anti-colonial politics that Rahim in particular embodied, eventually discovering that he joined the SPC shortly after arriving in the country, helped to form a South Asian local, and, drawing on the resources of the Canada India Supply and Trust Company, posted bail for several members of the IWW jailed during the free-speech fights in 1912. “The Hindus have up to the present never identified themselves with any particular Political party and the introduction by Rahim of the socialist propaganda into this community, is, I consider a very serious matter, as the majority of these people are uneducated and ignorant and easily led like sheep by a man like ­Rahim,” Hopkinson wrote in April 1912. “The danger to the country is not here but the question is what effect will all these Socialistic and Revolutionary teachings have on the people in India on the return of these men primed with Western methods of agitation and Political and Social equality.”53 Hopkinson knew well that Rahim, as important as he was in Vancouver, was but one cog in a much larger political machine: there were South Asian men “primed” with both “Western methods of agitation” and ideas of “political and social equality” operating up and down the west coast. Not surprisingly, then, Hopkinson eventually broadened his area of surveillance to include Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Berkeley, where Lala Har Dayal, a Delhi-born, Oxford-educated nationalist and the founder of the Ghadar (Mutiny) Party, was lecturing in Indian philosophy. Hopkinson was certainly familiar with Har Dayal prior to this trip, but it was not until the British consul general in San Francisco informed him that the university instructor was linked to both the assassination attempt on the viceroy, Lord Hardingue, on 23 December 1912 and the IWW that he placed him under constant surveillance. By February 1913, the file on this suspected agitator had ballooned considerably, and Hopkinson, who was increasingly adamant that Har Dayal was one of the most dangerous men around, more dangerous than Taraknath Das, was dispatched to London by the federal government to report on the current state of anti-colonial agitation on the Pacific coast.54 Acting largely on the basis of his brief, British and Canadian autho­ rities agreed that Hopkinson should be more secure, both institutionally and monetarily. As a result, in addition to his existing relationship with the Canadian government, Hopkinson was placed on the India Office’s payroll – the money coming out of the Department of Criminal

52  Nineteenth-Century Roots

I­ ntelligence’s budget – and ordered to report directly to the former superintendent of police for Bombay, J.A. Wallinger, who was in England at the time working in the area of intelligence and imperial defence. Canada’s new governor general, the Duke of Connaught, was not impressed with this new arrangement. “It is highly ... undesirable that this work should be dependent on the existence of a single individual,” he informed the Colonial Office. “In the first place, Mr Hopkinson has to cover the entire country from San Francisco to New York and from the Canadian to the Mexican frontiers. In the second place, the entire system – if system it can be called – is dependent on one man. If anything happens to Mr Hopkinson, the work would automatically collapse.” For the governor general, the best way to proceed was to transfer Hopkinson to the Indian government. After all, he stated, the uber-agent’s work was both costly and increasingly about imperial, not national, concerns. Wallinger disagreed, and argued persuasively that “the permanent transfer of Mr Hopkinson to the Indian Government would entirely destroy Mr Hopkinson’s usefulness. He is now, by very reason of his multifarious offices ... in a position to do some delicate work for us without having suspicion drawn upon himself. Once he is removed from these offices he would be a marked man.”55 There was certainly an element of truth in Wallinger’s assessment. By virtue of his “multifarious offices,” Hopkinson was indeed in a position to carry out “delicate” intelligence work among South Asians up and down the west coast, just as he had been doing for the better part of six years. At the same time, however, the former police superintendent was dead wrong on the question of anonymity: if anything, Hopkinson’s dual role as immigration officer and under-cover agent kept him in the public eye. At no time was this more obvious than during the spring and summer of 1914 when Gurdit Singh, a Sikh entrepreneur, and 376 passengers – 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus – challenged the federal government’s ban on South Asian immigrants by sailing into the port of Vancouver on board the Komagata Maru on 23 May. “We are British citizens and we consider we have a right to visit any part of the Empire. We are determined to make this a test case and if we are refused entrance into your country, the matter will not end here,” Gurdit Singh told the local press, shortly after dropping anchor. “What is done with this shipload of my people will determine whether we shall have peace in all parts of the British Empire.”56 Immigration officials did with this batch of immigrants what they had done to scores of others since the federal government first i­ntroduced



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selective landing requirements: they refused to allow them on shore. This action, coupled with Gurdit Singh’s resolve to overturn the ban, prompted a long and sometimes violent stand-off which ended on 23 July when the passengers of the Komagata Maru, after facing down an attempt by Canadian authorities to seize the ship by force, decided to return to India. Throughout this incident, Hopkinson handled the negotiations between those on ship and those on shore – including senior immigration officials and the immigrants’ allies, the so-called “shore committee,” which was led by Hussain Rahim.57 From the perspective of many in the South Asian community, the entire Komagata Maru affair simply reinforced their belief that a toxic combination of fear, loathing, and racial hatred was at the core of both Canadian immigration policy and the broader white society that sanctioned it. What was more, it reaffirmed graphically the hypocrisy of the British Empire. Sikhs and Hindus simply did not possess the same rights and freedoms as free-born Englishmen – whether in Canada or in India. And Hopkinson, by virtue of his role as an immigration officer and secret agent, was as guilty as anyone in defending this condition of inequality. In the months that followed the Komagata Maru’s departure, several of Hopkinson’s informants were murdered. Another of Hopkinson’s supporters, Bela Singh, was attacked while praying at the Sikh temple in Vancouver. In response, he shot and killed two people, including the priest, and wounded seven others before surrendering to the authorities. On 21 October 1914 Hopkinson himself was murdered. While waiting outside a Vancouver courtroom to testify in defence of Bela Singh, he was shot and killed by Mewa Singh, a man who had been ­apprehended during the summer stand-off trying to smuggle arms into Canada but who later became an informant for Hopkinson.58 “[He] is  the last man one would have suspected of committing the deed,” Malcolm Reid, Hopkinson’s superior at the immigration branch, wrote to Ottawa. “No doubt, however, he was influenced by the local Hindu community. The man is now perfectly cheerful in his cell and to all intents and purposes seems glad he has murdered Hopkinson.”59 Glad, perhaps, because this was not simply an act of revenge but an act of greater political and religious significance, spurred on, in part, by the Ghadar Party’s call to arms that accompanied Britain’s declaration of war in August; “it was the duty of a good man to give his life for a good cause,” Mewa Singh said just weeks before he was hanged for his crime. Hopkinson was given a lavish funeral by the municipal and federal government – approximately two thousand people marched in the

54  Nineteenth-Century Roots

­ rocession – and his widow received a lump-sum payment from the p Indian government. The money came from its secret service fund, for Indian, British, and Canadian authorities wanted to keep Hopkinson’s activities hidden.60 Conclusion Few institutions mirror a nation’s political culture, the working logic of its government, and the preoccupations of its leaders more than its secret police – in terms of its status, modus operandi, and declared enemies.61 Even at its birth, Canada’s secret service faced no challenge or debate among the Canadian political class: the prerogative of the federal government to monitor potentially subversive citizens surreptitiously was underwritten by the “peace, order and good government” provision of the British North America Act of 1867, which allowed for a highly centralized state and made available to the prime minister and his cabinet a wide range of emergency powers – executive and administrative – to confront threats to the political and economic status quo. The suspension of habeas corpus, political arrests without charges, mail seizure, secret agents, perhaps even agents provocateurs – all were present in the formative years of the new nation-state, and all went virtually unopposed, the lone dissenting voices being those of the victims. The profound suspicion so prevalent in Victorian England of spies, spying, and secrecy found few reflections in the Canadian outpost of empire. Here, fears of oligarchy were less evident than fears of republicanism: it was republicanism, bound up in broader agendas of French-Canadian and Irish nationalism, that was cast as the antithesis of the new nationstate. That new nation-state, largely imposed from above, and extended westward with a remarkable ruthlessness, contained a secret service from its inception. If decades passed between when the Canadian political police mobilized against Fenians and when it directed its efforts against South Asian radicals, features of these responses bear marked similarities. What is perhaps more striking than the common surveillance and infiltration tactics of agents and informants is the way in which these secret activities were co-ordinated with more conventional uses of state power. David Wilson has concluded that the Canadian government used the  suspension of habeas corpus against domestic Fenians with mode­ ration and restraint.62 The limited scope of this overt breach of civil liberties, however, was made possible through extensive covert ­intelligence



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gathering by the secret police. In the early 1870s, while Gilbert ­McMicken was clandestinely policing the western frontier against further Fenian incursions or Métis rebellion, he was also openly forwarding the expansionist interests of the Dominion government as a lands agent. Some forty years later, immigration restrictions and espionage were likewise deployed against South Asians in Canada by a single agent of the state, William Charles Hopkinson. The links between Canada’s colonial legacy and its foray into political policing were extensive. Throughout this period, the federal government was preoccupied with “suspected seditionists” whose real enemy was the mother country itself. While Irish and South Asian radicals possessed different histories of oppression under British colonialism, and drew on different cultural and religious resources to mount their political challenges, their activities abroad were very similar. Leavened by the freedom available to them outside their respective homelands, they dedicated considerable intellectual and financial resources to raising people’s consciousness, articulating a vision of national independence, forging links between those in exile and those at home, and taking action. While the government found its embryonic secret service useful in policing these pockets of anti-colonial agitation, it also relied heavily on Britain’s extensive diplomatic corps in the ­United States and the imperial civil service to gather and disseminate information. Not only were consular officials, many of whom operated their own under-cover agents, important in this regard but so too were the various governors general who served as Canada’s head of state – in particular Lord Monck and Lord Grey. A position of little significance today, the governors general possessed extensive knowledge of imperial politics, served as important conduits for the copious intelligence that flowed between Ottawa and London, and were strong advocates of political policing as a means to solve both national and imperial problems. Only in the immediate post-war period, when Canada’s internal security problems changed and its own capacity to monitor dissidents expanded, would the role of this imperial infrastructure diminish. With the onset of the Great War, the question of who posed a threat to Canada’s internal security, and the best way to limit that potential threat, would undergo a decisive shift at the highest levels of the federal government. As Hopkinson’s increasing preoccupation with the influence of “socialistic ideas” suggests, signs of this transformation away from imperial concerns were already present before the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Indeed, in the crucible of the war years, Ottawa

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would suspend civil liberties outright, create a new battery of repressive measures, and, under the pretext of mobilizing the nation for war, move to crush its new, more formidable opponent: labour and the Left. For the better part of the twentieth century, the Canadian state was preoccupied by the “red menace.”63 With the end of the Cold War, and the events of 11 September 2001, however, its focus has shifted to new security threats: anti-globalization activists and suspected terrorists who, for extraordinarily different reasons and in extraordinarily different ways, have mounted a challenge to the global reach of a different super­ power, the United States. That Ottawa’s response to these challenges has enhanced state power, eroded the balance between different branches of government, blurred the line between legitimate and illegitimate political action, and circumscribed individual and collective rights is clear. What is less appreciated is that this political solution possesses a long history in Canada, one that stretches back well over a century.64

The authors are grateful to Kirk Niergarth, formerly a postdoctoral history fellow at the University of New Brunswick, for his substantial assistance in preparing this chapter, derived from earlier versions of their research and analysis that appear under the title “The Origins of Political Policing in Canada: Class, Law, and the Burden of Empire” in Osgoode Hall Law Journal 41, nos. 2 and 3 (2003): 211–40; Prairie Forum 31, no. 2 (2006): 245–71; and Alexander Netherton, Allen Seager, and Karl Froshauer, eds., In / security: Canada in the Post-9 / 11 World (Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University Press 2005), 127–67. NOTES 1 In the aftermath of the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838, authorities in Quebec, drawing on the example set by colonial authorities in Ireland and Jamaica, appointed stipendiary magistrates to head up a newly created rural police force, a body charged with the responsibility of collecting political intelligence and pacifying the countryside. Decades later, during the American Civil War, politicians on both sides of the Ottawa River adopted a similar, albeit much smaller version of this system to prevent military recruiters from violating Canadian neutrality. Greg Marquis’s “The ‘Irish Model’ and Nineteenth-Century



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  57

Canadian Policing,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 25, no. 2 (1997): 193–218, provides an excellent discussion of policing in British North America, including the colonies of Vancouver Island and Newfoundland. See also Allan Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” in Greer and Ian Radforth, eds., Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in MidNineteenth-Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); Brian Young, “Positive Law, Positive State: Class Realignment and the Transformation of Lower Canada, 1815–1866,” in Colonial Leviathan; and Greer, The Patriots and the People (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993). 2 The connection between the Fenian invasion and Confederation is a staple of the Canadian literature. See, for an early example, C.P. Stacey, “A Fenian Interlude: The Story of Michael Murphy,” CHR 15 (1934): 133–54, and “Fenianism and the Rise of National Feeling in Canada at the Time of Confederation,” CHR 12 (September 1931): 238–61. In the latter, Stacey writes, “Fenianism provided a most beneficial influence upon the immediate fortunes of the project, by creating at once a popular apprehension of danger which worked strongly against the possi­ bility of a repudiation of parliament’s decision, and by engendering eminently favourable conditions for the success of an experiment in nation building.” 3 The literature on the Fenians, in particular, and Irish nationalism, more generally, is massive. For the purposes of this discussion, the best place to start is with John Newsinger’s slim volume Fenianism in Mid-Victorian Britain (London: Pluto Press, 1994); it provides a cogent account of the important debates associated with Feniansim and a thorough bibliography. Also useful are Padraic Kennedy, “Political Policing in a Liberal Age: Britain’s Responses to the Fenian Movement, 1858–1868,” PhD thesis, Washington University, 1996; W.S. Neidhardt, Fenianism in North America (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975); Keith Amos, The Fenians in Australia, 1865–1880 (Kensington: New South Wales University Press, 1988); and Brian Jenkins, Fenians and Anglo-American Relations during Reconstruction (Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1969). Interestingly, Fenian leader James Stephens was also a member of the International Working Man’s Association, the so-called First International, which included Karl Marx. See Hereward Senior, The Fenians in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), 40–1. 4 On this last point, see Jenkins, Fenians and Anglo-American Relations during Reconstruction; David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (New York: Knopf, 1967); and Eric Foner, “Class, Ethnicity, and Radicalism in the Gilded Age: The Land League and

58  Nineteenth-Century Roots Irish-America,” Marxist Perspectives 1, no. 2 (1978): 30–1. During the US election of 1868, John A. Macdonald remarked, “Both Republicans and Democrats will fish for the Irish vote, and therefore wink as much as possible at any action of the Fenian body.” See John A. Macdonald to Col. Ermatinger, 8 February 1868, LAC, John A. Macdonald Papers [hereafter JAMP], MG 26, Letterbooks, vol. 11. 5 In the Canadian context, the Fenian question has been framed in many ways: as an important moment in Canadian military history; as a significant dimension of Irish immigrants’ experience in the New World; and, as already mentioned, as a key variable in the debates associated with the act of Confederation in 1867. See David Wilson, “The D’Arcy McGee Affair and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus,” in Barry Wright and Susan Binnie, eds., Canadian State Trials, Vol. 3: Political Trials and Security Measures, 1890–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 85–120; George Sheppard, “‘God Save the Green’: Fenianism and Fellowship in Victorian Ontario,” Histoire Sociale / Social History 20, no. 39 (1987): 129–44; Jeff Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger: Canada West’s Secret Police, 1864–67,” Ontario History 79 (1987): 353–77; Peter M. Toner, “The Home Rule League: Fortune, Fenians, and Failure,” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 15, no. 1 (1989): 7–19; Oliver Rafferty, “Fenianism in North America in the 1860s: The Problems for Church and State,” History 84 (April 1999): 257–77; Brian Clarke, Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Organizations and the Creation of an Irish-­ Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1993). The quotation from the Irish Canadian is taken from Clarke, Piety and Nationalism, 175. 6 John A. Macdonald to Cockburn, 2 January 1865 and 7 February 1865, LAC, JAMP, MG 26, Letterbooks, vol. 7; Macdonald to Lord Monck, 18 September 1865, and Macdonald to McMicken, 22 September 1865, LAC, JAMP, MG 26, Letterbooks, vol. 8. Technically, Macdonald’s title was attorney general “for that part of the Province of Canada called Upper Canada.” While the terms “Canada West” and “Canada East” were used in the popular press between 1841 and 1867, Margaret Banks has shown that they had no basis in law and that the terms “Upper Canada” and “Lower Canada” remained both officially correct and in widespread use. See Margaret Banks, “Upper and Lower Canada or Canada West and East, 1841–1867?” CHR 54, no. 4 (1973): 473–80. 7 McMicken worked for and with prominent merchants on the Niagara peninsula and was involved in the construction of the Queenston suspension bridge and the extension of Canada’s first telegraph line from Toronto to Lewiston, New York. In 1835 he married Anne Theresa Duff, granddaughter of Alexander Grant, who, in Carl Betke’s words,



8

9

10

11

12

“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  59 “­dominated the early fur trade, the shipping industry, and the Provincial Marine in the Detroit region.” See Carl Betke, “Gilbert McMicken,” DCB 12: 675–80. The specific nature of the alliance between McMicken and Macdonald is not entirely clear. Carl Betke notes that, days after McMicken received his patronage appointment in Windsor, he wrote to remind Macdonald that he had “borne contumely and reproach aye even imprisonment and Bonds for your sake.” As quoted in Betke, “Gilbert McMicken.” Cheryl MacDonald suggests that the two may have been connected through Samuel Zimmerman, the financier and influence peddler who employed McMicken for a time. See Cheryl MacDonald, “Canada’s Secret Police,” The Beaver (June / July 1991): 44–9. See also J.K. Johnson, “Samuel Zimmerman,” DCB 8: 963–7. McMicken developed an especially close relationship with Alan Pinkerton, head of Pinkerton’s Detective Agency, and personally intervened, as a magistrate, to facilitate extraditions when Pinkerton detectives had pursued fugitives into Canada. See Dale and Lee Gibson, “Railroading the Train Robbers: Extradition in the Shadow of Annexation,” in Dale Gibson and Wesley Pue, eds., Glimpses of Canadian Legal History (Winnipeg: Legal Research Institute of the University of Manitoba, 1991), 71–93. Gilbert McMicken, “Special Order,” 31 December 1864, LAC, JAMP, MG 26, McMicken Correspondence. See also the various letters between British, Canadian, and American officials in Correspondence relating to the Fenian Invasion and the Rebellion of the Southern States (Ottawa: Hunter Rose, 1869), in particular: Simon Cameron, US Secretary of War, to the Right Honourable Sir Edmund Head, 24 October 1861; Lord Lyon to Lord Monck, 8 August 1864; Lord Monck to E. Cardwell, member of Parliament, 23 September 1864; British Legation, Washington, to Seward, US Secretary of State, 26 December 1864. This paragraph, including the material on the social origins of the spies, is drawn from various spy reports contained in LAC, JAMP, MG 26, McMicken Correspondence; the final quotation is taken from McMicken to Macdonald, 9 April 1866. The intelligence-gathering activities of British diplomats are discussed in Wilson, “The D’Arcy McGee Affair,” 85–120. See also Edith J. Archibald, The Life and Letters of Sir Edward Mortimer Archibald (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1924); William D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement in the United States (New York: Russell and Russell, 1947); Neidhardt, Fenianism in North America; Wayne A. Crockett, “The Uses and Abuses of the Secret Service Fund: The Political Dimension of Police Work in Canada, 1864–1877,” MA thesis, Queen’s University, 1982, 66; Leon O’Broin, Fenian Fever: An

60  Nineteenth-Century Roots

13

14 1 5 16

17 18

19

20

Anglo-American Dilemma (New York: New York University Press, 1971), 41–51; Harold A. Davis, “The Fenian Raid on New Brunswick,” CHR 36, no. 4 (1955): 316–34; W.L. Morton, “Lord Monck and Nationality in Ireland and Canada,” Studia Hibernica 13 (1973): 77–100. Monck to John A Macdonald, 10 November 1865, LAC, JAMP, MG 26, Governors General Correspondence, vol. 93; D’Arcy McGee to John A. Macdonald, 2 November 1865, LAC, JAMP, MG 26, Governors General Correspondence, vol. 1. Crockett, “The Uses and Abuses of the Secret Service Fund,” 40; D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement, 97–8. Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger,” 366. The arrests came at the behest of George-Étienne Cartier, attorney general for Lower Canada, and Alexander Galt, minister of finance, who were anxious to contain the Fenian threat before it spread to their own, largely Roman Catholic, bailiwick. Macdonald was not impressed by his colleagues’ actions. Not only did Cartier and Galt lack the necessary information to convict Murphy of treason, but the ministers’ intervention scuttled ongoing under-cover operations. John A. Cooper, “The Fenian Raid of 1866,” Canadian Magazine 10, no. 1 (1897): 41–55. According to Keshen, “At the most crucial moment of his career as Stipendiary Magistrate for Canada West, McMicken failed miserably. His presence and that of the frontier force changed nothing. The Fenian raid proceeded as planned, and the government was unprepared.” See “Cloak and Dagger,” 368. Carl Betke and S.W. Horrall, “Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline, 1864–1966 / RCMP Historical Section, 1978, unpublished manuscript in possession of authors, 77–9; Philip Stenning, “Guns & the Law,” The Beaver (December 2000–January 2001): 6–7; D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement in the United States, 194–211. On the suspension of habeas corpus, see David Wilson, “The D’Arcy McGee Affair and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.” Charles Curran suggests that Beach adopted this name in jest: “Le Caron is argot for ‘slice of fat bacon.’ Beach was lean and wiry. It has been suggested that he took the name by way of a joke.” See his “The Spy behind the Speaker’s Chair,” History Today 18 (1968): 745–54. That Beach chose a French name at all was likely due to the British government’s support of the South during the Civil War. See also J.A. Cole, Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), and Henri Le Caron, Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service (London: Heinemann, 1892).



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  61

21 Gilbert McMicken, “The Abortive Fenian Raid on Manitoba: Account by One Who Knew Its Secret History,” Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, Transaction no. 32, 1887–8 (Winnipeg: Manitoba Free Press Print, 1888). See also Ruth Swan and Edward Jerome, “Unequal Justice: The Métis in O’Donoghue’s Raid of 1871,” Manitoba History 39 (2000): 24–38; D.N. Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 1869–1885 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1988), 75–107; A.H. de Trémaudan, “Louis Riel and the Fenian Raid of 1871,” CHR 2 (June 1923): 132–44; J.P. Pritchett, “The Origin of the So-Called Fenian Raid on Manitoba in 1871,” CHR 10 (March 1929): 23–42. 22 In the aftermath of the raid, three Métis were arrested for assisting the raiders. Two, Isadore Villeneuve and Andre Jerome, were not convicted, but the third, Louison Letendre, was found guilty and sentenced to hang (his sentence was later commuted to twenty years’ imprisonment, and in January 1873 he was exiled to the United States). Ruth Swan and Edward Jerome explore the context of these arrests and the harsh treatment of those arrested in “Unequal Justice.” 23 McMicken to Macdonald, 12 November 1871 and 22 December 1871, as cited in Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 98. See Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 96–8. 24 See Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 96–8. 25 This paragraph on the British in India from 1857 to 1914 is drawn from Judith M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 1–193. Richard J. Popplewell examines the development of political policing in India under Lord Curzon and, as the title of his book implies, its role in the defence of the empire at home and abroad. See his Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire, 1904–1924 (London: Frank Cass, 1995). On the development of the Indian radical tradition abroad, see Arun Coomer Bose, Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, 1905–1922: In the Background of International Developments (Patna: Bharati Bhawan, 1971). James Campbell Ker’s Political Trouble in India, 1907–1917 (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1917 [1973]) is an indispensable source. Ker was a senior officer in the Home Department of the Indian government; he also worked as personal assistant to the director of criminal intelligence. This book is a collection of the confidential documents he amassed during his tenure at the Department of Criminal Intelligence. As such, it details the activities of radicals operating outside India. 26 In October 1907 Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier told Deputy Minister of Labour Mackenzie King that he thought that imperial authorities would

62  Nineteenth-Century Roots act on Canada’s behalf to stop immigration from India. According to King’s account, Laurier “thought the Chinese were met now by the tax, the Japs wd. be limited by understanding, and the Hindoos would be stopped by an ordinance in India preventing their immigration and which wd. be arranged thro British office.” Laurier had clearly been disappointed in this hope by January 1908, as his government’s adoption of specific orders-in-council to prohibit South Asian immigration attests. See the entry for 7 October 1908, LAC, Diaries of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King [hereafter King Diaries], MG 26-J13. The prime minister’s sense of the political situation in India is illustrated by a letter sent to Governor General Earl Grey, 11 December 1908, quoted in Governor General of Canada to Colonial Office, 11 December 1908, BL, Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collection (APAC), India Office Records (IOR), Judicial and Public Department Proceedings (JPDP), 320 / 1909. 27 On the emigration of South Asians to British Columbia, see Hugh Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); R. Sampat-Mehta, International Barriers (Ottawa: Canada Research Bureau, 1973), 125–91; Norman Buchignani and Doreen M. Indra with Ram Srivastiva, Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985), 4–70; Gucharn S. Basran and B. Singh Bolaria, The Sikhs in Canada: Migration, Race, Class, and Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 95–103; Hira Singh, “The Political Economy of Immigrant Farm Labour: A Study of East Indian Farm Workers in British Columbia,” in Milton Israel, ed., The South Asian Diaspora in Canada: Six Essays (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1987), 87; Achana B. Verma, “Status and Migration among the Punjabis of Paldi, BC and Paldi, Punjab,” PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1994; Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 142–56. On anti-Asian agitation in British Columbia, see especially Patricia Roy, A White Man’s Province: British Columbia Politicians and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989); W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy towards Orientals in British Columbia, 2nd ed. (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1990); Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 125–42. It is important to note that not all white British Columbians endorsed the politics of Asian exclusion; the radical labour movement and the Protestant missionaries were important voices of tolerance. On the



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  63

former, see Mark Leier, Where the Fraser River Flows: The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1990); on the latter, see Ruth Compton Brouwer, “A Disgrace to ‘Christian Canada’: Protestant Foreign Missionary Concerns about the Treatment of South Asian in Canada, 1907–1940,” in Franca Iacovetta, Paula Draper, and Robert Ventresca, eds., A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s–1960s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 361–83. 28 Aside from the “continuous journey” requirements, which will be discussed below, King pointed out that a close reading of the Indian Emigration Act (1883) allowed for the emigration of contract labourers only to a country “certified” by the governor-general-in-council to have had “made such laws and other provisions as the Governor General in Council thinks sufficient for the protection of emigrants to that country during their residence therein.” Since no such certification would be made for Canada, King suggested that Canada could “prohibit the landing in Canada of immigrants who come in violation of the laws of their own country” and thereby eliminate any prospect of contract labourers arriving from India. King was also pleased that the government of India had issued public warnings about the “risks involved in emigration to Canada.” Finally, King noted that the regulation requiring immigrants to possess twenty-five dollars could also pose a justification for barring some South Asian immigrants, but “should this amount prove inadequate it could be increased.” On 3 June 1908, a month after King submitted his report, an order-in-council required South Asian immigrants to be in possession of two hundred dollars on arrival. King’s report was published as “Immigration to Canada from the Orient,” Sessional Paper no. 36a, Sessional Papers, 7–8 Edward VII, 1908. See also Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru, 138; and Sampat-Mehta, International Barriers, 131–42. 29 On the arrangement made with the CPR, King recorded in his diary that the minister of labour, Rodolphe Lemieux, told him that “Canada had doubled her subsidy to the CPR. England not paying as much, a tacit understanding was that immigration from India was not to be encouraged by the Co.” See the entry for 27 April 1908, King Diaries. The immigration figures cited here are contained in Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic, 142–56. 30 The British Columbia judgment, in the case of Re Narain Singh et al., principally determined that the provincial British Columbia Immigration Act (1908) was inoperative because ultra vires. Judge J. Morrison, however, noted that while the governor-in-council had power to “prohibit the landing

64  Nineteenth-Century Roots in Canada of any specified class of immigrants,” those South Asians who had arrived in British Columbia aboard the Monteagle had not been so specified and had a right to land in Canada according to sections 35 and 53 of the Immigration Act. See Reference Re Narain Singh (1908), 13, British Columbia Reports 477 (Supreme Court); Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru, 138; and Sampat-Mehta, International Barriers, 138,140–2. 31 The biographical information on Hopkinson is drawn from the following sources: Hugh Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists in North America, 1908–1918,” British Columbia Studies 78 (summer 1988): 5 and n.4; Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru, 1, 7, 137n.1, 138n.13; Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastiva, Continuous Journey, 25, 30n.42; Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 151, 163n.25. Details of Hopkinson’s father’s career in the army vary widely. Popplewell states that he “had been one of the military escort of Sir Louis Cavagnari massacred at Kabal in 1879,” leaving Hopkinson and his mother “stranded at Lahore in the Punjab.” Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastiva suggest that “Hopkinson’s father was a noncommissioned officer in the British Indian army, who was reputed to have been killed by Afghan raiders when Hopkinson was young.” As a result, they assert, Hopkinson was “raised in India by his Brahmin mother” and was “fiercely anti-‘seditionist.’” Johnston, whose work is perhaps the most comprehensive, states in Voyage that Hopkinson’s father was “a sergeant instructor of volunteers at Allahabad.” 32 Ibid. 33 There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether or not Hopkinson was sent to British Columbia by Indian authorities. Popplewell argues strenuously that “the initiative in the surveillance of Indian agitators on the Pacific Coast at this time came entirely from the Canadian side and not from India, let alone from the British government in London.” In Voyage, Johnston states flatly that “he had turned up in Vancouver in 1908 ... an Inspector of the Calcutta Metropolitan police ... officially on leave, but pursuing investigations for the Criminal Intelligence Department [sic] in India.” These statements are not necessarily contradictory: it is possible that he was sent by the Department of Criminal Intelligence (DCI) in India, but the proposal to place the South Asian community under constant surveillance came first from the Canadian government. On the emergence of the DCI in India, see Brown, Modern India, 137–9; Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial ­Defence, 8–164, esp. 147–64. 34 J.B. Harkin to Superintendent of Immigration, 29 July 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909.



“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  65

35 The rise and fall of the British Honduras scheme is chronicled in J.B. Harkin’s own The East Indians in British Columbia: A Report regarding the Proposal to Provide Work in British Honduras for the Indigent Unemployed among Them (Ottawa: Department of the Interior, 1908). See also Harkin to Superintendent of Immigration, Ottawa, 29 July 1908; Harkin to Ministry of Interior, 16 October 1908 and 6 November 1908; Wilfred Collet, Officer Administering the Government, British Honduras, to Secretary of State of Canada, 19 and 26 November 1908; Collet to Colonial Office, 2 and 3 December 1908; and “Certified Copy of a Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, Approved by His Excellency the Governor General on 10 December 1908,” BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. 36 This brief biography of Teja Singh is based on “(Confidential) Memorandum on Matters Affecting the East Indian Community in British Columbia, by Colonel E.J.E. Swayne”; Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastiva, Continuous Journey, 26–7; Johnston, Voyage, 12; Bose, Indian Revolutionaries Abroad, 52–5. Harkin certainly did not think much of Teja Singh either, referring to him as the “absolute dictator of the community.” See his East Indians in British Columbia, 4. 37 Hopkinson to Harkin, 20 November 1908; Cory to Harkin, 4 December 1908; Province (Vancouver), 23 November 1908; and Cory memorandum, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. 38 On the role of the governor general during this period, see Robert ­Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada: 1900–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 111–18; Governor General of Canada, Lord Grey, to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, 3 December 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. 39 Governor General of Canada to Colonial Office, 9,10,11, and 21 December 1908; Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor General of Canada, 23 December 1908; and Colonial Office to India Office, 30 December 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. See also Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists,” 9. 40 Colonel Swayne to Governor General of Canada (Confidential), 30 December 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. The “old Indian officer” quotation is from Colonel Swayne to Officer Administering Government, British Honduras, 20 December 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. The most important document in this regard is Swayne’s report: “(Confidential) Memorandum on Matters Affecting the East Indian Community in British Columbia, by Colonel E.J.E. Swayne.” 41 On the links between the IWW, the SPC, and the East Indian community in British Columbia, see Hopkinson to J.B. Harkin, 19 December 1908, BL,

66  Nineteenth-Century Roots APAC, IOR, JPDP, 1309 / 1909. Prime Minister Laurier was particularly enchanted with Colonel Swayne, remarking in a letter to the governor general after meeting the governor, “[He is] the very embodiment of that most valuable class of officers developed by Indian service, trained for war and civil service, honest and true as the sun’s light, modest and firm, devoted to the Empire and equally devoted to those over whom they are appointed to rule. Happy the country served by such men, and no country but England ever produced such men.” See Laurier to Lord Grey, 8 December 1908, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 320 / 1909. See also Peter Campbell, “East Meets Left: South Asian Militants and the Socialist Party of Canada in British Columbia, 1904–1914,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (Fall 1999): 35–65. 42 “(Confidential) Memorandum on Matters Affecting the East Indian Community in British Columbia, by Colonel E.J.E. Swayne.” 43 Ibid. As a servant of the empire, Swayne was aware of wider, global patterns of political violence linked to radicalism and nationalism, including the Fenian bombing campaigns that took place in Britain in 1881 and 1884, the wave of anarchist bombings that rocked Western Europe and North America in the 1890s, and the nationalist agitation that had been destabilizing parts of India on and off for decades. 44 Quoted in Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defense, 129. It is important not to overstate the novelty of this manoeuvre; this was not the first time that Ottawa had been caught between the rock of national politics and the hard place of imperial concerns and used secret agents to help solve the conundrum. That Hopkinson was hired into the ranks of the Dominion Police with little difficulty or debate underscores just how commonplace this practice had become. At the same time, however, the fact that the British and Indian governments were relying on a Dominion Police officer to track “wily Asiatics,” instead of fielding their own agents in North America, suggests that intelligence gathering at the imperial level was still a somewhat ad hoc affair. 45 This brief section on the general nature of Hopkinson’s duties is based on the following: Hopkinson to Cory, 10 September 1908; 19 December 1908; 4 and 18 January 1909; 15 April 1909; 18 May 1909; 14 January 1910, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 1309 / 1909; Hopkinson to Cory, 10, 23, and 29 March 1911; 7 June 1911; 4 August 1911; 7 and 8 December 1911, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1604. 46 This section on Kumar is based on Hopkinson to Cory, 12 August 1909, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 1309 / 1909; Hopkinson to Cory, 8 and 13 May 1911, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1604; Secretary to the Government of India to Sir Richmond Ritchie, His Majesty’s Under Secretary of State for India,



47

48

49

50

51 5 2 53

5 4 55

“High-Handed, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions”  67 25 November 1911, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 4917 / 1911. The final quotation in this paragraph is taken from a report entitled “History Sheet of G.D. Kumar” attached to the secretary’s letter of 25 November 1911. The reference to Kumar being a “Punjabi Buddhist” is taken from Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists,” 9. On the changing nature of Canadian immigration policy at this time, see Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic, 111–63; Barbara Roberts, Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada, 1900–1935 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988), 170. The 1910 revisions to the Immigration Act sought to further insulate from judicial scrutiny those boards of inquiry created under the auspices of the immigration branch; section 23 of the revised act stated that “no court or judge could interfere with a decision of a Board of Inquiry.” See Johnston, Voyage, 18. Hopkinson to Cory, 20 September 1909, and Harkin to Cory, 22 September 1909, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 1309 / 1909; Hopkinson to Cory, 14 October 1910; 17,19, and 28 November 1910; 16 March 1912; 28 June 1912, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1064. This brief biography of Rahim is culled from Hopkinson to Cory, 26 March 1912 and 1 April 1912, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1064; Buchignani, Indra, and Srivastiva, Continuous Journey, 36–47; Johnston, Voyage, 9–12; and Peter Campbell, “East Meets Left.” Johnston is dismissive of Rahim’s left-wing politics, writing that he “assimilat[ed], in a half-digested way, the language of class warfare.” For a more sympathetic reading, see Campbell’s “East Meets Left” and Canadian Marxists and the Search for the Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 10–11, 18, 74, 247n.2, and 248n.25. J.H. MacGill, Immigration Agent, to Cory, 28 October 1910; Hopkinson to Cory, 3 November 1910 and 17 February 1911, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1604. Quoted in Lai, “East Indians in British Columbia,” 65–6. G.D. Kumar was the organization’s secretary treasurer. Hopkinson to Cory, 26 March 1912, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1604. Hopkinson to Cory, 22 February 1912; 1 April 1912; 9 May 1912, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1604. Rahim’s involvement in the SPC is detailed in Campbell, “East Meet Left,” 46–50. More on the IWW can be found in Mark Leier’s “Solidarity on Occasion: The Vancouver Free Speech Fights of 1909 and 1912,” Labour / Le Travail 23 (Spring 1989): 39–66; Where the Fraser River Flows; and Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, and Labour Spy (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1999). Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 150–61. Ibid., 158.

68  Nineteenth-Century Roots 56 See Johnston, Voyage, and Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 159–61. The quotation is from Johnston, 37–8. 57 By all accounts, Hopkinson carried out his duties well and was largely responsible for keeping a tight leash on the more belligerent and pugnacious elements within government ranks. 58 See Johnston, Voyage, 125–36. 59 Reid to Scott, 22 October 1914, BL, APAC, IOR, JPDP, 6 / 1341. 60 Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists,” 22–7. 61 On this thought, see David Vital, “Not Single Spies, but in Battalions: Espionage Uncovered in France, Russia, Britain, and the US,” Times Literary Supplement (December 2000): 4–6: “As more than one old intelligence hand has been moved to observe, few institutions reflect national character and the operative norms of government so closely as a state’s intelligence arm, the status granted it, the modus operandi to which it is habituated and the confidence with which it proceeds to its targets in a foreign environment.” 62 David A. Wilson, “The D’Arcy McGee Affair and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.” 63 See the following articles by Gregory S. Kealey: “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–1920: The Impact of the First World War,” CHR 73, no. 3 (1992): 281–315 [Chapter 3 in this book]; “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–21,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992): 179–210 [Chapter 4 in this book]; and “The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–26,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (July 1993): 129–48 [Chapter 5 in this book]. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins, 8 vols. (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1989–97), edited by Kealey and Reg Whitaker, document the extensive surveillance undertaken by the Mounties during this period. 64 On the federal government’s response, see Ronald J. Daniels, Patrick Macklem, and Kent Roach, eds., The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).

PART II THE ORIGINS OF THE LONG COLD WAR

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3 State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–20: The Impact of the First World War

For the Canadian working class, as for workers the world over, the experience of the First World War proved momentous. Not surprisingly, the Canadian bourgeoisie also learned important lessons from the process of organizing for war, not least of which was the potential power of the state apparatus to respond to serious threats from within as well as from without its borders. The Canadian labour revolt of 1917–20, which joined the international proletarian upsurge of those years, represented the first significant nationwide working-class challenge to bourgeois rule.1 It was met with a stern response, which established the parameters for state repression in the inter-war years and set the pattern as well for the return to war in 1939. The Canadian state found itself unprepared initially to deal with labour radicalism in the late years of the First World War, but the solutions it devised, building on the mechanisms of repression developed for other purposes early in the war and on the similar experience of other Allied countries, proved successful and durable. When similar crises arose later during the Great Depression and the Second World War, the state would turn again to measures initiated in the years 1914–20 and to the institutions, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, founded in the aftermath of the war. The Canadian state faced twin crises in those years. First came the obvious necessity of orchestrating the grim organization of the nation for war. Far less appreciated was the second challenge of these years: the defence of the country’s capitalist system against the connected threats of labour militancy and socialism.2 This conception of twin crises explains the actions of the Borden government in these years far better than the more conventional historical accounts, which have ­focused largely on the exigencies of winning the war and have emphasized the national tensions between Quebec and English Canada over

72  The Origins of the Long Cold War

the prosecution of the war. In the process, class tensions have been largely ignored.3 This paper will emphasize that class conflict, rather than the national question or ethnic tensions, fuelled the Borden government’s major wartime policies. The largely immigrant composition of the Canadian working class allowed some government actions to be justified in terms of ethnic chauvinism, but the state’s willingness to move against Canadian-born and British immigrant workers with equal vigour suggests that class, not ethnicity, motivated its actions.4 This paper will not document in any detail the contours of the labour revolt that have been well described elsewhere. Table 3.1, however, ­illustrates its magnitude and emphasizes the decline of pre-war labour militancy during the economic downturn that continued through 1915. A return to job actions came in 1916 and increased rapidly thereafter, peaking in 1919 with the Amherst, Toronto, and Winnipeg general strikes and the national wave of sympathy strikes that followed the arrest of the Winnipeg leaders.5 For organizational purposes, these years can be divided into three distinct stages – 1914 to 1917, 1917 to mid-1919, and mid-1919 to 1920. Organizing for war characterized the first period; fighting on two fronts – domestic and overseas – the second; and pacification, the third. By tracing five overlapping issues through these three periods, we shall see how closely intertwined were the two crises facing the Borden government. “Enemy aliens,” censorship, national security, labour policy, and recruitment for the armed forces represented significant problems from the war’s outset and constituted the terrain on which this twofront war was fought. The exigencies of fighting the First World War, especially given its unexpected duration, necessitated a mobilization by the state that was unprecedented in Canadian history. Once conventional political differences had been set aside with the emergence of the Union government in 1917, which effectively marginalized Quebec liberals and labour, the hawks of the Borden government began to listen more carefully to their wartime bureaucrats such as Joseph Flavelle, E.J. Chambers, C.F. Hamilton, and, even for a short period, C.H. Cahan. While this paper cannot deal at any length with the role of such outsiders in Ottawa, they did bring into the burgeoning bureaucracy a set of business and media linkages previously missing. In the process they pioneered a number of repressive innovations, which either remained in place thereafter, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and its security and intelligence apparatus, or remained as ideas to be drawn on again in later emergencies, such as internment, censorship, and conscription.6



State Repression of Labour and the Left   73

Table 3.1 Strike Activity in Canada, 1912–21 Year

Number of Strikes

Number of Strikes with Complete Data

Number of Workers Involved (000s)

Days Lost (000s)

1912

242

190

43

1,136

1913

234

164

41

1,037

1914

99

67

10

491

1915

86

69

11

95

1916

166

131

27

241

1917

218

163

50

1,124

1918

305

239

83

657

1919

427

350

149

3,402

1920

457

335

77

814

1921

208

172

28

1,050

Source: All strike data in this paper are drawn from recalculations of the general Canadian statistical series in Donald Kerr and Deryck W. Holdsworth, eds., Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 3 (Toronto, 1990). These recalculations are based on the addition of Maritime provinces’ material compiled by Ian McKay of Queen’s University and on the careful re-examination of all the “incomplete” files available in the NA, Department of Labour, Strikes and Lockouts files. This work, commenced by Peter DeLottinville, was completed by Douglas Cruikshank. For the new national strike series see G.S. Kealey and Douglas Cruikshank, “Strikes in Canada, 1891–1950,” Labour / Le Travail 20 (1987): 85–145, and Historical Atlas, vol. 3, plate 39.

Organizing for War In May 1914, with war clouds on the horizon, the Borden government gave an early indication of its future directions. Its British Nationality, Naturalization, and Aliens Act radically changed Canadian naturalization practice. Until the passage of this act a sworn affidavit testifying to  three years’ residence in Canada had sufficed to gain immigrants their naturalization. After its passage, immigrants were required to prove both five years’ residence and an adequate knowledge of English or French to a superior court judge. In addition, the secretary of state received absolute discretionary power to deny naturalization to any individual deemed a threat to the “public good.”7 In light of what was to come, this act was but a mild initiative. Among the first actions of the Borden government after the declaration of war, the War Measures Act gave the executive almost unlimited powers: “The Governor in Council shall have power to do and ­authorize

74  The Origins of the Long Cold War

such acts and things, and to make from time to time such orders and regulations, as he may by reason of the existence of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection deem necessary for the security, defence, peace, order, and welfare of Canada.” Unprecedented in the annals of parliamentary government, the act went even further and specified, inter alia, “a) censorship and the control and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans, photographs, communications and means of communication, b) arrest, detention, exclusion, and deportation.” Thus, the Borden government assured itself the maximum power possible to pursue the course of the war. Significantly, the legislation also possessed neither time limit nor independent mechanism for termination. While technically to apply only during war, invasion, or insurrection (real or apprehended), the executive’s prerogative to end the act itself gave it a truly extraordinary mandate.8 Thus, as Arthur Lower argued in Colony to Nation, Canada replaced parliamentary government during the First World War with order-in-council government.9 The government wasted little time in exercising this remarkable power. Even before the War Measures Act’s passage through Parliament, it had issued an order-in-council to regulate the flow of “enemy aliens” (its phrase for citizens of enemy countries resident in Canada during the war) out of the country. It simultaneously assured these “foreign aliens” that their property and businesses were indeed safe, and then the very next day by order-in-council demanded that they surrender all firearms and explosives.10 In late October the government took a far more dramatic step, demanding that all “enemy aliens” appear for registration and examination. Special registrars were appointed in major centres, while elsewhere police authorities were empowered; all this came under the mandate of Sir Percy Sherwood, the chief commissioner of the Dominion Police. On registration and examination, “foreign aliens” regarded as non-­ threatening were either allowed to leave Canada or to remain free under condition that they report monthly to the registrar; those considered dangerous were interned as prisoners of war. Their compatriots who either failed to register or refused the examination soon joined them.11 To supervise the anticipated flood of internees, the government ­appointed retired Canadian general Sir William Otter as director of internment operations. In an initial wave of enthusiasm, some six thousand aliens found themselves interned, most of who were Ukrainians, not Germans. The fact that most Canadian Ukrainians passionately hated the Austro-Hungarian Empire made no difference. While most of these internees were released in 1916 when the Canadian economy



State Repression of Labour and the Left   75

r­ ecovered and a general labour shortage developed, the entire experience understandably embittered Canadian Ukrainians.12 Most mainstream Canadian historical writing about the First World War internment has diverged dramatically from the discussion of the similar Japanese experience in the Second World War, which has been almost universally deplored. In the case of the Ukrainians, historians’ conventional wisdom has argued that the massive initial internment of late 1914 and 1915 represented charity to indigent, unemployed foreigners.13 Indeed, Brown and Cook argue in A Nation Transformed that the Borden government actually aimed “to safeguard the rights of aliens” against nativist hostility. In a final rationalization, they conclude “that the government’s actions held in check the unrestrained enthusiasm of native Canadians to persecute their fellow citizens.”14 Internment seems a peculiar method of protection. Not surprisingly, younger Ukrainian-Canadian historians have not shared this sympathetic view of the Borden government.15 Furthermore, as we shall see, the internment process had explicit political uses that had little to do with the First World War or nativism. The second major problem facing the Canadian government at war involved censorship. Initially censorship was divided between the military, with responsibility for cables and the press, and the post office, with authority over the mails. Canada’s deputy chief censor, Lieutenant-­ Colonel C.F. Hamilton, handled both cables and the press until June 1915, when the government created the office of chief press censor to which it appointed Major Ernest J. Chambers in July.16 Since Chambers’s office reported to the secretary of state, it created a confusing departmental censorship triumvirate. Press censorship, while handled by Hamilton, remained ineffectual. The appointment of Chambers, however, changed that. In his first years of operation Chambers depended largely on personal contact to establish his authority and to exercise as much influence as possible on foreign-­language editors, to whom he devoted most of his attention. His lack of power to order a paper’s closure largely dictated this style of operation. Only his minister, the secretary of state, possessed the power of closure and, much to Chambers’s chagrin, the minister was reluctant to use this power. On frequent occasions, Chambers expressed dissatisfaction with the cabinet’s caution and indicated clearly that, if allowed, he would have shut down the entire foreign-language press. In the one area where the censor’s hands were not tied, bans were invoked vigorously and, by 17 August 1918, some 184 non-Canadian, almost all American, publications had been proscribed. The list included

76  The Origins of the Long Cold War

sixty-five books or pamphlets and 119 serials. Of the serials, forty-nine were in the English language, while seventy were not. Only three Canadian publications had met the censor’s veto – an obscure book published in Toronto, The Parasite; an English-language paper, The Week, from Victoria, BC; and Toronto’s Zemla i Wola, a Ukrainian paper edited by Ivan Stefanitsky.17 The ever-increasing pace of Chambers’s censorship can also be traced. In 1914 only two items were banned. This increased in 1915 to sixteen, but then leaped ahead under Chambers to fifty-two in 1916, fifty-eight in 1917, and fifty-nine in the first eight months of 1918.18 This increase, however, derived as much from changing definitions of objectionable matter as from Chambers’s growing zeal. The original orders-in-council of 1914 primarily restricted materials directly harmful to the war effort. The Consolidated Orders Respecting Censorship of 1917 both specified examples of materials harmful to the war effort and extended the ban to include hostility to conscription. Finally, in May 1918 the rules were yet again extended to cover the government’s conduct of the war and, more pointedly, to include anything that might spread discontent or weaken the people’s unanimity behind the war effort.19 As we shall see later, even this Draconian measure proved inadequate for the government’s purpose. Translation represented a major, albeit often amusing, difficulty that the chief press censor encountered in his zealous pursuit of the foreignlanguage press. While the historian of the Finnish press assumes that this problem was unique to his community’s newspapers, the difficulty actually cropped up frequently. For example, Frederick Livesay, the press censor for Western Canada, resorted to using Pavlo Krat as his Ukrainian translator while Krat not only belonged to the Ukrainian S ­ ocial Democratic Party but also still edited Robotchyi Narod.20 In the related field of national security almost as much confusion prevailed. While the Dominion Police had traditionally held responsibility in this area, their efforts had been amateurish and extremely limited at best. In effect, they lacked adequate resources and personnel to fulfil their mandate, especially as their duties multiplied in wartime conditions. The Dominion Police had traditionally functioned through cooperation with the existing municipal and provincial police forces and, when necessary, by hiring private detectives from standard US agencies such as Pinkerton and Thiel. This latter method proved blatantly inappropriate under war conditions, although that did not prevent its continued use. The Royal North-West Mounted Police received their initial security work in 1914 simply as the provincial police force of Alberta and Saskatchewan, working under Dominion Police s­ upervision.



State Repression of Labour and the Left   77

In addition to the Dominion Police under the minister of justice, the minister of militia and defence had a military intelligence ­apparatus, which grew rapidly during the war, and the Immigration Department had developed a security operation, especially in British Columbia. Meanwhile, information from British and empire intelligence agencies was supplied through the offices of the governor general. Thus, Canadian security depended on extremely decentralized operations that were collectively held responsible for the gathering of domestic intelligence through the early years of the war.21 The government basically had no general labour policy in the early years of the war. Owing to the deep depression Canada had entered in 1913, the economy remained stalled for 1914 and much of 1915. Rampant unemployment both helped military enlistment and, as we have seen, provided a rationale for extensive internment. With economic recovery, however, new problems quickly manifested themselves. Built initially on the munitions industry, the boom started in central Canada but soon spread to the whole country. The flooded labour markets of 1914 suddenly dried up, and the country faced a significant shortage of workers. In this new context, “foreign aliens” found themselves freed from internment.22 More important in the long run than the labour shortage, however, the Borden government failed in two significant areas to supervise the war economy. Its sole focus on financing and supplying the war effort led to runaway inflation, which it did almost nothing to check.23 In addition, it refused to bring munitions production under its own fair-wages policy.24 The combination of rampant inflation, ineffectual and apparently insincere labour policy, and the growing perception of massive corruption and war profiteering would all return to haunt the government in the war’s next phase. As Table 3.1 demonstrates, labour remained relatively passive in the early years of the war. With the economic upturn of 1916, this quiescence began to change dramatically and to challenge seriously the ­Borden government’s inactivity in the realm of labour policy. In the early months of the war recruitment for the armed forces posed few problems. With the economy in a serious recession and with extremely high unemployment rates, many workers, especially British immigrants, joined the army in an initial wave of war enthusiasm.25 Nevertheless, as early as the summer of 1915, even before the economy had fully recovered, recruiters began to complain bitterly of difficulties in attracting adequate numbers of soldiers. By 1916, as the war wore on relentlessly and the horrible costs of trench warfare became ever more apparent, the government faced mounting difficulties in attempting to

78  The Origins of the Long Cold War

meet its manpower commitments to the British imperial forces. Under heavy pressure from various bourgeois patriotic groups, the Borden government in August 1916 passed an order-in-council creating a National Service Board (NSB) and appointing a director-general of National Service. In October the new NSB announced its intention to take a national inventory of manpower, which it initially proposed as a compulsory registration program. The Borden government, sensitive to working-class opposition in this realm, instead mandated a voluntary scheme, to be carried out by means of a postal survey. In the face of considerable labour criticism of even this voluntary scheme, Borden issued assurances that the national service schemes “are not connected with Conscription. Rather the idea was to make an appeal for voluntary National Service which would render unnecessary any resort to compulsion.”26 The Trades and Labour Council (TLC) leadership accepted these vague assurances and recommended compliance to its members. This apparent surrender of the labour movement’s purely voluntarist stance led to renewed opposition to the TLC leaders, especially in Quebec and the west, but also in Ontario. The leaders’ abandonment of their renewed anti-conscription mandate, which they had sought and received in August 1916, brought to the fore the deepening split in the labour movement about the progress of the war.27 A War on Two Fronts In the years 1917 to 1919, the war came home with a vengeance. War at home certainly did not await the return of the Canadian troops after the November 1918 armistice.28 Indeed, their return simply added waves to an already turbulent sea of unrest that swept across the country in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution and the fall 1917 election of a new Union government, which united pro-conscription Liberals with the Tories in a pro-war coalition government. Without doubt the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent tide of revolts across Europe stimulated Canadian socialists. Equally it aroused the fears of the Canadian government and set off a Canadian Red Scare of significant proportions.29 Internment, which had been used less and less in 1915 and 1916, made an instant recovery. Now the “enemy” was not only German but also Bolshevik. Although there had been some harassment of socialist and pacifist opponents of the war in its early years, these efforts grew massively in 1918. “Foreign aliens” charged with anything related to  radical politics – possession of prohibited literature, attendance at



State Repression of Labour and the Left   79

i­llegal meetings, membership in an illegal group – found themselves whisked away to internment camps.30 Indeed, in February, months after the war’s end, the government had extended the camps’ potential considerably by allowing any county or district court judge on summary complaint from a municipal authority or any reasonable citizen to intern on grounds no greater than “a feeling of public apprehension entertained by the community.”31 The “foreign alien” need not be present at the hearing and was explicitly denied the right to legal counsel. This proved quite convenient in dealing with radicals. Some ­thirty-three “aliens,” for example, were interned at Kapuskasing in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike.32 Any expectation that the armistice would bring a quick end to the camps proved sadly mistaken. The camps remained open until February, fifteen months after the armistice, and the Internment Operations Office formally closed only in June 1920.33 When finally closed, the camps had imprisoned 8579 men, 81 women, and 156 children. The men included 2009 Germans, 5954 Austrians (Ukrainians), 205 Turks, 99 Bulgarians, and 312 “miscellaneous.” Of these, by Otter’s own estimate, no more than 3179 could be considered even remotely as conventional prisoners of war. Some other foreignborn Canadians had passed through the registration and examination procedures without being interned. Robert Coats’s 1919 apologia for the operation as “conceived throughout in the broad spirit ... of looking forward to the day when the people under restraint shall resume the purpose for which they came in the peaceful upbuilding of the country” provides a sad comment on contemporary Canadian sentiments.34 As dramatic as internment, however, was the drastic extension of censorship. We have already noted the growing mandate of the chief press censor, but in September 1918 his earlier wishes finally came true.  PC 2381 of 25 September 1918 “respecting enemy publications” quite simply banned all “publications” in an “enemy language.” Notable here was the inclusion of Finnish and Russian on the “enemy” list.35 Contravention of this order (“prints, publishes, delivers, receives, or has in his possession”) brought a fine of up to five thousand dollars or imprisonment of up to five years, or both. Thus, at one fell swoop, Chambers’s job became much simpler. In the spirit of the times he too became quite active and in the latter half of 1918 and 1919 explicitly moved against a number of Canadian publications not necessarily covered by the above, including Canadian Forward (Toronto, Social Democratic Party), Western Clarion (Vancouver, Socialist Party of Canada), the  Marxian Socialist (Toronto, Socialist Party of North America), and

80  The Origins of the Long Cold War

Die Volkstimme (Winnipeg, Yiddish).36 While these papers maintained the honour of a specific ban, all publications of the organizations banned under PC 2384 were also prohibited. The debate that followed PC 2381 and its subsequent amendments made painfully clear that the intended target was socialism and had little to do with the war. While a case could perhaps be made for the inclusion of Russia and Ukraine given the intervention of Canadian troops in the Civil War in the Soviet Union on the side of the whites, this position was never even argued. Indeed, Canadian embarrassment about military involvement in the Soviet Union mounted quickly.37 The Canadian intervention in Siberia met with considerable opposition from Canadian workers.38 Thus in a series of amendments, which commenced even before the armistice, the “enemy” language press was permitted to publish under strict guidelines. Initially this involved the parallel publication of an English translation of all stories for specific papers licensed by the chief press censor to reappear. In April 1919 restrictions were lifted against all but German, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Hungarian papers, and, finally, in December 1919, they too became legal.39 All Finnish and Ukrainian papers, radical or not, were banned by PC 2381. For the Yiddish press there was no uniform ban, but Winnipeg’s Volkstimme came under specific ban on 5 July 1919, in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike.40 Needless to say, the paper had enthusiastically supported the strikers. Its editor, Moses Almazov, belonged to the Social Democratic Party and wrote regularly for New York’s Jewish Daily Forward as its western Canadian correspondent. Charged with other strike leaders on 21 June 1919, he faced deportation hearings but was eventually freed.41 The Finnish experience involved the suppression not only of the socialist Vapaus but also of the right-wing paper Canadan Uutiset. In the latter prohibition there was considerable poetic justice, since its editor, J.A. Mustonen, had played a major part in promoting the banning of Vapaus.42 Mustonen had a cosy relationship with chief press censor Chambers and, from his paper’s inception he had issued reassurances that it would publish “in a thorough Canadian spirit.”43 So helpful was Mustonen that he supplied Chambers with one of his Finnish translators, Herman W. Niinimaki, as well as providing evidence in support of the suppression of the radical Finnish-American press.44 Mustonen’s activities proved doubly ironic because not only was his paper banned in October 1918 but also his earlier actions in eliminating the Finnish-



State Repression of Labour and the Left   81

American socialist papers had led the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada (FSOC) to perceive far more urgently the need to replace Työkansa, the socialist paper that had failed in the summer of 1915, with a new Canadian socialist paper. Canadan Uutiset, however, successfully played on its loyal image to become one of the first “enemy-language” papers to reappear under the modified orders-in-council. This involved gaining the special permission of the censor and publishing all articles in parallel translation. Canadan Uutiset reappeared in December 1918 and published in bilingual format until the ban was lifted in April 1919. In a self-congratulatory note on the reappearance of the paper, the editors noted that “we fought like desperadoes for our rights, and in the end of two months untiring struggle we won”; further, this victory represented “a public admittance on the part of the Government of Canada that Canadan Uutiset is indispensable educational material for Finns in Canada.”45 This exaggerated claim can be questioned given that permission to publish by special licence of the censor was granted to some twenty other papers. The condition, in addition to the required English translation, was a basic demonstration of right-wing politics in line with the Borden government’s world-view. Vapaus, the paper of the FSOC, enjoyed no such privilege. Following the banning of the Finnish-American papers in 1917, the FSOC decided to publish a new paper. Considerable difficulty ensued, however, owing to its inability to find a printer willing to produce the paper. When none could be found in Port Arthur, the FSOC tried Sudbury, only to experience the same problem. Only after some months’ negotiations, including sending a delegation to Ottawa to meet Chambers, was it able to gain his assent and a guarantee that the printer would not be liable.46 With that agreement in place, the paper finally appeared on 6 November 1917.47 For the following year the paper attempted to stay clear of the censor, perceiving that being shut down would be no great achievement. ­Despite translator Niinimaki’s best efforts, Chambers initially found little to object to, especially since his terms in late 1917 still involved only the war effort narrowly conceived. This attitude changed, however, in May 1918 with the extension of censorship to cover spreading internal unrest in Canada. Nevertheless, Vapaus kept publishing until all “enemy-language” papers fell under the censor’s ban.48 Unlike Canadan Uutiset, however, Vapaus did not receive a permit to publish before the lifting of the ban in April 1919. This refusal came despite the FSOC’s efforts both to legitimate its organization, which had been banned by

82  The Origins of the Long Cold War

PC 2384, and to get permission to publish. Negotiations with C.H. ­Cahan, Borden’s director of the Public Safety Branch of the Department of Justice, succeeded in gaining recognition of a new Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC), supposedly non-political.49 Their attempts, however, to convince Chambers to allow the FOC to publish a bilingual version of Vapaus failed totally.50 After negotiations with the government failed, the FOC organized a national campaign appealing to labour throughout the country to come to its support. In this national appeal, J.W. Ahlqvist, FOC secretary, noted the partisan political nature of the ban: “Amendments made to the Orders-in-Council made it permissible, under certain restrictions, to issue newspapers in a foreign language. The conservative element among the Finns, as well as among some other nationalities, promptly received a permit to issue publications according to the new regulations. The Finnish organizations of labouring people, however – in spite of their efforts to obtain a similar permit ... have so far been denied a similar right.”51 No doubt Canadan Uutiset’s continuous attacks on the Finnish socialists had hurt the quest for a permit, especially, for example, their critique of the new FOC as nothing but the old socialist society under a new name.52 The debates within the Ukrainian community took on additional complexity after the Russian Revolution. The clear left–right split, of course, intensified, and the events of the October Revolution and its aftermath increasingly led to the emergence of a left-wing nationalist position that favoured the Ukrainian Central Rada and opposed the Bolsheviks. Again the ideological niceties of such debate mattered little to the Canadian authorities, and all Ukrainian papers were prohibited under PC 2381. This ban shut down both the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party’s (USDP) Robotchyi Narod, which had become increasingly pro-Bolshevik, and Robitnyche Slovo, the Toronto paper of Ivan Stefanitsky and latterly of Pavlo Krat. While numerous right-wing Ukrainian papers received permission to publish under censor’s permit, the left-wing papers did not. Instead, a series of attempts in  ­Toronto to ­issue successors to Robitnyche Slovo fell under the censor’s ban. In the aftermath of the government prohibitions, the USDP enjoyed a stroke of good fortune. Since it already possessed a cultural organization, the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), it could easily switch its organizational efforts there and thus avoid the need to  create a new organization and to debate its merits with the O ­ ttawa authorities. Just before the ban on publication ceased in April 1919, the ULTA commenced a new paper, Ukrainski Robitnychi Visti (Ukrainian



State Repression of Labour and the Left   83

­ abor News). Interestingly, this paper received the endorsement of the L ­Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council, suggesting the emerging ties between the left-wing immigrant socialists and the mainstream labour movement. Ukrainski Robitnychi Visti, under an editorial triumvirate of Matthew Popovich, Danylo Lobay, and Ivan Navizivsky (John Navis), took a strong pro-Bolshevik line.53 By mid-1919, then, the Canadian state had effectively suppressed the entire Canadian foreign-language radical press. Owing to a combination of mounting protest, the six-month hiatus after the armistice, and some slight civil libertarian sentiment from Liberal elements of the Union Government, especially Newton Rowell and Thomas Crerar, it slowly started to re-emerge. It still existed at the whim of the censor, and he issued warnings to Vapaus, for example, on numerous occasions throughout 1919.54 More striking than even PC 2381 and its suppression of freedom of the press was the simultaneous PC 2384, which effectively banned freedom of association, assembly, and speech for a select group of Canadians, most of whom were foreign immigrants.55 The confusing list of named societies and parties, replete with errors, soon had to be amended to add the FSOC and the Socialist Party of North America (SPNA), while deleting the Social Democratic Party (SDP).56 Notable in its absence from either the original or the amended list is the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), whose leadership would play crucial roles in the labour revolt of 1919. Edward Laine’s conclusion that the SDP and the SPC escaped persecution because of their English-Canadian character is one possible explanation, although that characterization applied equally to large elements of the IWW and the Socialist Labour party (SLP) and most certainly to the SPNA, which was largely an organization of British immigrants, and they did not escape the ban. It might equally be argued that a familiarity with the actual ideological line of  both the SPC and the SDP might have justified their exclusion. ­Bolshevism would prove to have limited appeal to a considerable component of the SPC membership and to almost the entire non-European immigrant elements of the SDP. Yet it must be noted that such fine ideological distinctions were not common among Canadian government officials. Moreover, such niceties ceased to matter in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike when SPC members gained most of the state’s repressive attention. PC 2384, of course, did not simply ban these organizations. It also made it illegal to “sell, speak, write, or publish anything,” “to become or

84  The Origins of the Long Cold War

continue to be a member,” “or wear, carry or cause to be displayed ... any badge, insignia, emblem, banner, motto, pennant, card, or any device whatsoever” indicating membership. Illegality, in effect, became retroactive, and in any prosecution “it shall be presumed in the absence of proof to the contrary” that the defendant was a member if, since the outbreak of the war, the person had “repeatedly” attended meetings, spoken publicly, or distributed literature. Further clauses outlawed possession of any prohibited literature or attendance at illegal meetings, which initially included any meeting except religious services held “at which the proceedings or any part thereof are conducted in the language of any country with which Canada is at war or ... the languages of Russia, Ukraine, or Finland.” All such offences were punishable by fines up to five thousand dollars and prison sentences of up to five years.57 No systematic study of the resultant repression exists. In the literature there are numerous individual examples of the extraordinary wave of arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and internments that followed.58 Strikingly at variance with the western radicalism thesis propounded in much of the older Canadian labour history, which located the west as the unique nexus of militancy, most of this repression took place in central Canada under the auspices of the Dominion Police.59 While vague in detail, it is clear that these efforts were orchestrated nationally. Ontario Provincial Police superintendent Joseph Rogers, for example, complained in February 1919 that federal efforts commencing in the fall of 1918 had not gone far enough. He wrote, “The Police of Canada are pretty familiar with the whole situation but it seems impossible to impress the authorities at Ottawa with the seriousness of the situation. The police brought great pressure to bear on the Government at Ottawa and I was one of three representatives who waited on the Minister of Justice last summer [1918], when we told them in no uncertain terms what was coming.”60 Claiming personal credit, he noted that PC 2381 and 2384 “practically gave us proper law to operate with.” In their aftermath, he described a 6 October 1918 conference held in ­Dominion Police chief commissioner Percy Sherwood’s Ottawa office intended “to formulate a general line of action.” “At this meeting, it was decided that a systematic raid should be made by the police from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” While he approved of the ensuing execution of this plan, he complained bitterly that it had not been carried further for “the spirit of Bolshevism is strong among the aliens in this country and the Russians and the Finns are the class that requires the most attention.”61 Such police policy led to numerous arrests. A preliminary



State Repression of Labour and the Left   85

Table 3.2 Sentences for “Bolshevik Propaganda” or Membership in Prohibited O ­ rganization Fines

144

under $10

20

$11–50

29

$51–100

29

$101–500

56

over $500

10

Jail Interned under 1 year 1–2 years

35 15 8 10

3–5 years

2

Jail and fine

10

$500 + 1 month

1

$500 + 6 months

2

$500 + 2 years

2

$500 + 3 years

1

$1000 + 3 months

1

$1000 + 3 years

2

$4000 + 5 years

1

Suspended sentence

20

Dismissed Total

5 214

Source: NA, RG 18, vol. 2380

analysis of one major list entitled “Bolshevik Propaganda” includes 214 cases involving 199 men and six women between the fall of 1918 and June 1919.62 The charges, primarily for possession of prohibited literature, also included eighteen for attending illegal meetings, thirtyone for membership in a prohibited group, four for general breach of orders-in-council, and one for creating discontent. The sentencing pattern is summarized in Table 3.2, which shows a wide range but demonstrates that many defendants received severe treatment.

86  The Origins of the Long Cold War Table 3.3 Geographic Distribution of Violations of War Orders-in-Council By Province Number

Per Cent

Quebec

3

1.0

Ontario

154

73.0

1

0.5

Saskatchewan

23

11.0

Alberta

13

6.0

British Columbia

15

7.0

1

0.5

Manitoba

Unknown Total

210*

99.0 By City Number

Number

Toronto, Ont.

27

Cobalt, Ont.

8

Windsor, Ont.

21

Kamsack, Sask.

7

Timmins, Ont.

20

Medicine Hat, Alta.

7

Vancouver, BC

15

Regina, Sask.

7

Sudbury, Ont.

15

Tisdale, Sask.

6

London, Ont.

13

Brantford, Ont.

5

Sault Ste Marie, Ont.

11

Copper Cliff, Ont.

5

Hamilton, Ont.

11

Source: NA RG 18, vol. 2380 * Varies from Table 3.2 owing to multiple convictions versus some individuals.

The geography of charges is displayed in Table 3.3, which graphically suggests that not all worrisome radicalism stemmed from west of  Lake Superior. Indeed, what the geographic distribution suggests is  that the Dominion Police with security responsibilities in eastern ­Canada resorted to these prosecutions with far more enthusiasm than did the Royal North-West Mounted Police operating in the west. For the moment this contrast remains unexplained, although a few months later RNWMP commissioner A.B. Perry made it clear that he preferred implantation to prosecution. One obvious characteristic of this list is its high immigrant composition. Any attempt to attribute nationality based on the police rendering of Slavic and other unfamiliar European



State Repression of Labour and the Left   87

surnames seems pointless, but a list of ten picked at random should demonstrate the obvious: Mike Bokla (Timmins, 23 October 1918); Pantely Ealarvegn (Ford City, nd); Tom Hobin (Sault Ste Marie, 30 October 1918); Mike Kustryn (Timmins, 5 September 1918); Ernest Lindberg (Vancouver, 11 December 1918); Sofia Maitelinen (Cobalt, 18 December 1918); Ernest Rossiter (Stratford, 19 December 1918); John Stepanitsky (Toronto, 20 November 1918); Fred Trechuba (London, 29 October 1918); and John Sabo (Hamilton, 27 March 1919).63 A perusal of the entire list makes quite clear the high proportion of Finnish men and women who were prosecuted under these orders-in-council, as well as the Slavs who figure prominently in this sample. The origins of PC 2381 and PC 2384 deserve our attention because they originated to some degree out of the Borden government’s confusion as unrest increased throughout the country. The complete variance in reports received from the Dominion Police and from Military Intelligence in early 1918 had led to the commissioning of Montreal lawyer C.H. Cahan to draw up a report on left-wing activities in Canada.64 ­Cahan reported to the minister of justice in September confirming the government’s worst fears about foreign agitators and Bolshevik agents. As a result, the government moved quickly and passed PC 2381 and 2384. There had been mounting veterans’ pressure for foreign-language press censorship even before his report, but nativism was not the major cause here.65 In addition, Cahan himself accepted a new position as director of the Public Safety Branch of the Department of Justice, with an ambiguous mandate to advise the government on security matters. He held this position only until January 1919 when he resigned, later complaining to Borden at the height of the Winnipeg crisis, “I tried in vain, after your departure [for the Paris Peace talks], to obtain a hearing from your colleagues; but they restated my representations with such contemptuous indifference, that there was for me no alternative but to retire quietly and await events.”66 Cahan’s career, no matter how brief, demonstrated the high profile that some government figures now gave to security and intelligence. The Winnipeg General Strike and the wave of sympathy strikes it inspired fully confirmed this position.67 Moreover, while Cahan may not have been satisfied with the cabinet’s response to his efforts, certainly the new security forces were hard at work in the early months of 1919. The Dominion Police’s high-profile arrests were accompanied by extensive secret service work with the placing of agents in Sault Ste Marie, Toronto, Windsor, Montreal, Welland, and Hamilton. One Toronto agent

88  The Origins of the Long Cold War

was “in good with the foreign element – he is able to speak several of the foreign languages and only a few days ago was requested to make a speech in the Russian language at one of the meetings.”68 There was complete co-operation between company spies hired through American detective agencies, especially Thiel, and the various levels of police. In Hamilton, for example, a Thiel detective employed by Stelco provided reports that were passed on from the steel company to Hamilton local police, to Superintendent Joseph Rogers of the Ontario Provincial Police in Toronto, and selectively by him to the acting Dominion Police commissioner, A.J. Cawdron, in Ottawa. In one case, for example, a report by the Thiel detective warning against the pending release from internment of one Kowalashen led to a series of letters from Hamilton to Toronto, and from there to Ottawa, culminating in Cawdron’s assurance that he had passed the concerns on to his director of internment, General Otter.69 The full extent of such corporate spying and of its relationship to “legitimate” police activities remains an open question. Equally striking was a series of reports on the Montreal police attack on a Social Democratic Party meeting on 1 June 1919 and the subsequent harassment of “enemy aliens.”70 To some degree at least the over-­ emphasis on the west in the Canadian literature on radicalism has stemmed from recourse to the more readily available Royal North-West Mounted Police files at the National Archives of Canada and the failure to see the total security picture that went far beyond the Mounties’ ­responsibilities in the west.71 A complete overview of the total Canadian internal security operation remains an important historical task. From the available RNWMP materials, however, one can construct clearly the birth of the modern Canadian security apparatus in 1919, which would be turned over solely to the Mounted Police under a new act of November 1919. This act gave the force complete jurisdiction in the area of federal law enfor­ cement and national security, and explicitly banned trade union rights to members of the force. The older Dominion Police force was quietly merged into the larger body.72 The new Royal Canadian Mounted ­Police began its national role in February 1920. Any discussion of Union government policy on labour in the crisis years of 1917 to 1919 makes it clear that the earlier procrastination accompanied by later inconsistency helped to fuel the 1919 labour revolt. Actions taken under wartime pressure in 1917 and 1918 helped to nourish a developing syndicalist faith in the efficacy of the general strike. The hardening of attitude signalled by the infamous “anti-loafing” law,



State Repression of Labour and the Left   89

which demanded that all male Canadians between sixteen and sixty years of age be gainfully employed, and later by the outlawing of strikes for the duration of the war (PC 2525 of 11 October 1918) was blithely ignored by labour. Indeed, the many victories of 1917 and 1918 had instilled a new confidence in militancy, and, in the spring and summer of 1919, this would spill over in an extraordinary strike wave of which the Winnipeg General Strike and the other general sympathetic strikes were but one manifestation.73 A brief consideration of the 1918 working-class experience is not out of place here for it helps to re-emphasize that, while the rhetoric of the Red Scare may have been excessive, the underlying reality of working-class revolt presented the Canadian bourgeoisie with a significant challenge. The organization of the unorganized and the spread of trade unionism into previously unthinkable areas represented a major manifestation of this threat. In an earlier article, I chronicled this trend for the industrial sector at some length, but here I would like to discuss the equally impressive extension of organization to public-sector workers.74 Two major strikes represent two distinct manifestations of this process. The first was the month-long Winnipeg civic workers’ strike of May 1918, which ended only when Borden’s minister of labour, Senator Gideon Robertson, hurried to Winnipeg to prevent the expansion of sympathy strikes into a threatened citywide general sympathetic strike.75 Such discussions were led by the Winnipeg TLC but were not confined to it. The Jewish immigrant Left, for example, organized a late May Help the Strikers Conference that brought together all radical elements of the Jewish community – revolutionary Marxist, Socialist-­ Zionist, and anarchist.76 In order to end the crisis and avoid a general strike, Robertson capitulated to almost all of the civic workers’ demands. In the process, he helped to cement in Winnipeg and Canadian workers’ minds the efficacy of the general-strike tactic. But Robertson’s concession was not singular, and a similar threat by the Edmonton Trades and Labour Council led to the recognition of the firemen’s union in that city. In general, there was a massive expansion throughout the country of civic employees’ unionism, usually organized into federal labour unions (FLUs) directly chartered by the TLC. Federal employees also expressed massive dissatisfaction with wartime conditions. The Civil Service Federation of Canada enjoyed major growth, but the story of its expansion and subsequent decline is too complicated to pursue here. Instead, let us consider the second major public sector strike of 1918 – the July 1918 national postal strike led by

90  The Origins of the Long Cold War

the Federal Association of Letter Carriers.77 Commencing in Toronto on 22 July 1918, with at best half-hearted support from the union’s national leader, Alex McMordie, the strike spread across the country, involving at least twenty cities, and led to sympathetic walkouts by other postal workers. Supposedly settled on 25 July by McMordie, who ordered his workers to return to work for the promise of a cabinet investigation, the strike continued as rank-and-file letter carriers angrily rejected the settlement. A week later Borden cabinet ministers T.W. Crothers and ­Arthur Meighen arrived in Winnipeg to negotiate a new agreement with an ad  hoc Joint Strike Committee, again in the face of a series of threatened general strikes in a number of western cities, ­including Winnipeg, V­ ancouver, and Victoria, and by United Mine Workers of America ­District  18. Among the terms of settlement were guarantees of  non-­ discrimination against the strikers, the dismissal of all scab labour, and, amazingly, pay for the strikers for the period of the walkout. Perhaps most alarming of all to the Canadian bourgeoisie in 1918 was the emergence of police unionism. In ten major Canadian cities TLC-affiliated police activists organized unions that year. Only in ­Ottawa did civic officials quell the dissent by firing almost one-third of the force. In Toronto, Vancouver, Saint John, and Montreal serious struggles over the question of police unionism occurred, but tradeunion rights won out. In Toronto, for example, police magistrate Denison remembered that, during the 1886 street railway strike, law and order prevailed only because “our police force was able to keep them down.” “If they had been in a union,” he concluded, “I don’t suppose they would have been able to do such good work.” Nevertheless, ­Toronto Police FLU no. 68 gained initial recognition after a successful strike to protest the firing of eleven union leaders.78 Meanwhile, in Montreal a common front of some 1500 firemen and policemen struck in December. They gained victory in the aftermath of a night of rioting in which volunteer strike-breakers were beaten and fire stations were occupied by crowds supporting the strikers.79 In Vancouver the threat of a general strike after the firing of four police union leaders led to an ignominious surrender by the chief constable. But it was in Saint John, New Brunswick, that the degree of labour solidarity with these efforts found its most profound expression. The firing of half the force for joining a union led to a citywide campaign organized by the labour movement to recall the police commissioners guilty of the victimization of the police unionists. The success of the recall campaign resulted in a new election in which the anti-union commissioners were defeated.



State Repression of Labour and the Left   91

These 1918 public-sector successes did much to set the terms for the subsequent struggles of 1919. The extent of working-class support for public-sector workers stemmed from a combination of factors – a recognition of the generally blue-collar workers as labour, the strong First World War notion that the state was greatly indebted to the working class and should be a model employer, and, finally, the pervasiveness for all workers of the issues at stake in these strikes – the living wage and the recognition of the right to organize. One other major element propelling Canadian labour forward into the labour revolt of 1919 was the Borden government’s recourse to conscription despite all its previous assurances. In the aftermath of the TLC leadership’s begrudging acceptance of national registration, a storm of protest arose from Canadian workers. In meeting after meeting throughout the early months of 1917 the Borden government’s war plans were denounced, and resistance by any means, especially through the vehicle of the general strike, was discussed. Meanwhile, the government went through one final charade of voluntarism with an attempt to recruit a Canadian Defence Force to provide domestic defence and thus allow the Canadian army to be freed entirely for overseas duty. This force, which aimed to recruit men, was allowed to disappear ignominiously when, after almost six weeks of recruiting, only two hundred men had signed up.80 This final failure, combined with Borden’s return from a meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet in England, led to a late May decision by the cabinet to proceed with conscription. A Military Service Act (MSA) was introduced into the House of Commons on 11 June 1917 and eventually became law on 27 August 1917. As soon as Borden made the official announcement on 18 May 1917, demonstrations commenced throughout Quebec denouncing conscription. For the entire summer the streets of Montreal, Quebec City, and numerous smaller centres were filled with demonstrations and, on occasion, riots as protesters clashed with police. Discussions of general strikes and even of revolution filled the air. The ensuing late 1917 election campaign saw similar clashes but ended in a convincing pro-war Union government victory, partially gained by electoral chicanery of a previously unheard of level in Canadian general elections. For the mainstream labour movement, the conscription debate came to a head at the September 1917 TLC convention in Ottawa. The executive took the easy position that because the MSA was now law, labour could not afford to oppose it. The Resolutions Committee, however,

92  The Origins of the Long Cold War

brought to the floor a firmer statement: “This Congress is emphatically opposed to any development in the enforcement of any legislation that will make for industrial conscription, or the interference with the trade union movement in the taking care of the interests of the organized workers of the Dominion.”81 In the ensuing discussion a series of more radical motions was introduced, including a call for a general strike against conscription. In a fiery debate that lasted for many hours, general opposition to conscription of man-power prevailed, but fears of state repression and of radical action eventually led to the defeat of a motion that labour would oppose the conscription of manpower until wealth too was conscripted.82 While the national leadership had abdicated from the struggle against conscription, the fight did not end. Resistance to the MSA took many forms. The primary and easiest was simply to apply for an exemption and, of the first approximately 160,000 men called to report, fully 92 per cent did so. Indeed, by the end of 1917, of more than 400,000 men identified, 93.7 per cent sought an exemption. By the end of 1917 some 73 per cent of those seeking exemptions had been successful and only 13 per cent had been denied. The others were either pending or under appeal. Further options, of course, existed outside the law and many took these steps as well, if they were actually ordered to report. In ­Montreal, for example, of the first 500 conscripts, 35 per cent of the ­English Canadians and 56 per cent of the French Canadians failed to report. By the end of the war almost 25 per cent of Canadians had succeeded in remaining “unapprehended defaulters” under the MSA.83 Perhaps two of the most serious responses to conscription can be used to illustrate the extent of Canadian working-class opposition. On the Easter weekend of 1918, Quebec City crowds rescued an arrested defaulter from the hands of Dominion Police officers and proceeded to wreck the offices of the city’s two pro-Union government newspapers, the Chronicle and L’Événement. The next night the crowd sacked the office of the registrar of the MSA, destroying his records and burning the building. The authorities, who had rushed troops from Toronto to help maintain order, turned them loose on the crowd with fixed bayonets. While the army restored order that night, the enraged citizenry rioted again on the following evening, and, in the ensuing battle, at least four Quebec citizens were fatally wounded by machine-gun fire. The riots were finally ended on 4 April when habeas corpus was suspended and all citizens were warned that any arrested rioters would be conscripted immediately.84 While only limited studies of these riots exist, it is clear



State Repression of Labour and the Left   93

from the military authorities’ discussions that the rioters involved were primarily young Quebec workers. The four dead were Honoré Bergeron, a member of the Carpenters Union, Alexandre Bussières, CNR machinist, Georges Demeule, a factory shoemaker, and Joseph-Eduoard Tremblay, a student at l’École technique de Québec.85 The second event was Canada’s first political general strike held on 2 August 1918 in Vancouver to protest the Dominion Police murder of miners’ leader and MSA defaulter Albert “Ginger” Goodwin. Goodwin, a Western Federation of Miners’s leader, member of the SPC, and vice-president of the BC Federation of Labour, had initially been granted an exemption as unfit for military service, but while leading a strike in Trail he was suddenly reclassified as class A and called up for active service. He fled to Vancouver Island and took to the hills near Comox, where there was a colony of draft resisters. There, in late July, he was shot, allegedly in self-defence, by Dominion Police special constable Dan Campbell, who was eventually exonerated by a special inquiry. BC workers, however, believed Goodwin had been murdered. As a result the SPC-dominated Vancouver Trades and Labour Council declared a twenty-four-hour holiday as a protest, and on 2 August Vancouver workers shut the city down in an effective general strike.86 The Borden government had managed to impose compulsory military service over the heated objections of Canadian labour, but it had done so at considerable cost. To a large degree it had called the moderate leadership of the TLC into increasing disrepute and helped to pave the road to the massive labour revolt of 1919. The eventual defeat at Winnipeg in 1919, chronicled at length elsewhere, and the slow demise of the support strikes across the country signalled the beginning of the end of one major phase of Canadian working-class history.87 Pacification In the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike, there was much talk of the carrots as well as the far more evident sticks of state repression. Most of the conciliatory talk stemmed from the Royal Commission on Industrial Relations that had had the dubious task of holding hearings across Canada during the worst “industrial relations” crisis in the country’s history. The final report, with its enthusiastic endorsement of Whitley Council schemes, was carried forth by Borden’s minister of labour, Senator Gideon Robertson, with an initial display of support. These schemes, however, ran into a frigid response from most elements

94  The Origins of the Long Cold War

of Canadian capital at the September 1919 National Industrial Conference, which had been intended as “a domestic peace conference.” For all intents and purposes, significant state participation in such promotion then came to an end. In effect the slow-to-develop state wartime economic role, with its limited concession to the TLC, was being dismantled in general, and the massive victory of Canadian capital in 1919 sped the process along.88 After Winnipeg and in the subsequent economic downturn capital would make no concessions and would instead try to retake ground lost in 1917–19. Foreign immigrants of a radical leaning would need to live carefully for the next sixteen years because, under the spring 1919 pressures, the government had introduced significant amendments to the Immigration Act that allowed for the automatic deportation of anarchists and any other advocates of revolution. Further, under the direct pressure of the Winnipeg General Strike, the government had further amended the Naturalization Act to allow the revoking of the naturalization of anyone, even those of British lineage, who fomented revolution. Amendments to the Criminal Code also made prosecution possible for anyone deemed to be promoting change outside of peaceful, parliamentary channels.89 In addition, the conviction and jailing of the Winnipeg strike leaders under basically trumped-up charges made only too clear the state’s power. While such charges would not be used again so broadly until the prosecution of the Communist Party leadership in 1931, the potential for such legal action remained. Moreover, the state’s domestic intelligence ability grew far more sophisticated with the development of the RCMP Security Service.90 For example, when the chief press censor’s office was shut down, a summary of its activity was passed on to the RCMP with a clear indication of which papers the censor felt should be watched. This list included the BC Federationist (“incite[d] the public to violence and revolt against constituted authority”), Calgary Searchlight (“needs watching”), Camp Workers (“extremely revolutionary in tone”), Labor (“of a revolutionary socialist character”), New Democracy (“radical socialist”), One Big Union Bulletin (“revolutionary and opposed to constituted authority”), Ukrainian Labor News (“objectionable Bolshevist publication ... worth watching closely”), Vapaus (“socialistic”), and Western Labor News (“created feeling of unrest and discontent”).91 In general, as Chambers’s comments to the RCMP make clear, he continued to favour some form of censorship. Needless to say, the RCMP would continue the surveillance part of this work.92 The RCMP cut its teeth in 1919 and established a clear trajectory in security and intelligence work, but so did the revolutionary movement.



State Repression of Labour and the Left   95

For the Finns and Ukrainians the way forward remained quite clear, and the FOC and the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) moved directly into the emerging Communist Party of Canada. This direction proved most appealing for most left-wing Jews as well, although there was a significant residual social democratic grouping in that community. The radical press of the three communities became dominantly communist in the 1920s. In the aftermath of 1919 the SDP disappeared as its immigrant members moved into the CPC, while some of its British and native Canadian elements moved into labourism.93 The SPC eventually split on the issue of joining the Third International, with a majority becoming members of the CPC and the others maintaining the SPC.94 This article has covered much ground in an attempt to review the interaction of the Canadian working class and the state in the fiery crucible of the First World War. The Canadian state initiated a whole new set of repressive measures and agencies during this war and in its immediate aftermath in response to the significant challenge mounted by Canadian workers. The state’s position on the battlefield of class war, which had remained hidden to large segments of Canadian labour before 1914, now stood exposed. The economic climate of the 1920s, however, was to prove unpropitious for further labour gains. The state’s new repressive apparatus, operating out of the departments of Immigration and Justice and through Military Intelligence and the Royal ­Canadian Mounted Police, remained alert. These practices, initiated in the First World War and its aftermath and continued during the 1920s, would again come to the fore during the Great Depression, the next period of nationwide worker militancy.

I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Bryan Palmer, Linda Kealey, and participants in the Memorial University Graduate History Seminar, and the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. NOTES 1 On the labour revolt see G.S. Kealey, “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44, and Allen Seager, “Nineteen Nineteen: Year of Revolt,” Journal of the West 23, no. 4 (1984): 40–7.

96  The Origins of the Long Cold War 2 The United States experience has received far more attention owing, perhaps, to academic concern about McCarthyism and later about FBI excesses during the late 1960s. See F.C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I (DeKalb, IL, 1974); Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria (New York 1964); and William Preston, Jr, Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (Cambridge, MA, 1963). 3 For standard accounts see Robert Craig Brown, Robert Laird Borden, A Biography, vol. 2 (Toronto, 1980), 162–7; Robert Craig Brown and Ramsay Cook, Canada, 1896–1921: A Nation Transformed (Toronto, 1974), 212–27, 239–43, 309–14; Roger Graham, Arthur Meighen, vol. 1 (Toronto, 1960), 229–44; and Margaret Prang, N.W. Rowell: Ontario Nationalist (Toronto, 1975), 266–9, 298–303. Brown’s most apologetic effort by far, however, is his “‘Whither are we being shoved?’ Political Leadership in Canada during World War I,” in J.L. Granatstein and R.D. Cuff, eds., War and Society in North America (Toronto, 1971), 104–19. 4 In making this bald argument I am not dismissing ethnic chauvinism as an important ingredient in the war and post-war repression. It clearly played a significant role. I am, however, trying to emphasize that the same policy direction would have been pursued even if there had been no immigrant workers to blame. 5 David Jay Bercuson, Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations and the General Strike, rev. ed. (Montreal, 1990), offers a new preface xi–xii, and a new, entertaining conclusion, 196–205, which basically argues that his book as written almost twenty years before stands in need of no modification. His major complaint, other than an unapologetic dismissal of Marxist historical writing, is that many strikes do not equal a revolt. This is not the place to debate the significance of 1919, but it seems clear that the Canadian bourgeoisie and its state did not share Bercuson’s perspective. For them, the organization of such groups as mass-production workers, the public service, and the police, international events, and the growth of labour and socialist politics at home all combined to create tangible fear. 6 While I do not want to bore readers with a theoretical digression on the state, I would identify my perspective as roughly coincident with that of Leo Panitch in his article in The Canadian State (Toronto, 1977). I would add, however, that his renewed emphasis there on coercion seems to demand renewed empirical demonstration. This article and the larger work from which it is derived are intended to pursue this question. For other works that have influenced my view of the state see Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London, 1973), and his Marxism and Politics



State Repression of Labour and the Left   97

(Oxford, 1977), and Peter B. Evans et al., eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, 1985). 7 For a discussion of this act see Orest Martynowych, “The Ukrainian Socialist Movement in Canada, 1900–1918,” Journal of Ukrainian Graduate Studies 1 (1976): 27–44, and 2 (1977): 22–31, and Peter Melnycky, “The Internment of Ukrainians in Canada,” in Frances Swyripa and John Herd Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict: Ukrainians in Canada during the Great War (Edmonton, 1985), 1–24. 8 David Edward Smith, “Emergency Government in Canada,” Canadian Histo­ rical Review 50 (1969): 429–48; Brown, “Whither are we being shoved?” 104–19. 9 Arthur Lower, Colony to Nation (Toronto, 1969), 473. For an excellent discussion of the implications of this act see F. Murray Greenwood, “The Drafting and Passage of the War Measures Act in 1914 and 1927: Object Lessons in the Need for Vigilance” (unpublished paper, University of British Columbia, 1987). 10 Inter alia, see PC 2086, 7 August 1914; PC 2128, 13 August 1914; PC 2150, 15 August 1914; and PC 2283, 3 September 1914. A number of these and later provisions are conveniently collected in Swyripa and Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict, 171–81. 11 For details see Robert H. Coats, “The Alien Enemy in Canada: Internment Operations,” in Canada and the Great World War (Toronto, 1919), II: 144–61; Desmond Morton, “Sir William Otter and Internment Operations in Canada during the First World War,” Canadian Historical Review 55 (1974): 32–58; Morton, The Canadian General: Sir William Otter (Toronto, 1974), 315–68; Jean Laflamme, Les Camps de Détention au Québéc (Montreal, 1973); Melnycky, “Internment of Ukrainians,” 2–3; Joseph A. Boudreau, “Western Canada’s Enemy Aliens in World War I,” Alberta History 12, no. 1 (1964): 1–9, and “The Enemy Alien Problem in Canada,” PhD dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1965. 12 For first-hand experiences see Helen Potrobenko, No Streets of Gold: A Social History of the Ukrainians in Alberta (Vancouver, 1977), 131–6. For a useful, albeit uncritical, eyewitness account see Watson Kirkconnell, “Kapuskasing – an Historical Sketch,” Queen’s Quarterly 28 (1921): 264–78. 13 While certainly true of Coats, “The Alien Enemy,” this argument is also echoed in Morton, “Sir William Otter,” and Boudreau, “The Enemy Alien.” 14 Cook and Brown, Canada, 224–7, quotations at 226. 15 Potrobenko, No Streets of Gold, 103–30; Myrna Kostash, All of Baba’s Children (Edmonton, 1977), 45–55; Melnycky, “Internment of Ukrainians,” 1–24. 16 On censorship see Allan L. Steinhart, Civil Censorship in Canada during World War I (Toronto, 1986); Charles Hanburry-Williams, “The Censorship,”

98  The Origins of the Long Cold War in Canada and the Great World War, 238–41; Herbert Karl Kalbfleisch, The History of the Pioneer German Language Press of Ontario, 1835–1918 (Toronto, 1968), 105–6; Werner A Bausenhart, “The Ontario German Language Press and Its Suppression by Order-in-Council in 1918,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 4, no. 1–2 (1972): 35–48; W. Entz, “The Suppression of the German Language Press in September 1918,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 8, no. 2 (1976): 56–70; and Arja Pilli, The Finnish-Language Press in Canada, 1901–1939 (Turku, 1982), 85–95. The key early order was PC 1330 (10 June 1915). The general discussion in John Herd Thompson, The Harvests of War: The Prairie West, 1914–1918 (Toronto, 1978), 33–5, fails to take this issue seriously enough. 17 On these two papers see Peter Weinrich, Social Protest from the Left in Canada, 1870–1970 (Toronto, 1982), no. 5150 and no. 5218. The Week’s strong pacifist and anti-conscription position as well as its general muckraking, pro-labour stance appalled the censor. When it began to republish on May Day 1920, its editor, W.E. Pierce, recalled the ban of two years before and his three-month jail sentence and one thousand dollar fine. Week, 29 June 1918, 1 May 1920. 18 Ernest J. Chambers, Revised List of Publications the Possession of Which in Canada Is Prohibited (Ottawa, 19 August 1918). National Archives of Canada (NA), RCMP Records, RG 18, vol. 2380. For an accessible but unaccountably incomplete list see Weinrich, Social Protest, 471–4. 19 See PC 2070 (6 August 1914); PC 2821 (6 November 1914); Consolidated Orders Respecting Censorship, 17 January 1917; and PC 1241 (22 May 1918). 20 Pilli, Finnish-Language Press in Canada, 88; Nadia Kazymyra, “The Defiant Pavlo Krat and the Early Socialist Movement in Canada,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 10 (1978): 47. 21 S.W. Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” Canadian Historical Review 61 (1980): 169–90, provides useful background. A popular version is John Sawatsky, Men in the Shadows: The RCMP Security Service (Toronto, 1980), esp. ch. 5. See also Carl Betke and S.W. Horrall, Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline (Ottawa, 1978), acquired through an access request to CSIS in 1991. On British Columbia see Hugh Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists in North America, 1908–1918,” British Columbia Studies 78 (1988): 3–27. 22 Kirkconnell, “Kapuskasing,” 269. 23 R.T. Naylor, “The Canadian State, the Accumulation of Capital, and the Great War,” Revue d’études canadiennes 16, nos. 3 and 4 (1981): 26–55; Terry Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty (Toronto, 1974); Michael J. Piva, The Condition of the Working Class in Toronto (Toronto, 1979); Gordon Bertram and



State Repression of Labour and the Left   99

Michael Percy, “Real Wage Trends in Canada, 1900–1926,” Canadian Journal of Economics 12 (1979): 299–3212, and Eleanor Bartlett, “Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Vancouver, 1901–1929,” British Columbia Studies 51 (1981): 3–62. 24 D.J. Bercuson, “Organized Labour and the Imperial Munitions Board,” Relations Industrielles 28 (1974): 602–16; Peter Rider, “The Imperial Relations Board and Its Relationship to Government, Business, and Labour, 1914–1920,” PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1974, esp. ch. 9; Michael Bliss, A Canadian Millionaire: The Life and Business Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle, Bart., 1858–1939 (Toronto, 1978), esp. 270–2, 280–4, 320–5, 378–81; and Myer Siemiatycki, “Munitions and Labour Militancy: The 1916 Hamilton Machinists’ Strike,” Labour / Le Travail 3 (1978): 131–51. See also the Toronto debate in Toronto Trades and Labour Council, Minutes, 2, 16 March; 6, 20 April 1916. 25 Of the 36,267 members of the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, fully forty-two per cent were English born and another twenty-two per cent Scottish, Irish, and Welsh born. English Canadians composed twenty-six per cent and French Canadians about three per cent. J.L. Granatstein and J.M. Hitsman, Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada (Toronto, 1977), 23. See also Thompson, Harvests, 12–44. 26 Borden to Walters et al., 27 December 1916, as quoted in Granatstein and Hitsman, Broken Promises, 45. See also Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour (Kingston, 1968), 120ff, and A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries (Toronto, 1977), 134ff. 27 Toronto Trades and Labour Council, Minutes, 4 May 1916, 4 January 1917. 28 By far the most perceptive material on this subject has been written by Donald Avery. See, for example, his “Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada, 1896–1932 (Toronto, 1979), especially chapter 3, and his many articles, especially “The Radical Alien and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919,” in Carl Berger and Ramsay Cook, eds., The West and the Nation (Toronto, 1976), 209–31, and “Ethnic and Class Tensions in Canada, 1918–1920: Anglo Canadians and the Alien Worker,” in Swyripa and Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict, 79–98. Also of considerable utility is Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada (Montreal, 1981), esp. 3–86. 29 For a national view of the Red Scare see Theresa Baxter, “Selected Aspects of Canadian Public Opinion on the Russian Revolution and on Its Impact in Canada, 1917–1919,” MA thesis, University of Western Ontario, 1973. Specific to one province is Elliot Samuels, “The Red Scare in Ontario:

100  The Origins of the Long Cold War

30

3 1 32 33 34 35

36

37

38

39 40

The Reactions of the Ontario Press to the Internal and External Threat of Bolshevism, 1917–1918,” MA thesis, Queen’s University, 1972. Canada’s most famous leftist internee was undoubtedly Leon Trotsky, who spent some three weeks interned at Amherst, Nova Scotia, while trying to return to Russia from New York. See William Rodney, “Broken Journey: Trotsky in Canada, 1917,” Queen’s Quarterly 74 (1967): 649–65. For archival records of this event see NA, Department of National Defence, RG 24, vol. 2543, “Russian Socialists.” PC 332 (14 February 1919). Kirkconnell, “Kapuskasing,” 273–4. Morton, “Sir William Otter,” 58. Coats, “Alien Enemy,” 161. For text see Swyripa and Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict, 190–2. “Publication” included “any book, newspaper, magazine, periodical, pamphlet, tract, circular, leaflet, handbill, poster or other printed matter.” “Enemy language” meant “German, Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Roumanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Finnish, Estonian, Syrian, Croatian, Ruthenian and Livonian.” This list, which is not necessarily definitive, is taken from E.J. Chambers, “Additions to Revised List of Prohibited Publications of Date August 19th, 1918” (Ottawa, 28 October 1918), NA, RG 18, vol. 2380; “List of Publications Which Are Prohibited under the Consolidated Orders Respecting Censorship,” [April 1919] RG 18, vol. 2165; and W.H. Routledge to officer commanding, CIB memorandum, no. 115, Regina, 10 September 1919, “Re: Prohibited Publications,” RG 18, vol. 2380. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918–1919, and the Part Played by Canada (Toronto, 1967), and Roy MacLaren, Canadians in Russia, 1918–1919 (Toronto, 1976), are the fullest accounts of this misguided mission. Note especially, MacLaren, Canadians, 252–8. The Borden Papers contain many letters and petitions opposing Canadian intervention. In addition, the Canadian armed forces were very concerned about Bolshevik infiltration of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. See, for example, NA, Department of National Defence, RG 24, vol. 2543, file 1, Major Jukes, director of intelligence, Military District 11, to assistant director, Military Intelligence, Ottawa, Victoria, BC, 17 December 1919, which warns of Bolshevik propaganda among the Siberian force. There are many such examples. PC 2521 (15 October 1918); PC 2963 (13 November 1918); PC 702 and 703 (2 April 1919); and PC 2465 (20 December 1919). Routledge to officer commanding, Regina, 10 September 1919, CIB no. 115, RG 18, vol. 2380.



State Repression of Labour and the Left   101

41 Henry Trachtenberg, “The Role of Manitoba’s Jews,” 667–80. See also Avery, “Radical Alien,” 223–6. In his immigration hearing he is described as Solomon Almazoff. For a transcript of his case see NA, RG 18, vol. 3314, folio HV-1, vol. 4. 42 Pilli, Finnish-Language Press, 111–17. 43 Ibid., 100, 105. 44 Ibid., 106. Also see Canadan Uutiset, 11 July 1918, article by H.W. Niinimaki, translation by Mauri A. Jalava. All Finnish-language items cited have been translated by Mr Jalava. 45 Canadan Uutiset, 5 December 1918. 46 Pilli, Finnish-Language Press, 113–18 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 122–7. 49 See, among others, J. Donald Wilson, “The Finnish Organization of Canada, the ‘Language Barrier,’ and the Assimilation Process,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 9, no. 2 (1977): 105–16, for a careful consideration of the negotiations with Cahan. On Cahan and the Public Safety Branch see my “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and CounterSubversion in Canada,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992): 179–210 [Chapter 4 in this book]. 50 Pilli, Finnish-Language Press, 127–8. 51 J.W. Ahlqvist to Trades and Labour Councils and Unions of Canada, Toronto, 8 March 1919, Public Archives of Manitoba, RG 21, Court of King’s Bench, Criminal Assizes, R. v. Ivens et al., Exhibits. 52 Canadan Uutiset, 20 March 1919. 53 On the experience of the Ukrainian papers see Peter Krawchuk, The Ukrainian Socialist Movement in Canada, 1907–1918 (Toronto, 1979), 95–9; Martynowych, “The Ukrainian Socialist Movement in Canada, 1900–1918,” Journal of Ukrainian Graduate Studies 1 (1976): 27–44; (1977): 26–30; Andrij Makuch, “Influence of the Ukrainian Revolution on Ukrainians in Canada, 1917–1922,” Journal of Ukrainian Graduate Studies 6 (1979): 42–61; and John Kolasky, The Shattered Illusion: The History of Ukrainian Pro-Communist Organizations in Canada (Toronto, 1979), 1–26. See also Kolasky, Prophets and Proletarians: Documents on the History of the Rise and Decline of Ukrainian Communism in Canada (Edmonton, 1990), 3–31, and Peter Krawchuk, Matthew Popovich (Toronto, 1987), 19–46. 54 Pilli, Finnish-Language Press, 129–32. 55 For the text of PC 2384 see Swyripa and Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict, 1936. The following associations were specifically declared unlawful: “Industrial Workers of the World; Russian Social Democratic Party; Russian Revolutionary Group; Russian Social Revolutionists;

102  The Origins of the Long Cold War

56

5 7 58

59

60

6 1 62

63 64

Russian Workers Union; Ukrainian Social Democratic Party; Social Democratic Party; Social Labour Party; Group of Social Democrats of Bolsheviki; Group of Social Democrats of Anarchists; Workers International Industrial Union; Chinese Nationalist League; and Chinese Labour Association.” In addition, the order covered “any association ... one of whose purposes or professed purposes is to bring about any governmental, political, social, industrial or economic change within Canada by the use of force, violence, or physical injury to person or property, or by threats of such injury, or which teaches, advocates, advises or defends the use of …” Edward W. Laine, “Finnish Canadian Radicalism and Canadian Politics: The First Forty Years, 1900–1940,” in Jorgen Dahlie and Tissa Fernando, eds., Ethnicity, Power and Politics in Canada (Toronto, 1981), 98–9, 107–8. Amended list is in PC 2786. The deletion of the SDP from the list was due to the efforts of Newton Rowell. See Prang, Rowell, 267–8. Swyripa and Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict, 193–6. Particularly useful accounts are given in Avery, “Dangerous Foreigners,” 65–89, his “Radical Alien,” 216–26, and his “Ethnic and Class Tensions,” 80–7; see also Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 27–48. For a useful critique see James Conley, “Frontier Labourers, Crafts in Crisis, and the Western Labour Revolt: The Case of Vancouver, 1900 to 1919,” Labour / Le Travail 23 (1989): 9–37, and James Naylor, “‘The New Democracy’: Class Conflict in Industrial Ontario, 1914–1925,” PhD dissertation, York University, 1988. Major Joseph E. Rogers, superintendent, Ontario Provincial Police, to F.H. Whitton, general manager, Stelco, 24 February 1919, AO, Ontario Provincial Police Papers, RG 23, E 30, file 1.6. On Rogers’s career see D.D. Higley, OPP (Toronto, 1984). Rogers to Whitton, as in Note 60 above. W.H. Routledge to officer commanding, Regina, 16 August 1919, CIB 104, “Bolsheviki Propaganda – List of Parties Prosecuted in connection with,” NA, RG 18, vol. 2380. To sample randomly, I took one name off each of the first ten pages of the list. An example of military pressures can be found in Major-General Gwatkin, chief of the General Staff, “Memorandum on Censorship,” nd [1918], ­Hamilton Papers, NA, MG 30, D 84, vol. 2, which cites the IWW threat as a rationale for tougher censorship. Cahan was endearingly described by the British high commissioner in Ottawa a few years later as “generally accepted as the mouth-piece of the Holt, Gundy and other big business



65 66

67

68 69

7 0 71

72

73

State Repression of Labour and the Left   103 interests of Montreal.” Sir William H. Clark to the Rt. Hon. L.S. Avery, 17 May 1929, PRO, DO 35 / 68. This argument is frequently made. See, for example, Howard Palmer, Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta (Toronto, 1982), 47–56. C.H. Cahan to Sir Robert Borden, Montreal, 28 May 1919, NA, Borden Papers, MG 26, H, vol. 113, part 1, file oc564 (1) (A), 61631–2. For a fine example of Cahan’s anti-red propaganda see his “A Pernicious Propaganda” in Empire Club of Canada, Addresses, 1919 (Toronto, 1920), 191–215. See also Kealey, “The Surveillance State.” See Kealey, “1919,” and Kerr and Holdsworth, eds., Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. 3, plate 39, for statistical evidence on the strike wave of that year. Sergeant B.H. James to A.J. Cawdron, IWW Branch, Dominion Police, Ottawa, March 1919, NA, RG 13, vol. 235, file 1013. F.H. Whitton to Joseph E. Rogers, 9 April 1919, with enclosure of agent’s report of 27–31 March and 1 April 1919; Joseph E. Rogers to F.H. Whitton, 10 April 1919; Joseph E. Rogers to Albert J. Cawdron, acting chief commissioner of police, 10 April 1919; Albert J. Cawdron to Joseph E. Rogers, 12 April 1919, AO, OPP Papers, RG 23, E 30, file 1.6. NA, RG 13, A 2, vol. 233, file 455, and vol. 237, files 1517 and 1537. One hastens to add “more readily available” only for a time. Deposited in the early 1960s under various restrictions, these 1919 RNWMP files were consulted by a number of historians but were then removed from the archives by the RCMP Security Services. For the complex history of these records see Gregory S. Kealey, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and the Access to Information Act: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (1988): 199–226 [Chapter 9 in this book]. The “western radicalism” hypothesis has come under attack from many quarters of late. For a useful and considered discussion see Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History (Toronto, 1984), 287–300, 355–65, and also Conley, “Frontier Labourers,” and Naylor, “The New Democracy.” For an unapologetic reassertion see Bercuson, Confrontation, 196–205. The most satisfactory account we have of the genesis of the RCMP and particularly its security responsibilities is Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest.” While a thorough rendering of the force’s bureaucratic development, it should be read as a partial apologia for the force written by the head of the RCMP’s historical section. See also Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service. Kealey, “1919,” and Seager, “Nineteen Nineteen.”

104  The Origins of the Long Cold War 74 Kealey, “1919,” and Seager, “Nineteen Nineteen.” For the larger context of Canadian strike waves in the twentieth century see Douglas Cruikshank and Gregory S. Kealey, “Canadian Strike Statistics, 1891–1950,” Labour / Le Travail 20 (1987): 85–145. 75 A. Ernest Johnson, “The Strikes in Winnipeg in May 1918: The Prelude to 1919?” MA thesis, University of Manitoba, 1978. 76 Roseline Usiskin, “Toward a Theoretical Reformulation of the Relationship between Political Ideology, Social Class, and Ethnicity: A Case Study of the Winnipeg Jewish Radical Community, 1905–1920,” MA thesis, University of Manitoba, 1978, ch. 5, and her “The Winnipeg Jewish Radical Community: Its Early Formation, 1905–1918,” in Jewish Life and Times: A Collection of Essays (Winnipeg, 1983), 155–68. 77 William Doherty, Slaves of the Lamp: A History of the Federal Civil Service Organizations, 1865–1924 (Victoria, 1991), 193–238. See also NA, Post Office Papers, series 10, vol. 60, file 96853, “List of Offices Affected by the 1918 Postal Strike.” 78 Jim Naylor, “Toronto 1919,” Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers (1986): 33–55. See also AO, Ontario, Royal Commission on Police Matters, 1919. For a useful discussion see Greg Marquis, “Police Unionism in Early Twentieth-Century Toronto,” Ontario History 81 (1989): 109–28, esp. 113–20. 79 Geoff Ewen, “La contestation à Montréal en 1919,” Histoire des travailleurs québécois: Bulletin RCHTQ 36 (1986): 37–62. 80 Granatstein and Hitsman, Broken Promises, 51ff, and Elizabeth Armstrong, The Crisis of Quebec 1914–18 (New York, 1937), ch. 7. 81 TLC, Proceedings, 1917, 141–2. 82 For varying versions of the debate see ibid., and Toronto Globe, 20–1 September 1917. 83 Statistics are from Granatstein and Hitsman, Broken Promises, 64–96. Details on the “defaulters” have been lost to the historical record by the intentional destruction of the relevant archival material in the 1920s. 84 Accounts of these riots can be found in Jean Provencher, Québec sous la loi des Mesures de Guerre 1918 (Montreal, 1971); Mason Wade, The French Canadians (Toronto, 1968), 764–9; Armstrong, Crisis, 228–37; and in NA, RG 24, c-5660, HQC 2358, “Disturbances in Quebec over the Enforcement of the Military Service Act, 1918.” 85 See, for example, description by Douglas Kerr of the Dominion Police, who refers to “the tough young element” and notes that “no person of consequence” was involved, NA, RG 24, c-5660, HQC 2358, letter of 12 April 1918.



State Repression of Labour and the Left   105

86 On Goodwin see Susan Mayse, Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin (Madiera Park, 1990); Paul Phillips, No Power Greater: A Century of Labour in British Columbia (Vancouver, 1967), 67, 71–3; McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries, 139, and Globe, 3 August 1918. See also Working Lives: Vancouver 1886–1986 (Vancouver, 1985), 169. On the 1917 strike see Stanley Scott, “A Profusion of Issues: Immigrant Labour, the World War, and the Cominco Strike of 1917,” Labour / Le Travail 2 (1977): 54–78. 87 Bercuson, Confrontation. For a periodization of Canadian working-class history see Gregory S. Kealey, “The Structure of Canadian Working-Class History,” in W.J.C. Cherwinski and Gregory S. Kealey, eds., Lectures in Canadian Labour and Working-Class History (St John’s, 1985), 23–36. For a corresponding view of US labour history see David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York, 1987), esp. 370–464. 88 Tom Traves, The State and Enterprise: Canadian Manufacturers and the Federal Government, 1917–1931 (Toronto, 1979). See also Myer Siemiatycki, “Labour Contained: The Defeat of a Rank and File Workers’ Movement in Canada, 1914–1921,” PhD dissertation, York University, 1987, and Naylor, “The New Democracy.” 89 A good discussion of these issues is found in Barbara Roberts, Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada, 1900–1935 (Ottawa, 1988). 90 For a sketchy but useful overview see Sawatsky, Men in the Shadows. 91 NA, Communist Party of Canada Papers, MG 28 IV 4, vol. 40, file 40–28. Chief Press Censor, Supplementary Report to RNWMP, 13 January 1920. 92 See Gregory S. Kealey and R. Whitaker, eds., Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929 (St John’s, 1992). 93 Naylor, “The New Democracy,” provides the most detailed account of labourism as a political strategy in these years. 94 Larry Peterson, “Revolutionary Socialism and Industrial Unrest in the Era of the Winnipeg General Strike: The Origins of Communist Labour Unionism in Europe and North America,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 115–31.

4 The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–21

The groundwork laid in those early years formed the foundation of the present security and intelligence branch of the Force, a service which, in my opinion, and in the opinion of professionals in other countries, must rate with the best and most experienced counter-intelligence organizations in the world. (Commissioner C.W. Harvison, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, retired, 1967)

Such proud and confident words were commonplace in the years before the ugly revelations of the McDonald Commission and the more speculative but equally embarrassing allegations concerning James Bennett and the death, during RCMP Security Service interrogation, of the former Canadian ambassador to the Soviet Union, John Watkins.1 Perhaps more surprisingly, Commissioner Harvison’s certainty has been reflected to a considerable degree in the few serious works on the history of the RCMP. To a large degree the lack of historical scholarship on the RCMP Security Service has resulted from the paucity of sources. The RCMP and its successor agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), except for some minor and later much-regretted openness in the early 1960s, have deservedly earned a reputation among archivists and historians for inaccessibility.2 The Access to Information Act of 1983 and the National Archives Act of 1985, however, have brought some relief from the problems of the past. Thus, the time has arrived for a re-examination of the origins of the RCMP, especially its Security Service, and for a reconsideration of the role the Canadian state has played in the area of surveillance and counter-subversion in the twentieth century.3 This article is a first effort at such revision. With the notable exception of intelligence work commissioned by Sir John A. Macdonald against the Fenians in the 1860s and 1870s and



The Surveillance State  107

c­ ontinuing co-operation with the British government concerning Irish and Indian nationalists before the First World War, the Canadian state had almost no security and intelligence capacity in 1914.4 The Dominion Police had certain security functions, such as the guarding of public buildings, as part of its mandate, but it was an extremely small and poorly funded force. The outbreak of the First World War was the occasion of the first systematic political concern in this area, but, as so often in Canada during that war, the development of an appropriate governmental response was halting, indecisive, and often confused. Nevertheless, the necessity of policing the long border with the initially neutral United States with its large population of German and Irish immigrants and of solving the domestic problem of a large immigrant community from the enemy nations demanded the Borden government’s attention.5 Similarly, the need for secrecy about the war effort demanded the development of policies governing the censorship of all forms of communication.6 Last, but certainly not least, opposition to the war and, more specifically, to conscription demanded the development of yet heavier repressive responses. This final problem loomed ever greater on the government’s agenda after the passage of the Military Service Act (MSA) and as labour impatience with the war effort manifested itself in the labour revolt of 1917–20.7 The major historical account to date of the emergence of the RCMP is a 1980 article by S.W. Horrall, the head of the Historical Section of the Force.8 Working with the advantage of access to documents then unavailable to other historians, Horrall wrote a compelling essay which quite correctly attributed the revival of a moribund RNWMP and the subsequent birth of the new RCMP to the Canadian labour revolt. The article, however, is quite concerned to justify the role of the Mounties throughout 1919 and argues that the quality of their advice to the politicians transcended what the Borden government was receiving from the rest of its confusing array of intelligence sources. Indeed, the reader is left with the general impression not only that Canada was much better for the creation of the new force with its potential for systematic counter-subversion work but also that the excessive state response in ­Winnipeg might have been avoided if the wise counsel of RNWMP commissioner A.B. Perry had been followed by Borden. Without doubt Horrall’s defence of the Force is a liberal one; indeed, RCMP internal documentation obtained through the access process shows that the ­Security Service was furious with Horrall’s article because it identified documentary sources that other historians then sought.9 Nevertheless, there are considerable problems with Horrall’s argument and, more im-

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portantly, with the additional evidence that is not presented concerning the precise nature of RCMP surveillance systems and techniques. Moreover, the account has a Whiggish quality, understandable from the Force’s official historian, which fails to raise larger questions about the emergence of a paramilitary, federal police force with primary responsibilities for domestic intelligence and counter-subversion. The Dominion Police and the RNWMP, 1914–17 In 1914 the Dominion Police (DP) received the responsibility for security matters. Given the extremely limited size of the DP, these new duties were largely delegated to the country’s other police forces under DP co-ordination. In the case of the RNWMP, this gave the Force security responsibilities in the Yukon and Northwest Territories and in ­Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they served as provincial police under contracts entered into by those provinces upon their creation in 1905. In central Canada and the east such responsibilities were carried out by the Dominion Police where they existed and through municipal and provincial police forces. In addition, the DP hired detective agencies to provide extra under-cover investigative capacities. For example, the Thiel Detective Service Company’s Montreal office billed the Canadian government for just over $17,000 in September 1916 for an array of investigations throughout Canada and in the United States. Among duties performed by Thiel detectives were “keeping in touch with antiBritish sentiment at various points in the U.S. and with the workings of the inner circles of the German and Austrian secret societies in which we have confidential and reliable operatives,” investigating the irregular purchase of horses for the military in Nova Scotia, and “special secret service precautions for the suppression of vices at the various camps.”10 Such dependence on private, foreign companies must have given some pause to government officials. As we shall see, it certainly became an issue after the war. In the early years of the war the new RNWMP duties primarily involved the registration and internment of “enemy aliens,” and securing the border. In addition, Commissioner Perry availed himself of the new security concerns to hire the Force’s first secret agents. In late August 1914 the comptroller authorized Perry to “employ men for special service to gather information with reference to the movements, disposition, etc., of foreign settlers.” Such agents were to be paid from war funds, administered by the chief commissioner of the DP, not from



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the  normal RNWMP budget.11 No systematic account of the work of these first secret agents has as yet turned up, but random reports include detailed descriptions of Crows Nest Pass coal strikes in 1915, a generalized report that secret agents detected “a very strong undercurrent of feeling against conscription” in July 1916, accounts of the anti-war and pro-labour activities of Edmonton politician and soon-tobe-mayor, Joseph Clarke, in 1917, and numerous accounts of Quebec resistance to the Military Service Act.12 By summer 1916 RNWMP commissioner A.B. Perry was expressing considerable concern to the prime minister that the Force could not be expected to continue to carry out its provincial policing duties in ­Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as its new security responsibilities: “Owing to the wide distribution and paucity, the Mounted Police cannot be looked upon as defensive; their energies are absorbed in their various civil duties. To render it of more service in meeting war conditions its members would have to be largely increased, its ordinary police duties taken over by the different provinces, and its distribution revised.” Perry went on to recommend exactly that to the prime minister: “In the public interest ... during the period of the war the Force, except in the North-West and Yukon Territories should be relieved of police duties and its services be utilized for Federal Service only.”13 Perry’s recommendation was accepted, and Alberta and Saskatchewan created provincial police forces in 1917. By then, however, Perry’s intentions had shifted. He now argued not for an increased domestic role but rather that the Force be allowed to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) as a cavalry unit.14 Neither British nor Canadian generals greeted this offer with enthusiasm. The British pointed out that cavalry had little utility in Europe and General Gwatkin worried about the large alien population of the Prairie provinces and of potential labour unrest in British Columbia.15 While this debate played itself out, the RNWMP declined in size as many members retired from the Force to enlist in the CEF. Given that Perry himself openly argued that the Force had “largely finished the work for which it was called into existence,” the future of the RNWMP did not look bright. Indeed one member of the ­RNWMP in those years recalls that there was “a prevalent rumour throughout the entire Force during my early years of service that the RNWMP would soon be disbanded.”16 In the end the Force was allowed to play a military role and on 30 May 1918 a cavalry draft of 12 officers and 726 NCOs and men left for Europe. In addition, when the Borden government allowed itself to

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be coerced by the British into sending Canadian troops to Russia, the RNWMP again provided men, specifically 5 officers and 181 other ranks for Siberia. As a result by early December 1918 the RNWMP establishment had fallen to a total of 303 in the whole of Canada.17 Renewed labour militancy changed all of that, but the choice of the RNWMP as the appropriate government agency to carry out the task of domestic intelligence was anything but certain. Earlier in 1918 Labour Minister Gideon Robertson had written to a number of cabinet colleagues to warn them that the American legal assault on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) raised the spectre of yet another invasion of the Canadian border from the south, albeit on this occasion by radicals, not Germans. “Inasmuch as the policies and purposes of the IWW are vicious in their character and intent” and “undoubtedly detrimental to the preservation of industrial peace,” he recommended that agents be put on their trail and that the post office should seize any IWW propaganda in circulation through the mails. “Stern measures” taken early might discourage others from proceeding to Canada. Such action, he argued, was “offered on behalf of and in the interests of the bona fide labour organizations of Canada who are at the present time trying to co-operate with the Government.”18 Almost simultaneously, and undoubtedly more to the point, Sir ­Joseph Flavelle, Chairman of the Imperial Munitions Board in Canada, also warned Borden of the IWW threat and called for an investigation by Sir Percy Sherwood, chief commissioner of the DP.19 The subsequent DP search provides insight into the methodology of the state security apparatus in early 1918. Albert Cawdron, Sherwood’s assistant and acting commissioner for part of 1918, consulted the chief constables of the major urban police forces, the superintendents of the various provincial forces, Perry of the RNWMP, the Immigration Department, the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Department of Investigation, and the Pinkerton Detective Agency in New York. From all these agencies he sought a report on the IWW in general and comments on how best to deal with the IWW in Canada. In addition he commissioned the Thiel Company in Chicago and a Toronto firm, the Employers’ Detective Agency, to report on the Wobblies. For further work he proposed hiring “the private agency that we think has the inside track of these people at present, with operatives working amongst them, in order that we might learn of any Headquarters ... and get first hand information of their doings.” Money spent to learn their plans now, he added, will save thousands later by stopping this “very dangerous, socialistic, and perhaps murderous lot” before they get started here.20



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Somewhat anticlimactically Cawdron reported two weeks later that “the sum total of the reports is that we have nothing to fear from them at the present time.” But the IWW was now replaced, or confused at least in Cawdron’s report, by the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (USDP). The acting chief commissioner reported proudly that he had “a special man on the inside with a view to learning if they have any plans for the present year.”21 Subsequent reports from Cawdron, however, indicated additional concerns, especially in Ontario and Quebec. These reports almost universally focused on immigrant workers and their organizations such as the USDP, the Russian Workers Union, and the Finnish Organization. The reports varied dramatically in tone and in strategic suggestions, but alarm was clearly mounting in the business community and among police and military officials.22 The Rise and Fall of C.H. Cahan, May 1918–January 1919 As a result of the conflicting information and advice the government was receiving, Prime Minister Borden, immediately before his departure for England, wrote to C.H. Cahan, a Montreal lawyer with British Secret Service ties, to enlist his aid.23 Cahan had written to Borden a few days before offering his services to the Canadian war effort. Unfortunately, Borden’s response and subsequent request were ambiguous at best. He described “certain evidence pointing pretty distinctly to a propaganda in various parts of the country which raises a suspicion that it is being carried on by German agents or with German support.” After seeking Cahan’s advice on establishing “some effective organization to investigate the whole subject,” he concluded by enclosing a secret American document regarding such an “organization of a more or less voluntary character” under the control of the Department of Justice. While somewhat unclear, it would seem that Borden was considering a Canadian equivalent to the American Protective League.24 Cahan, however, as we shall see, had other ideas. In June Chief Commissioner Sherwood provided Minister of Justice Doherty with a final report on the IWW. “After a thorough and exhaustive investigation,” he wrote, “no trace can be found of any activity on the part of the IWW in this country.” He noted a renewal of SDP activity but found nothing sinister there, but rather an organization for “the improvement of workers’ conditions and the securing of better pay.” Meanwhile, a few “aliens” had been interned to ensure that they did not become agitators, close censorship of the mail had been undertaken, and “a plan adopted for keeping in touch with the s­ ituation was

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approved of at a conference of experienced police officials held in ­Ottawa.” Finally, the staff of the DP had been augmented by the seconding to Ottawa of Toronto detective Wallace, an experienced political operative.25 Sherwood’s confident report to Doherty was called into question one month later when Cahan filed his first report to the same minister. While Cahan found little to worry about among German Canadians, he did note “considerable mental unrest among the peoples of Slavic origin in Canada, Russian, Ukrainian, and Austrian, which is directly attributable to the dissemination in Canada of the Socialistic doctrines, espoused by the Russian Revolutionary element, and more recently by the Bolsheviki Party in Russia.” These problems had nothing to do with German activities in Canada, and therefore an organization like the American Protective League would serve little purpose. Indeed, he argued that in Canada such an organization would almost certainly degenerate into warring parties of French and English. But more serious even than the Slavic unrest, “There is apparently wide-spread unrest and discontent throughout Canada, which finds expression in labor agitation and strikes, in attempts to avoid the Military Service Act, in mutterings against food prices, in criticism of the treatment of returned soldiers, in the prevalent suspicion that discrimination is shown in the collection of federal taxes, and in general discontent with the administration of the federal departments.” This general disaffection Cahan attributed to war-weariness, and he recommended renewed efforts “to overcome existing unrest and dissatisfaction.” Most importantly, however, he promoted an expansion of the work of the Dominion Police and an elaboration of their co-operation with other police agencies.26 This eloquent document might be termed the opening round in Canada’s Red Scare. Cahan, unlike Cawdron and Sherwood, pinpointed the subversive threat as Bolshevism in Canada and identified the immigrant communities as the locus of concern. Moreover, the unrest he described in July 1918 grew rapidly that summer. In late August Cahan wrote to Borden to prompt him to consider his recommendations to Doherty and went a bit further calling specifically for increased co-­ operation between an expanded DP and both Military Police and Immigration authorities.27 Cahan next filed his final report with the minister of justice. This seventeen-­page document articulated much more fully Cahan’s campaign of repression, much of which was to be implemented by the



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Union government in autumn 1918. He first surveyed the alien registration and internment program and generally applauded its successful implementation by the chief commissioner of the DP. He further commended the August 1918 extension of this registration to all enemy aliens over the age of sixteen but recommended its additional expansion to cover Russians, Ukrainians, and Finns. The rationale, of course, derived from his earlier observations concerning the growth of Bolshevik propaganda in Canada: The Russians, Ukrainians, and Finns, who are employed in the mines, factories, and other industries of Canada, are now being thoroughly saturated with the socialistic doctrines which have been proclaimed by the Bolsheviki faction of Russia ... For several years before the outbreak of the war, the industrial centres of Canada were literally deluged with these publications; and, at the present time, I have before me a mass of this literature, filled with the most pernicious and seditious teaching, which is even now, in large quantities, being secretly circulated in Canada.

Identifying the guilty organizations as the Social Democratic Party of Canada, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Group, the Russian Revolutionary Group, and others unspecified, he noted their presence throughout Ontario and in Quebec, Manitoba, and Alberta. Membership in these groups was estimated at over 1000 in Toronto and from 150 to 175 in Hamilton, Winnipeg, Sault Ste Marie, Timmins, and Copper Cliff. Compulsory registration and monthly reporting would make them “amenable to local police supervision.” Moreover, such close supervision “puts these aliens on their guard against personal misconduct, and the Government is thereby enabled to exercise a salutary restraining influence upon individuals who would otherwise prove obstreperous.” Cahan then turned to the subject of revolutionary propaganda. After citing various examples ranging from Jack London through the revolutionary new year’s greetings of one Felix Connosevitch of Brantford, to the Constitution of the SDP, he recommended the “most stringent measures to curtail the importation, publication, and distribution of such doctrines, at least until the termination of the present war; and to prohibit during the same period, the oral advocacy of such doctrines at public or private meetings.” More specifically he suggested the banning of the IWW, the Workers International Industrial Union (the Detroit IWW), the SDP, the USDP, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Group, the Russian Revolutionary Group, and “any other society or organization

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inculcating the same doctrines or teachings.” Membership in or attendance at any meeting of such groups would be a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment only, as would the public or private advocacy of their doctrines or teachings. In addition, he proposed that no newspaper, magazine, or journal be permitted to publish in any language except English or French without receipt of a federal licence. Similarly, no pamphlet, leaflet, or poster should be published in any foreign language without prior submission in translation to the press censor for a certificate of approval. Finally, he promoted the wide extension of peace officers’ rights to search for, confiscate, and destroy such materials. Cahan next considered enforcement mechanisms. Noting that enforcement of the various security provisions of the War Measures Act was fragmented through numerous government departments under various ministers, he suggested centralization for efficiency. He cited quite favourably the American example of an attorney general with a Department of Justice governing widely dispersed district attorneys and with a federal police and investigative capacity. He concluded that a similar pattern should be followed in Canada and that the Department of Justice should be given primary responsibility for the enforcement of War Measures Act regulations. Noting that many of those powers such as enforcement of the MSA were currently held by military authorities, he argued that they were at times “aggressive and arbitrary and seldom trained in the administration of law” and that this “often unnecessarily irritated and displeased the Canadian civilian population.” The solution he offered was a new Public Safety Branch of the Department of Justice, which was to be filled in a non-partisan fashion but by individuals “in cordial sympathy with the war aims of the government.” Even if the government did not choose to establish this new agency, he called for the rapid expansion of the DP to allow the chief commissioner “to ensure that the regulations for the registration and supervision of all aliens are strictly enforced.”28 The government moved very quickly in the aftermath of Cahan’s ­report. Within a week they passed two new orders-in-council to im­ plement his recommendations regarding the banning of various socialist, ethnic, and labour organizations and their publications.29 In late ­September Cahan began meeting with Doherty and his deputy minister to plan implementation of the rest of his report. In the process he began to map out a larger role for himself. Increasing emphasis was placed on  the Public Safety Branch, which he now volunteered to direct. In



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a­ ddition the wartime justification for such a federal effort also began to slip into longer-range plans: Personally, I am disposed to believe that until demobilization is completed, and perhaps thereafter until the industrial unrest, which grows out of the war, is entirely dissipated, it will be necessary for the federal authority to maintain a strong and effective organization, in the Department of Justice, for the enforcement of federal laws. In my opinion, if we are to preserve a United Canadian nation, we will not, for a long time, be in a position to revert to the old policy of laissez-faire, and leave the haphazard enforcement of federal laws to provincial and municipal authorities.

The aims of the organization remained much the same, although he now placed additional emphasis on its central role in co-ordinating all governmental activities in this area, and most particularly in directing prosecution and investigation. It is well worth noting that, throughout the Cahan documents, the RNWMP is almost never mentioned and the few allusions are only to their northern role.30 The Public Safety Branch was established by order-in-council in ­October 1918 “for the effective administration of the laws, orders, and regulations enacted for the preservation of public order and safety during the continuance of the war, and more particularly to administer and enforce the orders and regulations sanctioned as war measures.” Cahan became its first and only director.31 In November Cahan provided a detailed and ambitious organizational plan for his new PSB. In addition to a central office staff including an assistant director (he proposed to appoint his son), his plan included a Bureau of Investigation of five secret service agents “thoroughly qualified and competent and always available for special service.” Working  directly under the director, they were to receive three thousand dollars per annum plus expenses, which was extremely high pay by civil service standards. In addition he proposed a total reorganization of the Dominion Police. The country was to be divided into ten districts, each with a commissioner of police, three detectives, and between seven and fifteen constables. For the entire nation he proposed a force of twenty-four detectives and ninety-two constables. He also proposed a reserve force of Dominion Police of one hundred men, a third to be stationed in each of Nova Scotia, Quebec / Ontario, and British Columbia. This reserve force was intended for “the suppression of disorder

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where strikes, riots, etc., are anticipated or may arise.” He priced this reorganization at about $300,000 in salaries per annum. Implementation of his scheme “would create a force of Dominion Police sufficient to preserve public order and safety throughout Canada during the period of demobilization, without the necessity of involving the frequent aid of the military forces.”32 Cahan had reached the height of his influence with the Canadian government. His career as Canada’s leading anti-Bolshevik declined precipitously thereafter. In many ways Cahan’s political failure created the space for the RNWMP’s uncertain path towards a new role as ­Canada’s central domestic intelligence agency. A second fortuitous personnel change, however, also played a major part in the RNWMP’s ascendancy. Sir Percy Sherwood, the chief commissioner of the DP, decided for health reasons to resign at the age of sixty-five.33 His assistant, Albert Cawdron, became acting chief commissioner but was never granted the full position.34 Finally, and admittedly more speculative, is the course taken by Newton Rowell, the president of the Privy Council, and probably the most important Liberal in Borden’s Union government. As president of the Privy Council, Rowell’s ministry included the RNWMP. Indeed in September 1918 when the new repressive PC Orders were being passed and the Public Safety Branch created, Rowell was on a tour of western Canada. A major purpose of his trip was consultation with Commissioner Perry on the future of the RNWMP.35 No doubt the unanimous accolades that the Force received throughout Rowell’s tour did much to reinforce for him the possibilities of redefining its role. On his return to Ottawa he became embroiled in a Cabinet struggle over the PC Orders passed in his absence. He had no general objections to the repressive measures instituted, but he did feel that the legislation had gone too far by including the Social Democratic Party of Canada on the list of specifically banned organizations. Rowell wrote to Doherty on 18 October to register his dissent, which was based on the opposition that the measure was generating in the labour community. He also noted that no doubt the SDP’s presence on the list was simply an oversight in the drafting of the legislation. Cahan, however, refused to compromise. Instead, he raised the stakes considerably by writing directly to Borden to complain of interference and to suggest, albeit subtly, that the objecting ministers were simply bowing to Red pressure. After outlining at length the “most insidious propaganda” efforts of the SDP, he argued at length against the deletion of the SDP from the Order, or at



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the very least a delay until the current prosecutions could be completed. In his more public submission to his minister for use in Cabinet, Cahan warned that any repeal would “be hailed by those followers of  the red flag, who are the chief exponents of German propaganda throughout Canada, as an indication that they are at liberty in Canada to undermine, without restraint, the very foundation of our social, industrial, and political system.” After detailing his charges at length, he concluded that the SDP was not a “political party in the ordinary meaning of those words. It is the Party of Red Revolution, advocating submission to German might, subversion of all constitutional government, robbery of personal property, and the accomplishment of its avowed aims by sabotage and general strikes.” Again indicating his lack of trust in his minister, he sent this brief directly to Borden and offered to supply him with various examples of SDP propaganda if it would help.36 Rowell, with strong support from Thomas Crerar, won the day on this issue in Cabinet with his argument that the SDP was a recognized political labour party which had existed for ten years without previous interference. In classic liberal terms he argued that as such the task was “to combat their ideas in public argument or propaganda.” “A policy of repression,” he argued, was “not only contrary to the public interest, but will alienate from government the support of the progressive elements in the community, who, while out of sympathy with the SDP programme, still insist on freedom of thought and freedom of speech on social and economic questions.”37 Crerar insisted that the SDP did not advocate violence and thus should not come under the ban. There was “no justification whatsoever,” he argued, describing Cahan’s attack on the SDP as “the very negation of the first principles of democracy.”38 While the SDP was removed from the list, the ban on the other organizations remained. Co-terminous with this debate a co-ordinated series of police raids took place across Ontario. For example, the chief constable of Sault Ste Marie reported that raids against “social revolutionaries” on 19 October had led to ten arrests and subsequent convictions with fines as high as four thousand dollars or sentences of as long as five years.39 Chief Grassett of the Toronto Police Force also reported similar success on 20 October. His raids had netted forty-one members of the Chinese National League and twenty-three members of the Russian Social Democratic Party, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party, and the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada, as well as a vast array of prohibited literature.40

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Cahan later, somewhat disingenuously given his plea to Borden, denied responsibility for the SDP prosecutions in Ontario under the orderin-­council. This initial set-back in Cabinet did not prevent Cahan from promoting further schemes. In his effort to create a replica of the Bureau of Investigation in the United States Department of Justice, he proposed a force of secret agents under his supervision: “The Director of Public Safety should have available an adequate number of investigators to probe very thoroughly the sources of enemy propaganda in this country, the violations of law due to the advocates of social and political revolution, and the general social and industrial unrest throughout Canada, so that the Government of Canada may always be kept thoroughly informed of the actual existing conditions, and so that offences against existing laws may be effectively prosecuted.”41 He even knew where he could recruit such agents, namely from the military groups then enforcing the Military Service Act and from Military and Naval Intelligence. To reinforce his argument he cited the recent assassination in Victoria of Tan Hui Ling, Minister of the Interior in the Chinese government, by Chung Wong, an activist in the Chinese Nationalist League.42 He also drew a grim picture of the activities of “social revolutionists” throughout Canada’s industrial districts. His recommendation then was to reorganize the Public Safety Branch and the Dominion Police to allow the hiring of secret agents without the Cabinet’s direct approval of the expense. Here he again used the American example and concluded, “I am convinced that even upon the declaration of peace, the Dominion Government can only ensure the maintenance of law and order throughout Canada by preparing now to control all the disturbing elements in this country; and, therefore, I earnestly invite the attention of the government to this matter, now, when possible future events may, in anticipation, be fully provided for.”43 Cahan lost this battle as well. No agents were authorized to be employed under his control. Moreover, his request that his son, Charles Hazlitt Cahan, be appointed as his assistant director, was flatly rejected “as inappropriate” by the Cabinet. But, as was prefigured in the SDP case, his major offence was his refusal to play by the established rules of public service. As an important Tory politician in his own right, he simply failed to work through appropriate ministerial channels. Justice Minister Doherty’s patience finally ran out when, in November, he read in the press announcements of policy directions emanating from the director of the Public Safety Branch that he, let alone the Cabinet, had never approved. He warned Cahan to “be careful in the future to see



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that similar announcements are not made without having been authorized by the Minister.” Nevertheless, Cahan continued to lobby for support from other ministers. For example, his frustration with his lack of  progress in Justice led him to correspond with General Mewburn, the minister of militia and defence, to gain support for his efforts. When  even this failed, he appealed to the acting prime minister, Sir Thomas White.44 It appears that his special pleading with White failed for he offered his resignation in early January and the Public Safety Branch was abolished by PC 104 of 16 January 1919.45 Thus ended a brief Canadian flirtation with a security solution akin to that of the United States, which had remained Cahan’s model throughout. One is tempted to speculate that if Cahan had possessed only a minute portion of the political / ­ bureaucratic talents of the young J. Edgar Hoover, the outcome might have been quite different.46 The Re-emergence of the RNWMP, 1919 Cahan and his solutions went into eclipse, but the problem of labour unrest and socialist activity that they were intended to address remained. While in its phase of repressive mobilization in September and October 1918, the government had passed two other orders-in-council. The first, which received relatively little attention or protest, slammed the door shut on police unionism in the federal sector before it commenced. PC 2213 of 7 October 1918 forbade any member of the DP or RNWMP from “becoming a member of or in any wise associated with any trade union organization or any society or association connected or affiliated therewith” under threat of immediate dismissal.47 The perceived threat that this action pre-empted was the potential spread of police unionism to the federal sector. Most municipal police forces in major Canadian urban centres were organizing in the summer and fall of 1918, and police strikes broke out in Toronto and Montreal that winter. Not surprisingly the subject of police unionism proved extremely controversial. The Borden government, on this occasion, spoke clearly and decisively.48 The other order-in-council, PC 2525 of 18 September 1918, banned strikes for the duration of the war.49 A wave of public controversy and vigorous protest from the labour leadership combined with rank-andfile refusal to cease strike activities led the Borden government to withdraw the order before actually using its punitive provisions. Cahan

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with his usual enthusiasm volunteered his Public Safety Branch to ­commence prosecution under the new order-in-council, but the department indicated that they would handle the matter without his aid.50 In late October, as we have seen, Rowell began to explore with Commissioner Perry the post-war role of the Force and its relationship to the future of the Dominion Police. Perry drew up three possible scenarios for his minister. First, the Force could be greatly reduced in strength and police the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Second, the Force could simply become part of the permanent military establishment. Third, the RNWMP could be amalgamated and consolidated with all Departmental law enforcement agencies to form a new Canadian Constabulary. After offering the options, Perry commented on each. The first, he felt, would need no more than one hundred men and was simply not worth the trouble. The second, he recognized, had always been the assumed destiny of the Force, but he now wondered if the Force’s experience was not more useful on the civilian side of Canadian life. Therefore, he recommended his third option, and suggested that such a constabulary could police the Territories, Indian reserves, the CNR, and the Dominion Parks; fulfil the functions of the Dominion Police, including the secret service; deal with customs and revenue service matters; enforce all federal laws; and, perhaps, serve as penitentiary guards.51 Another factor in the considerations before the government was the inappropriateness of any peacetime use of the military to continue to enforce the Military Service Act, especially in the pursuit of defaulters and deserters. Arthur Meighen, the acting minister of justice, proposed to Borden and Doherty, both then absent in Europe, that such enforcement must be turned over to the Dominion Police and that for this and “other purposes” it was time to amalgamate the DP and the RNWMP under the president of the Privy Council. Sherwood’s recent resignation as chief commissioner of the DP made such an action timely. Given that Perry, after almost twenty years as commissioner of the RNWMP, was unlikely to agree to any subordinate role, Meighen suggested that he should lead such a new force. Borden and Doherty, however, objected to the merger. Somewhat out of touch, Borden doubted that Perry would accept such an amalgamation because of the Force’s semi-military background and its “proud traditions.” He still assumed, incorrectly as we have seen, that Perry would prefer to become part of the permanent military force. To resolve the problem of enforcement of the MSA Borden suggested giving the RNWMP the role as part of their mandate on a Canada-wide basis. Both



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men also objected strongly to the idea of a permanent police force ­reporting to the president of the Privy Council because any such force should be under the Department of Justice.52 Thus, the reorganization, which came in December 1918 to take effect in the new year, was not as dramatic as it might have been. As a first step, the country was simply split in two at the Lakehead. The RNWMP became the federal police force with responsibility for all federal law enforcement west of the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William. The Dominion Police maintained their position east of the imaginary line. Duties included enforcing all the orders-in-council under the War Measures Act and, more ominously, aiding and assisting the civil powers to preserve law and order. The authorized size of the Force was increased to 1200, although Perry had sought 2000. The first priority for reaching that recruiting objective was to get the A Squadron of the ­Canadian Corps back to Canada and to find the other former members of the Force in the CEF and assign them to A Squadron for the purpose of bringing them home as a high priority.53 The RNWMP now had a greater jurisdiction and more authority than at any time in its history. Commissioner Perry turned to the massive task before him with considerable energy. Faced with a significant manpower shortage, Perry recalled the RNWMP on loan to the DP for MSA enforcement in Quebec.54 He then proceeded to take over the various DP operations in the west, incorporating the DP officers into the Force. The total strength of the DP in the west had amounted to only 154 men, so further recruitment was necessary.55 The question of the secret service dimensions of the task arose immediately. Rowell sought information from McLean as to DP activities in the west in this area and instructed his officials: “It is important that this branch of the Service should receive most careful consideration and that an efficient service should be maintained so that the Government would be kept thoroughly advised of what is going on in the principal centres where IWW or other revolutionary agitators might be at work.”56 The fact that Rowell had to ask about secret service arrangements in the west is instructive, especially when it became clear that the RNWMP did not know the answer either outside Alberta and Saskatchewan where they already had such jurisdiction and where only two secret agents were in place before the expansion.57 They knew vaguely of the operations of immigration agent Malcolm J. Reid in British ­Columbia, but only through further inquiry did they discover that all

122  The Origins of the Long Cold War

other DP activity in this area in Manitoba and British Columbia was handled by co-operation with municipal and provincial police forces.58 Further evidence of the total disarray in government security policy was the letter written in late February by Comptroller McLean to the director of the Public Safety Branch offering the Force’s full co-­ operation in the area of counter-subversion. Apparently, almost two months after Cahan’s demise and the termination of the PSB, the RNWMP remained uninformed.59 Moreover, despite his imminent removal, Cahan continued to lobby in early January against the government’s new direction. The obsequious and ubiquitous Malcolm J. Reid was unhappy about the rise of the RNWMP in the west. Despite direct orders from Cawdron, he refused to turn over his extensive security files to the Mounties. In this resistance, he was fully supported by Cahan, who wrote to Deputy Minister Newcombe, “It seems to me the most extraordinary thing imaginable that the RNWMP should proceed to intervene and take over all this confidential and legal investigation carried on by the Department of Justice without a word to this Department. Such action would seriously interfere with the administration of justice and place officials of the ­RNWMP in charge who lack every qualification for carrying on the work.”60 While this struggle remained unresolved for some months, Perry eventually prevailed despite Reid’s enlisting the support of Unionist MPs J.A. Calder and H.H. Stevens. The Mounties got the files and, in this case, successfully resisted getting the man, who McLean tersely described as “not a satisfactory official.”61 Further evidence of the rough transfer of authority was apparent in the relationship between the RNWMP and the various other police forces in their half of the country. Whereas the DP had heavily used municipal and provincial police, Perry from the start carefully protected his mandate. In a most telling letter, he refused more co-operation offered by the Edmonton Police Commission: With regard to men operating in Alberta and your request that the Officer Commanding the Alberta Provincial Police in that section may be advised, I assume you refer to secret agents. Secret agents are operating in every part of Alberta and especially in the cities and industrial areas. Their identity is often not known to our Officer Commanding Districts and seldom are these agents known to each other. I do not think that there can be any danger of overlapping in their work as the information obtained by a special agent is generally fragmentary and cannot always be relied on. The more sources of information we have, the more likely we are to arrive at the truth.



The Surveillance State  123

Perhaps even more surprisingly, Perry also established a further principle that would govern later RCMP security work as well: “An incident recently occurred in the Crows Nest Pass where a constable of the Alberta Provincial Police quite properly, no doubt, arrested one of  our Agents. This may occur at any time. I have instructed our Agents not to disclose their identity, but to accept whatever may happen. You will recognize the necessity of this. An arrest and punishment may often strengthen his position and secure the confidence of the element he is investigating.”62 The question of the justification of the use of agents provocateurs that immediately arises from this quotation was not addressed in any of the security materials that I have seen to date. The recruitment of secret agents in a serious fashion began early in January 1919. Perry circularized all his officers commanding (OC) with two key memos. The first discussed the Bolshevik threat in general, and the second issued more specific guidelines to detectives and secret agents. Proceeding from the premise that “the pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism” were spreading rapidly throughout the world and in Canada, he drew his officers’ attention particularly to Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver and to the foreign settlements scattered through the Prairies, which he noted were especially “susceptible to Bolshevik teaching and propaganda.” Officers commanding were “to take steps to see that careful and constant supervision is maintained over these foreign settlements with a view to detecting the least indication of Bolshevik tendencies and doctrines.” Socialists all over the west, he continued, regarded the Bolsheviks “as champions of workers everywhere” and that “serious unrest” was an obvious possibility. Therefore, “our duty is to prevent the efforts of misguided persons to subvert and undermine the settled Government of Canada.” OCs were to keep informed and “energetically deal with all unlawful and pernicious propaganda.” To do so they should “take steps to select some good, trustworthy men ... as secret agents and submit their names, records, and qualifications for my approval.” He also urged them to survey all radical pamphlets and publications and, if appropriate, to prosecute under Section 174 of the Criminal Code. Similarly, they were to record all questionable public speeches if they expected any seditious or treasonable content and particularly to watch street meetings. All this, of course, was to be done in such a way as “not to arouse suspicion or cause antagonism.” In conclusion, he reiterated, “The Government relies upon the RNWMP to keep it early advised of any development toward social unrest. It is extremely important that

124  The Origins of the Long Cold War

such unrest should not be permitted to develop into a menace to good order and public safety.”63 A second memo of the same date outlines the job expected of the under-cover detectives and secret agents. They were to become “fully acquainted with all labour and other organizations in their respective districts.” Each organization “should be carefully investigated with a view to determining” its purpose and object, its proclivity to Bolshevik influence, any current Bolshevik tendencies, or its Bolshevik nature. Not surprisingly, organizations in the last three categories “must receive careful and constant attention.” Particular attention was to be addressed to “the officials and leaders of these organizations,” who “must be carefully investigated and studied regarding their ways, habits, and antecedents.” All such information was to be scrupulously recorded, and the subsequent files would provide “a complete history of these men and their doings to date.” Lest anyone had missed his point, Perry reiterated that “particular attention must be paid to the different labour unions in their district” because “this class of organization is particularly susceptible to Bolshevik teaching.” He concluded by cautioning that great care needed to be taken to ensure the reliability of such sources.64 Thus from January 1919 the security apparatus of the RNWMP targeted labour as its primary focus. Let us turn now to an examination of the devices developed by the RNWMP to carry out its surveillance and counter-subversion functions. As the Perry memo cited above suggests, the commissioner attached considerable importance to the development of Personal History Files (PHF). The register of these files consists of a file number, an individual’s name and place of residence, and an occasional additional comment. The files themselves are filled with all information gathered by the Force by any means concerning the individual. To date only a few of these files have found their way into the Archives (Emma Goldman, Camillien Houde), but others can now be acquired from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service through the Access to Information legislation. The first register can be found in the NAC, and subsequent partial lists have been acquired by access requests to CSIS.65 Assistant Commissioner W.H. Routledge, the first head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, followed up on Perry’s initial memo to set up the new system in late February 1919. Routledge wrote the officers commanding instructing them personally to supervise the preparation of these files. Such files were to include the following information: “Names and usual descriptive particulars. A photograph if it is at all possible to



The Surveillance State  125

obtain one without arousing suspicion. Date of arrival in Canada; if naturalized or not; married or single; family; home address; present occupation; particular associations affiliated with and standing in same; present locality of activities; points where he is known to have been in any way active; details of any police records which he may have had; degree of intelligence and education and all other possible information which would assist in compiling a complete record of the man.”66 Initially, these files were to be opened only upon the request of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) office, but two weeks later the instructions were modified to demand that the local OC should compile a PHF on “any prominent agitator coming under your notice ... but great care must be taken not to arouse the suspicions of the party being thus reported on.”67 The register available in the Archives covers the period from its conception in 1919 to the end of 1924. In those six years 2590 files were opened. These files concerned 2525 individuals once duplicates were removed. A subsequent access request to CSIS for the subsequent registers to the end of 1929 succeeded in gaining a massively exempted list, which indicated that in the following five years another 2216 individual files were opened. In other words, on average 437 Canadians had files opened on them annually from 1919 to 1929.68 The lists lend themselves to relatively limited statistical analysis, but Table 4.1 shows the geographic break-down for the first 2590 files. (The CSIS list had no geographical information for the fifty-four individuals whose names had not been deleted or could be identified by cross-­ referencing with subject files.) As may be seen, British Columbia and ­Alberta are significantly over-represented, Saskatchewan and M ­ anitoba somewhat, and the rest of the country is badly under-represented. To some degree at least this is partially a statistical artefact of the initial western-only jurisdiction of the RNWMP. For example, the first Toronto file is number 1225 and the first Montreal file is number 1254, which suggests that almost half of the total files were generated before 1 ­February 1920 when the new Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) took over national jurisdiction. Other scattered information which can be gleaned from the list is the presence of sixty-eight women, one of whom, Alii Koivisto, is quaintly described as “an agitatress.” In addition, the list includes twenty-three clergy members (Ivens, Irvine, Smith, Woodsworth, and Bland are the most prominent), fourteen doctors, six members of the military, and five elected officials (John Queen of Winnipeg and Mayor Joseph Clarke of Edmonton, for example). The unfortunately rather random marginalia identifies nine IWW and six

126  The Origins of the Long Cold War Table 4.1 “Agitators” by Location, 1919–24 Number on List

2590

Number Names (after adjustments)

2525

Number Places Listed

2287

A. Geographic Breakdown of Provinces No. of agitators

% agitators

% Canadian population, 1921

British Columbia

775

33.9

6.0

Alberta Saskatchewan Ontario Manitoba Quebec Nova Scotia Prince Edward Island Yukon New Brunswick USA Other Foreign Unknown

477 286 276 253 158 15 1 1 0 24 5 16

20.9 12.5 12.1 11.1 6.9 1.0 – – – 1.0 0.2 0.7

6.7 8.6 33.4 6.9 26.9 6.0 1.0 – 4.4

2287

100.3

B. Geographic Breakdown by City > 50 No. of agitators

% agitators

Vancouver

427

34.4

Winnipeg Montreal Edmonton Toronto Calgary Regina Ft. William Saskatoon

194 156 118 80 74 73 65 53

15.7 12.6 10.0 6.5 6.0 5.9 5.2 4.3

1240

100.6

Source: RG18, Vol. 2248, Register of Bolsheviks.



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Table 4.2 Number of Subject Files Opened by Year, 1919–29 Number

% of Total

1919

3429

51.1

1920

299

4.4

1921

689

10.2

1922

789

11.7

1923

435

6.4

1924

344

5.1

1925

268

4.0

1926

178

2.6

1927

89

1.3

1928

126

1.9

1929

81

1.2

Total

6727

99.9

Source: CSIS, Register of Bolshevik Subject Files, Access Requests, 86-A-10, 87-A125,and 88-A-91.

OBU members, as well as an array of less predictable entries such as English harvester, Jewish lecturer, Esperanto teacher, Hindu wrestler, and, perhaps most intriguing, “ex-RCMP.”69 The second data series compiled by the new security section of the Force was a set of subject files on radicalism. The register of these files was obtained from CSIS by means of three access requests.70 The rate at which these files were compiled seems quite uneven. As Table 4.2 illustrates, the Force opened the first 3459 subject files in 1919 or slightly over half of the total for the eleven-year period. In the first four years fully eighty per cent of the total for the entire period were opened. While this is partially dictated simply by the cumulative nature of the development of a filing system, it probably also indicates a combination of a slowing of radical activities late in the decade and a similar decline in RCMP activity. A comprehensive analysis of this data and a careful cross-tabulation of the data in each set are yet to be completed. Nevertheless, it should be readily apparent that the surveillance entered into by the RNWMP from January 1919 was of a different order from what had gone before.71 Another significant change in RNWMP practice in early 1919 also took place because of the new security demands. Each division OC’s

128  The Origins of the Long Cold War

customary monthly report was no longer to contain any allusions to “matters which have been dealt with by secret investigation.” As the old monthly reports were not confidential, “in future, commencing on first February 1919,” each OC should file a “CONFIDENTIAL Report” monthly, “giving a summary of the secret investigation work and opinions of the OCs as to general conditions with regard to labour, industrial disputes, and socialistic and anarchical activities in triplicate.”72 Many of these reports survive in the archives for the years 1919 and 1920, but all attempts to locate this material for the rest of that decade have failed so far.73 A few examples of material culled from these reports will indicate the style of security operations in early 1919. The OC Edmonton, for example, reported in late January 1919 that he was keeping SPC leader Joe Knight under careful watch. He also worried about the problem of recruiting secret agents: “I have been endeavoring during the month to engage some special agents with a view of getting definite information with regard to alien propaganda and socialistic matters. This I have found exceedingly difficult; the right class of man is very hard to get. I have engaged temporarily a returned soldier, W.P. Walker, who has been highly recommended and I think he will make good.”74 A report from Vancouver two months later showed the progress that the OCs were making in recruiting agents: As cases have cropped up for investigation agents have been engaged; it is a difficult matter, however, to ensure efficient work in a new district like this, when one does not know the people on whom it is necessary to rely on for information and investigation and too the number must be kept in bounds. Up to date Messrs. Devitt, Spain, Eccles, Jones, Roth, Hall, Davies, Wilkie, and Lawrence have been engaged, all of whom are either ex-­ members of the Force or are returned soldiers or both. Special Agent Eccles was sent up to work through the camps in the Grand Trunk Pacific as per your instructions and I hope shortly to be able to supply you with some good information.75

Horrigan, the OC Vancouver, also contributed an eloquent, albeit somewhat purple, account of the Vancouver General Sympathetic Strike: Nevertheless, there was, as it were, a dangerous volcano constantly threatening; or I might say, it was as if it only required a spark to start a conflagration. The atmosphere, so to speak, was charged, ominous, and extremely



The Surveillance State  129 dispiriting. One felt trouble in the air. Everywhere the strikers lined the streets, their glances bespeaking a sinister intent – depraved, vicious-­ looking men – the very dregs and refuse of the strikers, seeming to track our every move and action. Certainly, there were fanatics, who, in spite of the official mandate of the strike committee not to create any disturbance would have lost no opportunity, in an unguarded moment, to wreck our buildings in an attempt to destroy, or at least severely cripple, the police; men who, having no aptitude or propensity but for depredation and bloodshed, would have hailed with delight an opportunity of unrestricted license.76

Clearly, even the reassurance of secret agents’ reports did not eliminate the fear engendered by the class struggle. This is not the place to enter into a re-evaluation of the RNWMP role in the Winnipeg General Strike, but I think it is worth noting that S.W. Horrall’s congratulatory tone about the quality of RNWMP intelligence is partial at best.77 For example, the Force made available to Acting Prime Minister Sir Thomas White the report of Secret Agent No. 10 on the Calgary Convention. This agent was identified by Perry as having “for many years taken an active part in the IWW and kindred associations, and is therefore peculiarly competent to discuss the leaders in such movements and their aims and objectives.” This agent is almost certainly Robert Gosden, who enjoys the unique privilege of turning up both as a RNWMP secret agent and as the subject of a ­RNWMP Personal History File. Gosden is an interesting contrast to the heroic stories of F.W. Zaneth and John Leopold, the RNWMP undercover agents who fill the hagiographical accounts of the Force’s brave battle with communism. Gosden was born in England in 1881 and immigrated to Canada after fighting in the Boer War. He was apparently present in some capacity in the great pre-war coal strike in Nova Scotia and was heavily involved in a 1911 Prince Rupert IWW navvies’ strike in which he was charged with attempted murder and served time. Later he was active in IWW free speech fights in California and was deported to ­Canada. In 1916 he became involved in a massive political scandal in which he was accused of aiding in electoral fraud, a charge he later admitted to. Hired by the RNWMP as an agent in 1919, he worked in the Crows Nest Pass and attended the Calgary Convention as a police agent.78 Gosden’s report on Calgary went to the prime minister, admittedly with a few cautionary covering notes. After an astute consideration of the aims of the SPC leadership, Gosden outlined an intriguing proposal

130  The Origins of the Long Cold War

for a type of psychological warfare against those individuals. Based on his notion that their “one weakness consists of the fact that they lack the physical courage of their convictions and they possess the fear of the consequence of their acts,” he suggested some subtle police terrorism: “Immediately pick them up one at a time, in such a way that they will automatically disappear from their friends and their activities. They should be picked up secretly and should be safely placed in custody secretly. After one or two of these leaders had been picked up at various points in a mysterious manner, and disappeared just as mysteriously, the unseen hand would so intimidate the weaker and lesser lights that the agitation would automatically die down; where they were kept in custody no record should be kept on the books.” He was unsure what should be done with them afterwards, except that they should definitely not be granted a public trial. “This may not be in strict accordance with technical law, but this organization of men is taking advantage of the technical weaknesses of law to organize right under the nose of the authorities, the most drastic form of social revolution that one can conceive of,” he added. He spelled out his scheme in even more detail, expounding at length on its psychological advantages. Moreover, he attempted to answer the obvious legalistic objections by emphasizing the fragility of the government’s control: “The present condition of things, in a social sense, is so ripe for change that given a free hand for three months, and the government of the day will go down to utter defeat and the utter annihilation of its personnel. There is no half-way measures can be taken ... this is the only way ... All precedents and policies of the authorities must be swept aside to meet this newer and more subtle form of revolutionary activity.” Gosden also suggested a series of ameliorative reforms to accompany his plan of repression.79 No doubt other historians reading this report have dismissed Gosden’s advice as the rantings of a madman. And perhaps he was, but the significance of the report is that it was deemed important enough to be sent to the acting prime minister. Also intriguing is the fact that the Department of Justice was asked in March 1919 to prepare a legal opinion on the holding of trials in private.80 Equally interesting and again unquestioned in any documents I have seen was the very early decision “to endeavour to have one or two of our agents become members (and, if possible, secure executive positions) of these various organizations.” Indeed, in his summary



The Surveillance State  131

r­ eport in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike, Perry proudly announced that “at the present time, we have operatives who are members of practically every known organization in the west, which has been in any way connected with or influenced by the present wave of Bolshevik and socialistic propaganda.” In this summary Perry indicates that as of  June he had thirty detectives and thirty-five secret agents at work in the west. The largest concentrations of these were in Southern Alberta (six and nine), British Columbia (five and ten), and Manitoba (five and seven).81 The Dominion Police: The Beginning of the End, 1919 The documentation on the activities of the RNWMP until the spring of 1919 is extensive and has been reviewed at least in part elsewhere. It is important to remember that security responsibilities for Canada east of the Lakehead remained with the Dominion Police. Their activities have received far less attention. Indeed, the emphasis in the literature on western radicalism in 1919 is at least partially an artefact of the more readily available documentation on the RNWMP. Cahan, shortly before his departure, demonstrated that he had some similar organizational ideas to Perry by compiling “A List of the Chief Agitators in Canada.” His list of approximately 337 names focused primarily on the IWW and individuals prosecuted for transgressing the various anti-socialist orders-in-council.82 (For a sample, see Appendix  2.) Thus, this list, unlike that of the RNWMP, was heavily dominated by Ontario radicals. Similarly, a list of those prosecuted under the 1918 anti-radical orders-in-council shows a wide range of sentencing patterns (Table 4.3) and a significant Ontario presence (Table 4.4a and 4.4b).83 Such convictions, however, also illustrate a difference in philosophical approach between the DP and the RNWMP. The former sought to prosecute and to convict; the latter played a more calculated waiting game. One early articulation of this strategy came in McLean’s explanation to Rowell of why a prosecution was not being pursued: “The policy carried out by the Commissioner is not to prosecute isolated cases wherefrom little benefit is derived, but to gather all possible data which will prove of the utmost value in the event of a general outbreak in any particular district.”84 In a later variant of this argument, Perry himself explained that the policy of “no isolated prosecutions” “eliminated the danger of uncovering our agents ... and our channels of information were kept open at

132  The Origins of the Long Cold War Table 4.3 Sentences for “Bolshevik Propaganda” or Membership in Prohibited Organization Fines

144

under $10

20

$11–50

29

$51–100

29

$101–500

56

over $500

10

Jail Interned under 1 year

35 15 8

1–2 years

10

3–5 years

2

Jail and fine

10

$500 + 1 month

1

$500 + 6 months

2

$500 + 2 years

2

$500 + 3 years

1

$1000 + 3 months

1

$1000 + 3 years

2

$4000 + 5 years Suspended sentence Dismissed Total

1 20 5 214

Source: NAC, RG 18, Vol. 2380, Routledge to OCs, CIB No. 104, 16 August 1919.

a very critical time.” Moreover, he argued, “the movement must be viewed from a national standpoint, and that when action was taken it should be carried out simultaneously throughout the country.”85 The decision to make the RNWMP the dominant partner in the new federal police force created by the merger of the Force and the DP remains to be explored elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Cahan’s failure did nothing to improve the position of the DP. Perhaps more surprisingly,  much of Cahan’s organizational structure for a revamped DP was



The Surveillance State  133

Table 4.4 Geographic Distribution of Violations of War Orders-in-Council By Province Number

Per Cent

Quebec

3

1.0

Ontario

154

73.0

Manitoba

1

0.5

Saskatchewan

23

11.0

Alberta

13

6.0

British Columbia

15

7.0

Unknown Total

1

0.5

210*

99.0

* Varies from Table 4.3 owing to multiple convictions versus some individuals. By City Number

Number

Toronto, Ont.

27

Cobalt, Ont.

8

Windsor, Ont.

21

Kamsack, Sask.

7

Timmins, Ont.

20

Medicine Hat, Alta.

7

Vancouver, BC

15

Regina, Sask.

7

Sudbury, Ont.

15

Tisdale, Sask.

6

London, Ont.

13

Brantford, Ont.

5

Sault Ste Marie, Ont.

11

Copper Cliff, Ont.

5

Hamilton, Ont.

11

Source: NAC, RG 18, Vol. 2380, Routledge to OCs, CIB No. 104, 16 August 1919.

­ resent in the new RCMP that took over nationwide security responsip bilities on 1 February 1920. The structure of the security component of the CIB changed only in the sense that it now covered the entire country. In effect very little would change in the next decade. Canada’s security and intelligence system had been put in place, and only the fine tuning of the internal relationship with Military Intelligence and of the external relationship with British and American security agencies remained to be worked out with the Force’s removal to its new national headquarters in Ottawa.86

134  The Origins of the Long Cold War

Appendix 1 RNWMP / RCMP Secret Agents, 1919–20   1. F.E. Riethodorf, SA #50 a.k.a. Frederick Edwards (RG18, v.573 + v.1916, f.49 / 5)   2. Roth, SA #6 (RG18, v.589, f.892)   3. Dourasoff, SA #14   4. John Jones, SA #58, Vancouver (V.592, f.1073)   5. A.B. Smith, SA #61, Victoria   6. F.H. Colam (v.599, f.1335)   7. F.W. Zaneth (v.829)   8. George C. Evans   9. R.M. Gosden 10. Devitt, Vancouver 11. W.P. Walker, Edmonton (v.1931) 12. Eccles, Vancouver 13. Spain, Vancouver 14. Orton Hall, Vancouver 15. Davies, Vancouver 16. Wilkie, Vancouver 17. Lawrence, Vancouver 18. Kobus (v.1932) 19. Kyzlick 20. Harry Daskaluk, SA #21 21. Gore Kaburagi (v.1933) or Goro Karbarugi (v.2175) 22. John Leopold (v. 1958, f. 159 / 7) 23. T.E. Ryan 24. John Veloskie (v.2175) 25. Julius Chmichlewski



The Surveillance State  135

Appendix 2 Chief Agitators in Canada “a” Aho, Arthur Address unknown. Alleged I.W.W. worker in B.C. Ainger, Frank Address unknown, Alleged I.W.W. worker in B.C. Aldridge, F. Box 531, Prince Rupert, B.C. Secy. ­Longshoremen’s Union. Subscriber to “­Solidarity.” Anderson, Nels Address unknown, Alleged I.W.W. worker in B.C. Alpatoff, B. 143 Powell St., Vancouver, B.C. Arrested on October 19th, 1918, charged with attending illegal meeting and with having objectionable matter in his possession. Pleaded guilty to charge of attending meeting and fined $10.00 on Dec. 23, 1918. Other charge withdrawn. Ahlqvist, John Toronto, Ont. Charged in October 1918 with having objectionable literature in his possession. Arrested at Sudbury, Ont. Ajola, John Sudbury, Ont. Charged in October 1918 with having ­objectionable literature in his possession. Source: RG 13, vol.231, file 132 / 1919.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities ­Research Council of Canada. I would like to thank Drs Linda Kealey, Stuart Pierson, and Reg Whitaker for their helpful comments. A version of this paper was presented at the Law and Society Conference at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, in May 1990.

136  The Origins of the Long Cold War NOTES 1 The literature on these episodes is growing, but the best accounts remain John Sawatsky, Men in the Shadows: The RCMP Security Service (Toronto, 1980) and his For Services Rendered: Leslie James Bennett and the RCMP Security Service (Toronto, 1982), Jeff Sallot, Nobody Said No: The Real Story About How the Mounties Always Get their Man (Toronto, 1979), and Robert Dion, Crimes of the Secret Police (Montreal, 1982). On Watkins, see William Kaplan and Dean Beeby, eds., Moscow Dispatches (Toronto, 1988). 2 One examination of the history of the RCMP and the National Archives is my “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (1988): 199–226 [Chapter 9 in this book]. Further information is provided in Labour / Le Travail 24 (1989): 6–9. 3 Two works that deserve special mention for their attention to such questions are Donald Avery, “Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada, 1896–1932 (Toronto, 1979) and A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899–1919 (Toronto, 1977). As their subtitles suggest, their major focus is not state repression. Nevertheless, both authors opened up these questions, and McCormack actually received some unmerited attention from the RCMP SS as a result. For a brief version of this story see the transcript of my “National Security vs. the Public’s Right to Know,” CBC Ideas, 18 February 1989. 4 On the Fenian experience see Jeff Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger: Canada West’s Secret Police, 1864–1867,” Ontario History 79 (1987): 353–81, and Wayne Crockett, “The Uses and Abuses of the Secret Service Fund: The Political Dimensions of Police Work in Canada, 1864–1877,” MA thesis, Queen’s University, 1982. On Indian Nationalists in Canada, see Hugh Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists in North America, 1908–1918,” British Columbia Studies 78 (1988): 3–27, and his The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar (New Delhi, 1979). Also see Richard Popplewell, “The Surveillance of Indian ‘Seditionists’ in North America, 1905–1915,” in Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes, eds., Intelligence and International Relations, 1900–1945 (Exeter, 1987), 49–76. 5 Part of this story is told in Martin Kitchen, “The German Invasion of Canada in the First World War,” International History Review 7 (1985): 245−60. 6 The efforts of colonels C.F. Hamilton and E.C. Chambers, the deputy chief censor and chief press censor respectively, are peripheral to this article but



The Surveillance State  137

will be covered in subsequent work. The former was primarily responsible for cables; the latter for newspapers and other publications. In addition the deputy postmaster-general was responsible for mail censorship. Thus three departments – militia, secretary of state, and post office – shared censorship responsibilities. 7 The events culminating in the Amherst, Toronto, and Winnipeg general strikes and the subsequent wave of sympathy strikes have been frequently described and need not detain us here. For example, see my “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44. 8 S.W. Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” Canadian Historical Review 61 (1980): 169–90. 9 These documents were part of the material removed from the National Archives in 1971. Most, but not all, of these documents were returned in 1982 and now form part of RG18 again. For details see Kealey, “A Curious Tale.” 10 National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), Sir George Foster Papers, MG 27IID9, Vol. 76, file 122, E. R. Carrington, Vice-President, Thiel Detective Service Company, Montreal to Blount, 12 August 1916. 11 NAC, RCMP Records, RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file G-26–22, Comptroller to Commissioner, 25 July 1914 and Memorandum re Secret Agents by G.T. Hamm, 14 February 1949. 12 Ibid., Vol.490, file 433–15; Vol. 524, file 38–17. For more on the RNWMP interest in Joseph Clarke, see NAC, Department of Justice Records, RG 13, Vol. 216, file 1962 / 1917, Deputy Minister of Justice to Chief Commissioner Dominion Police, 21 November 1917. 13 NAC, Borden Papers, MG26H, Vol.216, file RLB 1281, Perry to Borden, 11 October 1916. 14 Ibid., Vol.218, file RLB 1374, Perry to Borden, 11 June 1917. 15 Ibid., Gwatkin[?] Memo, 19 June 1917; Perry to Borden, 23 June 1917; Borden to Perry, 3 July 1917; Borden to Kemp, 21 January 1918; and Kemp to Borden, 26 February 1918. 16 Vernon A.M. Kemp, Scarlet and Stetson: The RNWMP on the Prairies (Toronto, 1964), 7–8. 17 RG 18, Vol. 1930, Comptroller A.A. McLean, Memorandum on an increase of the Force from 1,000 to 2,000 men, 10 December 1918. On the Siberian Draft, see also Vol. 1929. 18 Borden Papers, Vol. 104, file Oc519, Robertson to Rowell, et al., 20 F ­ ebruary 1918. 19 Ibid., Flavelle to Borden, 22 February 1918. 20 Ibid., Cawdron to Minister of Justice, 5 March 1918.

138  The Origins of the Long Cold War 2 1 Ibid., 19 March 1918. 22 Ibid., Cawdron to Minister of Justice, 21 March 1918; Temiskaming Mine Managers to Hon. Frank Cochrane, 22 March 1918; R. Allen, Special Agent, Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines, Timmins, to Sherwood, 8 April 1918; Davis, Military Intelligence to Mewburn, 17 April 1918; Sherwood to Acland, Department of Labour, 9 May 1918. 23 Charles Hazlitt Cahan (1861–1944), b. Yarmouth, NS, 31 October 1861. Educated Dalhousie University (BA 1886; LLB 1890) and called to NS Bar 1893 (KC 1907). Practised law in Halifax, Mexico, and Montreal. Represented Shelbourne 1890–94 in the NS Legislative Assembly; leader of Conservative opposition. In 1925 elected to represent a Toronto riding in the House of Commons and in 1927 unsuccessfully contested Conservative Party leadership at the Winnipeg convention. Secretary of state in Bennett government, 1930–35. Defeated 1940 General Election. He held LLDs from Dalhousie and the University of Montreal. See W.S. Wallace, MacMillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1963); Canadian Parliamentary Companion; Canadian Who’s Who, 1936–37. As for Cahan’s British Secret Service ties, I have been unable to locate much evidence. He refers to “some three years I have been in touch with the British Secret Service in the United States” in his letter of 20 July 1918 to Minister of Justice Doherty, Borden Papers, Vol. 104, file OC19. In addition, he appears to have had some connection with the investigation of the January 1917 explosion at the Kingsland, NJ, plant of Canadian Car and Foundry. See Jules Witcover, Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany’s Secret War in America, 1914–1917 (Chapel Hill, 1989), 184–96. 24 Borden Papers, Cahan to Borden, 11 May 1918; Borden to Cahan, 19 May 1918. On the American Protective League, see Julian F. Jaffe, Crusade Against Radicalism: New York During the Red Scare, 1914–1924 (Port Washington, NY, 1972), 49–50; Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Repression in Modern America, 1870 to the Present (Boston, 1978), 109–13. More detailed studies are Joan M. Jensen, The Price of Vigilance (Chicago, 1968) and Emerson Hough, The Web: The Authorized History of the American Protective League (Chicago, 1919). 25 Ibid., Sherwood to Minister of Justice, 16 June 1918. Wallace proved to be a useful ally of Cahan in promoting repressive measures. For example, see his letter to Sherwood of 30 July 1918 in RG 13, Vol. 229, file 2471 / 1918. “Anarchy or Bolshevism or whatever name it may be called is spreading and the agitators are gaining confidence.” 26 Ibid., Cahan to Minister of Justice, 20 July 1918. See also RG 13, Vol.229, file 2471 / 1918, Sherwood to Cahan, 22 July 1918; and Cahan to Doherty,



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24 July 1918. Sherwood, somewhat defensively, commented that “An extension of the establishment may be necessary for I have endeavoured to be as econo­mical as possible and for that reason have utilized free help as much as possible.” 27 Ibid., Cahan to Borden, 27 August 1918 and Borden to Cahan, 29 August 1918. 28 Ibid., Cahan to Minister of Justice, 14 September 1918. 29 A convenient location of the text of these orders-in-council is Frances Swyripa and John Thompson, eds., Loyalties in Conflict: Ukrainians in Canada During the Great War (Edmonton, 1983), 190–6. 30 RG 13, 86–87 / 361, file 166 / 1919, Cahan to Doherty, 26 September 1918. 31 Ibid., Cahan to Doherty, 1 October 1918 and Minister of Justice to Governor General in Council, 2 October 1918. 32 RG 13, Vol.229, file 2472 / 1918, Cahan to Doherty, 7 November 1918. 33 RG 13, Vol. 228, file 2297 / 1918, Sherwood to Minister of Justice, 12 October 1918; and Minister of Justice to Governor General, 4 December 1918. Sherwood was granted a six-month leave of absence in honour of his thirty-seven years as chief commissioner and then allowed to retire. 34 RG 13, Vol. 232, file 397 / 1919. Cawdron received the endorsement of the Chief Constables Association of Canada. He was eventually nominated for the post by Meighen on 1 May 1919, but events outstripped the appointment. He transferred to the new RCMP as a superintendent on 1 February 1920 and retired in 1924. For his complicated pension difficulties, see RG 13, 86–87 / 361, file 1701 / 1924. 35 Margaret Prang, N. W. Rowell (Toronto, 1975), 266–8. 36 Borden Papers, Vol. 104, file Oc519, Rowell to Doherty, 18 October 1918; Cahan to Borden, 21 October 1918; Cahan to Borden, 22 October 1918; and Cahan to Doherty, 22 October 1918. See also Prang, Rowell, 267–8. 37 Ibid., Rowell to Borden, 29 October 1918. Crerar’s position throughout these debates showed his increasing discomfort at the repression of civil liberties. See Crerar Papers, Queen’s University Archives, Kingston, ON, esp. F.J. Dixon to Crerar, 12 October 1918; Crerar to Dixon, 25 October 1918; Dixon to Crerar, 9 November 1918; Crerar to Dixon, 15 November 1918; and Dixon to Crerar, 3 December 1918. 38 Ibid. Vol. 245, file RLB 2848, Borden to Crerar, 4 November 1918 and Crerar, Memorandum, November 1918. 39 RG 13, Vol. 223, file 1026 / 1918, extract from letter of Chief Constable, 30 October 1918. 40 Ibid., Vol. 227, file 2021 / 1919, Grassett to Sherwood, 20 October 1918. 41 Ibid., 86–87 / 361, file 166 / 1919, Cahan to Doherty, 29 October 1918.

140  The Origins of the Long Cold War 42 For additional information on the assassination and suicide, see BP, Vol. 243, pt.2, file RLB 2732, Cahan to Doherty, 16 October 1918 and Borden to Cahan, 22 October 1918. Cahan also proposed to offer a reward for further information in this case but Meighen as acting minister of justice rejected the idea. See RG 13, Vol. 231, file 139 / 1919, Deputy Minister of Justice to Cahan, 16 January 1919. 43 RG 13, 86–87 / 361, file 166 / 1919, Cahan to Doherty, 29 October 1918. 44 Ibid., Cahan to White, 15 November 1918; Doherty to Newcombe, 15 ­November 1918; Doherty to Cahan, 15 November 1918; and Cahan to Meighen, 18 November 1918. 45 Ibid., Deputy Minister of Justice to Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, January 1919; and PC 104, 16 January 1919. 46 On the career of the young Hoover, see Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1987), esp. chs. 3–6; and Athan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1988), esp. chs. 2–4. 47 RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file G-270–2, PC 2213, 7 October 1918. See also RG 13, Vol. 227, file 1950 / 1918, Sherwood to Deputy Minister of Justice, 21 August 1918. It was Sherwood not Perry who took the initiative on this question. 48 The best study of this phenomenon in the Canadian context is Greg Marquis, “Police Unionism in Early Twentieth-Century Toronto,” Ontario History 81 (1989): 109–28. For a more general, albeit brief, discussion, see my “The Labour Movement, the Peace Question, and State Repression, 1917–1920,” Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung / ITH- Tagungsberichte 24 (1987): 221−40. 49 RG 13, Vol. 228, file 2229 / 1918. 50 RG 13, Vol.227, file 2017 / 1918, Cahan to Deputy Minister of Justice, 16 October 1918; and DMJ to Cahan, 18 October 1918. 51 RG 18, Vol. 1927, file 150, McLean to Perry, 28 October 1918 and Perry to McLean, 30 October 1918. 52 Borden Papers, Vol. 246, file RLB 2854, Meighen to Borden and Doherty, 3 December 1918; and Borden to Meighen, 11 December 1918. 53 Ibid., Vol. 1930, PC 3076,12 December 1918 and Memorandum of A. A. McLean, 10 December 1918. 54 RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file G-2–6, McLean to Sherwood, 16 December 1918. 55 Ibid., Cawdron to McLean, 3 January 1919; Spalding, OC Calgary to Perry, 11 January 1919; Cawdron to Reid, 11 January 1919; Cawdron to McLean, 13 January 1919; Perry to McLean, 14 January 1919. 56 Ibid., Rowell to McLean, 11 January 1919. 57 RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file 2–6-1951, Perry to Comptroller, 14 January 1919; and Comptroller to Commissioner, 22 January 1919.



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58 Ibid., McLean to Rowell, 14 January 1919; Perry to McLean, 14 January 1919; McLean to Perry, 22 January 1919. 59 Ibid., McLean to Cahan, 24 February 1919. 60 Ibid., Vol. 1003, Cahan to Newcombe, 9 January 1919. 61 Ibid., Stevens to Calder, 18 March 1919; Perry to McLean, 10 April 1919; and McLean to Rowell, 15 April 1919. See also Horral, “The RNWMP,” 177; however, the speculation that this case led to Cahan’s resignation is clearly not sustainable. The Reid case arose after Cahan’s fate was decided. See also Vol. 1930, McLean to Rowell, 24 February 1919. 62 Ibid., Vol.2169, file 16 / 3, Perry to Lieut. Col. Primrose, 20 February 1919. 63 Ibid., Vol. 599, file 1328, Perry to OCs, 6 January 1919, Circular Memo. No. 807. See also RG 13, Vol. 231, file 113 / 1919, Perry to DMJ, 14 January 1919, with the enclosure of Memos 807 and 807A. Given the general lack of co-ordination of security matters and the fact that the RNWMP reported to Rowell not Doherty, the forwarding of these memos is of some interest, especially because it only went to Rowell at the same time. For evidence of this see RG 18, Vol. 2441, Register Entry 58 / 1919, date 14 January 1919. Many of these files are now in Library and Archives Canada as part of RG146, CSIS Records, which contain old RCMP Security Service files. They must be accessed via ATI requests. 64 Ibid., Perry to OCs, 6 January 1919, Circular Memo. No.807A. 65 These lists are published in Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929 (St John’s, 1992). 66 RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file 2–6-1951, Vol.2380, Memorandum CIB No. 10, Routledge to Officers Commanding, 28 February 1919. 67 Ibid., Circular Memorandum CIB No. 10A, Routledge to OCs, 14 March 1919. 68 RG 18, Vol. 2448, Register of Bolsheviks, 1919–1924. My access request to CSIS was 87-A-41. The initial CSIS response was very restricted, and after a complaint to the information commissioner a fuller response was supplied. Such examples simultaneously show the utility of complaints and the subsequent investigation process and the ongoing problems with the legislation. The rate in the two periods was almost identical, 432 versus 443, although given that the opening of files should be heavier initially this suggests some intensification over the period. 69 A complete list of these files is published in Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins, 1919–1929. 70 CSIS, 86-A-10 (1920); 87-A-125 (1921–9); 88-A-91 (1919). 71 This list is also published in Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins, 1919–1929. A third important list of files concerns prohibited publications.

142  The Origins of the Long Cold War 7 2 RG 18, Vol. 2380, Circular Memo No. 809, Perry to OCs, 10 February 1919. 73 Various access requests to both CSIS and the RCMP so far have turned up only the non-confidential monthly reports, and even those have had material severed from them at some point in the past. These materials are the subject of a series of ongoing complaints to the information commissioner. I should add that the RCMP Access Section in Ottawa and in St John’s went out of their way to make the material still held by the Force readily available to me. 74 RG 18, Vol. 1931, OC Edmonton to Perry, 31 January 1919. For additional examples, see the appendices to Kealey, “A Curious Tale.” For a list of RNWMP secret agents identified to date from these documents, see Appendix 1. 75 Ibid., Horrigan to Perry, 13 March 1919. 76 Ibid., Horrigan to Perry, 13 March 1919. 77 Horrall, “RNWMP and Labour Unrest,” 184–8. 78 For much of the detail on Gosden’s pre–secret agent career I am grateful to Mark Leier. See Leier’s excellent biography, Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy, rev. ed. (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017). 79 Borden Papers, Vol. 104, File Oc519(A)l, McLean to White, 12 April 1919 with enclosures: Perry to McLean, 2 April 1919; Notes for Commissioner’s Perusal of SA No. 10 Report on the Calgary Convention; and Report of SA No. 10, 19 March 1919. See also Crerar Papers, “Re: Interprovincial Labor Convention, Calgary,” 19 March 1919; Perry to McLean, 2 April 1919 and “Notes for Commissioner’s Perusal.” 80 Department of Justice, Access Request A-8800018, File 641 / 1919. 81 Borden Papers, Vol. 96, Pt. 1, file Oc485, McLean to Yates, 7 August 1919 enclosing Perry to McLean, 30 June 1919. 82 RG 13, Vol. 231, file 132 / 1919, Cahan to Doherty, 17 January 1919. This list is available in Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins, 1919–1929. 83 RG 18, Vol.2380, Routledge to OCs, CIB No. 104, 16 August 1919. 84 RG 18, Vol. 847, Comptroller to Rowell, 25 February 1919. 85 Borden Papers, Vol. 96, Pt. 1, File Oc485, Perry to McLean, 30 June 1919. 86 The entire question of the relationship of military intelligence to the police has been left for another paper. Suffice it to say that the role of the military in this realm went far beyond anything I have seen in the literature to date and that it continued well after the end of the war. Similarly the question of co-operation with British and American intelligence merits a separate paper.

5 The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the RCMP Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–26

This study is intended to describe the institutional framework of RCMP security and intelligence work at the Force’s inception in February 1920. The context of the First World War and the Canadian labour revolt of 1917–20 are assumed.1 Beginning with an institutional reconstruction of the internal workings of the new security apparatus, I then turn to the Force’s relations with other security agencies and with other government departments. Throughout this institutional reconstruction, readers should keep in mind that the evolution of the RCMP as the key ­Canadian institution in the realm of security intelligence was a series of accidents far more than any considered plan on anyone’s part. Indeed, the continuing existence of the Force itself was often in doubt in the years under consideration. In 1917 it appeared that the Force was being phased out and had no post-war future. The post-war labour revolt provided it the chance, as one of its romantic chroniclers termed it, to  rise “phoenix-like” from the ashes.2 Even after the creation of the new RCMP from the merger of the Royal North-West Mounted Police (­RNWMP) and the Dominion Police (DP) in February 1920, its prospects were less than great. A number of provinces showed little enthusiasm for a federal police force with a nationwide presence. Indeed, the federal Liberal Party’s support for the Force was an open question, and in the aftermath of the 1921 election many questions were asked about the Force’s utility. For example, in 1922 during the debate to create a new unified Department of National Defence, the proposed legislation placed the RCMP under DND control. Ironically, only the expression of civil libertarian concerns for maintaining the separation of policing from the military and the necessity of Progressive support for the minority Liberal government ensured the ongoing separate existence of the RCMP as a civilian agency.3

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Responsibility for security and intelligence in the First World War had been shared among an extensive and confusing array of government departments and agencies. The Dominion Police carried overall responsibility inside the country (and, on occasion, in the United States) and simultaneously performed the necessary liaison work with foreign intelligence agencies, especially the British. Sir Percy Sherwood, Canada’s chief commissioner of police, headed the DP until his retirement late in the war, when he was replaced by Albert Cawdron as acting chief commissioner. The DP had only a tiny intelligence section of its own and thus of necessity sought the co-operation of the RNWMP in the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and of other provincial and municipal police forces across the country. In addition, the DP hired investigators from various private detective agencies, often American firms such as Pinkerton and Thiel, both famous for anti-labour activities.4 In  1917 the RNWMP role shifted to border duty in the west after it ceased to police the western provinces. Then, after American entry into the war ended the fears of German infiltration across the border, most members of the Force were allowed to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force. With the RNWMP smaller than it had been in many years (only 303 at its smallest), most people, including Commissioner A.B. Perry, anticipated that it had no post-war future.5 The rapid increase in labour militancy in 1917 and 1918, however, reinvigorated the RNWMP, and in January 1919 it became solely responsible for the enforcement of federal laws from the Lakehead west. In effect the country was cut in two at Fort William and Port Arthur with the DP maintaining its security function in the eastern half and the RNWMP taking it over in the west. This confusing bifurcation of authority was made worse by the fact that the DP reported to the minister of justice, while the RNWMP was responsible to Prime Minister Borden himself until the president of the Privy Council, Newton Rowell, took over after the election of the Union government in 1917. This bureaucratic confusion was compounded by the fact that a number of other departments held important security and intelligence functions during the war and after. These included the secretary of state with responsibility for press censorship, the Department of Justice, both for the DP and for the brief period in 1918 when C.H. Cahan headed the Public Safety Branch, the first attempt at a security and intelligence co-ordinating body, and, of course, the Department of Militia, which had extensive military intelligence operations across the country and responsibilities for internment camps and enforcement of the Military Service Act. This amazing array of agencies was augmented by



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specific individuals in other government departments including the post office, immigration, and customs. C.H. Cahan’s Public Safety Branch represented an unsuccessful effort to create a central security agency to fight the Bolshevik menace. The reasons for his failure have been analysed elsewhere, but it seems clear that if he had managed to hold out until the spring of 1919 the history of Canadian security intelligence might well have been quite different.6 Newton Rowell, one of the most prominent of the English Canadian Liberals in the Union Government, by giving such responsibilities to the RNWMP in the west, instead created a logic that was to lead, one year later, to the creation of the RCMP out of the unequal merger of the RNWMP and the DP. Internal Affairs While the new RCMP did not come into existence until February 1920, its attitudes and procedures in the realm of security and intelligence work were shaped in 1919. The RNWMP had some previous experience in running secret agents in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan from early in the First World War, but it was primarily after their jurisdiction expanded on 1 January 1919 that they began to address the security realm with a new consistency of purpose.7 While Commissioner Aylesworth Bowen Perry demonstrated a keen interest in the security area, he also recognized that the new workload, especially the paper flow, demanded some delegation of authority.8 Thus a new Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) was established at Regina headquarters under the control of Assistant Commissioner W.H. Routledge. Staff Sergeant C. Prime became the chief detective with special responsibility for secret agents.9 Procedures were established to increase internal security with regards to the running of secret agents and their payment and concerning the use of under-cover RNWMP detectives.10 For all intents and purposes the only security and intelligence specialists on the Force became the secret agents and the regular Mounties operating underground. As we shall see, this gave the field agents considerable latitude for creative spying and exaggerated reports. Routledge, for example, warned his officers commanding districts (OCs) as early as September 1919 of “the absolute necessity for periodically checking up Secret Agents, especially foreigners.” He cited as evidence a secret agent who had written a document allegedly connecting the One Big Union with German agents. When discovered, the secret agent explained he had done so in an effort

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“to hold his job.”11 While we have limited information on the initial performances of the first cadre of RNWMP secret agents, we know almost nothing about their subsequent careers.12 The underground Mounties, however, remained experts only as long as they maintained their secret identities in the field. Once used in court as witnesses in the prosecution of radicals or if their cover was otherwise blown, they simply returned to the regular Mounted Police life. Examples include F.W.  Zaneth (a.k.a. Harry Blask and subsequently as James LaPlante) and even John Leopold (a.k.a. Jack Esselwein), who was initially sent to the Northwest Territories for a number of years after his identity was discovered by the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) in 1928.13 (Of course, Leopold was to prove the partial exception to this rule after his testimony in the CPC trials of 1931. In April 1932 he joined the CIB in Ottawa, but only in 1933 after he was investigated for misuse of RCMP funds did he become a full-time analyst of security files and field reports. I think, given the circumstances, it is fair to say he backed into the job.14) With the move to Ottawa in 1920 the director of criminal investigations (DCI), the head of the CIB, was given responsibility for three sections: criminal and secret service, finger-prints, and tickets of leave. In the field the CIB sections of each division and subdivision had total responsibility for the security realm. Each divisional officer commanding had to file a confidential monthly report regarding security and subversive activities in his area. In the field the CIB detectives were given full responsibility in this realm without any specialized expertise in this area; indeed, they had almost no training whatsoever in any of their areas of responsibility. Detectives ran secret agents in the field, but under-cover RCMP officers reported directly to the officer in charge of CIB work in each division or to the divisional OC. Thus CIB detectives had a bizarre mix of activities; one day they would be working on prostitution and drug enforcement, the next on smuggling and counterfeiting, and the next they would be concerned with political radicals and labour unrest. C.W. (Cliff) Harvison’s autobiography, which describes his first years in the Force as a young detective in Montreal in the early 1920s, demonstrates this eclectic combination well. One of only twelve other members of the CIB in Montreal he was sent out under-cover with no prior training.15 The second aspect of the new Ottawa RCMP operation that involved security and intelligence work was the Central Registry, which Betke and Horrall describe as “the key to any successful intelligence agency.”



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The file systems that had been established in early 1919, 175 (subversive organizations), 175P (subversive Personal History Files), and 177 (subversive publications) were transferred en masse to Ottawa where they were continued and put under the control of only one or two members of the Central Registry staff. The first such designated individual was George Hann, but when he was appointed department secretary the job went to Constable John Hart, who later during the Second World War worked with William Stephenson in the United States.16 The other member of the Force with registry responsibilities was Corporal E.F. Inglis, who also handled C.F. Hamilton’s correspondence and reports and was in charge of coding and decoding. In 1927 a final addition was made to the registry operation when Ms M. Babuka joined in the role of translator with particular responsibility for Ukrainian language materials.17 The third and final element of the security operations in the 1920s was the liaison and intelligence officer, a position created in early ­January 1922 and filled by only one person in RCMP history, Charles Frederick Hamilton. This position represented the one significant intelligence specialization. Hamilton, originally a prominent Toronto journalist, had joined the RNWMP in 1914 as assistant comptroller, but with the outbreak of the First World War had become deputy chief press censor. He returned to the Force in 1919 and became secretary of the new RCMP in 1920. Building on his wartime intelligence experience, he took on a security role from the time of his return to the Force. In 1919, for example, he replaced Perry on a trip to Washington to discuss sharing security and intelligence materials. The liaison and intelligence officer’s job description read, “Under the direction of the Commissioner of the RCMP to have charge of the secret and confidential correspondence of the Department, to make confidential reports on such matters to the government, to have control of all negotiations with Scotland Yard and similar institutions with regard to the Secret Service of Canada.” At a minimum salary of three thousand dollars per annum, Hamilton’s pay was second only to the commissioner’s.18 Hamilton’s role included the production of the weekly summaries of security intelligence materials collected by the Force. These bulletins commenced in November 1919 and continued in one form or another through the 1950s. Originally simply entitled “Notes on the Work of the CIB Division,” by 1926 they carried the much catchier title “Weekly Summary: Notes Regarding Revolutionary Organizations and Agitators in Canada.”19 Intended for circulation to the prime minister, members of cabinet, and other senior government officials, these bulletins

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allowed the RCMP to keep their political masters informed and to proselytize at the same time. Hamilton also represented the RCMP on various interdepartmental committees and appears to have been responsible for helping to establish, albeit very slowly, RCMP hegemony in this area. Initially, for example, Military Intelligence maintained a high interest in security work. To cite but one example, the Military Intelligence officer in Military District 4, Montreal, established secret surveillance of the One Big Union, Bolshevik organizations, and various Irish nationalist organizations and continued to report on them at least through 1920.20 While Perry was the official RCMP representative on the Defence Committee of Canada, Hamilton generally attended as well, and when its new Intelligence Sub-Committee was created in January 1922, Hamilton was chosen as its secretary.21 Thus, the structure of the RCMP security apparatus in the 1920s consisted of three parts: the CIB under the DCI in Ottawa with complete control of all field investigations, detectives, and secret agents; the Central Registry in Ottawa with its control of all the material gathered in the field; and the liaison and intelligence officer, who co-ordinated with other departments, the Force’s political masters, and other countries. This decentralized system, which de-emphasized expertise and specialization, had evolved directly from the immediate war and post-war experience of the RCMP and remained static throughout the 1920s; indeed, significant change came only in the 1930s after the arrival in the commissioner’s office of General J.H. MacBrien and the death of Hamilton.22 The relationship between Hamilton and the various DCIs remains a matter for speculation only, but there was considerable potential for conflict given the Force’s broad mandate and its extremely limited resources.23 The fact that the first DCI was former acting chief commissioner of the Dominion Police, now Superintendent A.J. Cawdron, who was extremely unhappy in the new Force, would not have helped. It is also suggestive that after Hamilton’s death his successor, Inspector Arthur Patteson, became not the LIO, or even the director of intelligence as Hamilton had come to be commonly known, but simply the intelligence officer. Moreover, he was placed under the supervisory control of the DCI, unlike Hamilton who had reported directly to the commissioner.24 While the above must remain speculative, far clearer, however, is the massive disequilibrium between the collection of field material and the emphasis put on organization and analysis in Ottawa. Throughout



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the 1920s the RCMP ran a massive collection agency of reports on radicals and on radical organization. The literally thousands of files (6767 subversive subject files, 4806 subversive Personal History Files, and 610  subversive literature files to be precise) accumulated in that decade, which included millions of pages, could not possibly have been absorbed and analysed by the central headquarters staff of only two or three individuals, including Hamilton himself.25 (I hasten to add that I make this claim on the hard experiential basis of trying to come to grips with only a small, extensively severed segment of this material.) This is not to claim that headquarters did not take the incoming material seriously. Each security report submitted by a district officer commanding (DOC) was scrutinized in Ottawa and often resulted in a request for further inquiries. Indeed, as one works through the extraordinary cumulation of materials, one can only be struck by the extent and degree of this meticulous surveillance of labour and the Left. The question remains, however, whether an overview of the Red forest was not totally lost in the underbrush of tens if not hundreds of thousands of reports.26 Similarly, the field found these demands a trial. The Edmonton OC, for example, noted in his confidential monthly reports for April 1921 that “the activities of our CIB Department have been confined almost entirely to attending special meetings of different organizations.” Two months later he noted that “all principal meetings of the different organizations in the city and outlying districts were attended by our Special Agents and reports submitted.”27 The problems described by the OC Edmonton are not surprising when placed in the context of the RCMP’s general financial difficulties in the 1920s. The one constant in RCMP Annual Reports throughout the decade was the continuous complaint of understaffing. In 1926, for example, Commissioner Starnes noted that the Force had fallen from 1,532 members in 1920 to only 876 in 1926, a decline of over forty-two per cent. Meanwhile, the number of cases investigated had almost ­tripled from 10,808 to 28,828. The extraordinary emphasis the RCMP placed on security and intelligence work throughout the 1920s must be placed within this overall framework of fiscal restraint and the reduction of personnel.28 The diminution of the Force was reversed slightly in the late 1920s when the RCMP regained provincial policing duties in Saskatchewan. The efforts of the RCMP in the area of security intelligence represented anything but the Force’s major activity. The bulk of the Force

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was spread across the country in cavalry units “set up across Canada as reserves of strength to be used by the government to control such civil disturbances as might occur.”29 The youthful experience of C.W. (Cliff) Harvison suggests much about the RCMP in the formative years 1919 to 1923. Harvison joined in October 1919 at the age of seventeen, claiming to be eighteen. Training experience was at best limited and focused on one of the RCMP’s major roles in the new post-Winnipeg scheme of things – riot control: Riot training is designed to accustom the horses to noise, shots, quickly moving figures, and obstacles on the ground. It achieves this purpose but only after several sessions of lessening bedlam. Dummies with bells attached were suspended from the ceiling of the riding school so they hung just above ground level. Logs and strips of white cloth were placed at various angles on the tanbark. A squad of men carrying shotguns, tin pans, drums, and umbrellas, took up a position in the centre of the menage ... a mounted troop entered the riding school ... Then just as the troop was getting into some semblance of order, the dummies started swinging, shotguns blasted off, tin cans clanged, and men rushed towards the horses raising and lowering umbrellas and waving white cloths. All hell broke loose as horses, with or without their riders, galloped madly about in a desperate effort to break clear of the uproar, and as thrown riders tried to avoid being run down.30

After this training, Harvison moved east to Ottawa as part of a squad based in the capital ready for assignment anywhere in case of domestic disturbances. There, while the new musical ride training provided some diversion, “the emphasis remained on the handling of riots and unlawful assemblies.”31 Subsequent service experiences for Harvison in the short years he stayed in the RCMP on this first round of duty included guarding deportees in Quebec, a further round in Ottawa of riot duty (“monotonous and to some extent meaningless without a clearly defined future”), CIB work in Montreal, and supervision of individuals on the harvest excursion making their way from Atlantic Canada to the west.32 Harvison left the Force in 1922 to marry, a privilege denied to RCMP recruits until they had served for seven years and even then only with the permission of the commissioner and on the understanding that at least fifty per cent of the Force remained single. When the numbers of married men increased, Starnes subsequently raised the number of years before marriage to twelve.33



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Another contemporaneous RCMP memoir by former assistant commissioner Vernon Kemp suggests another major difficulty faced by the Force in its first few years. The absorption of the Dominion Police, which on paper appeared simple, proved very difficult. Kemp, a newly commissioned inspector, was sent to Ottawa to integrate the DP into the new RCMP. With the exception of the Canadian Identification Bureau, Canada’s finger-print clearing centre, and a small investigation branch with security and police experience, this proved most difficult.34 The problem was accentuated by the attitude of A.J. Cawdron, the former acting chief commissioner, who had expected at the very least to become Perry’s chief assistant. Instead he received the rank of superintendent and was placed in charge of CIB. In response he lobbied politically in opposition to the RCMP and generally made a nuisance of himself. When Starnes succeeded Perry in 1923, he tried to have Cawdron retired, but initially he was only successful in reappointing him as supply officer, a far less sensitive post.35 External Relations If the politics of the merger proved troublesome, there was also the question of interdepartmental and intergovernmental relations to be worked out or established. Relations between the RCMP and other governments are extremely difficult to document because of the various exemptions in the Access to Information legislation. To date, the following seems clear. The RCMP, after its creation in 1920, took over from the DP the direct relationship with British security operations. This relationship involved contact with the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. Material from these sources came via two channels, from the governor general (the old, established, and more formal route with available coding and decoding facilities) but increasingly directly from the appropriate British agency to the RCMP or the military.36 Recent research at the Public Records Office sheds somewhat more light on this relationship as it developed after the First World War. The earlier connections, which had revolved around imperial concerns, especially Ireland and India, were displaced gradually by a focus on international communism, and especially the Comintern.37 On the British side, the Canadian labour revolt in 1919 generated considerable interest, as did the counter-revolutionary possibilities of the Citizens’ Com­ mittees.38 Similarly, the Canadians expressed interest in receiving consistent security and intelligence materials from late 1918 on, and began to

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r­ eceive them in May 1919.39 Regular Canadian reporting to Britain appears to have started in late October 1920, after which weekly Canadian security and intelligence reports were forwarded to Sir Basil Thomson and his successors, with the governor general’s despatches.40 By far the most interesting evidence, however, concerns one errant file that has found its way, no doubt by oversight, into the PRO. In 1922 an extensive discussion took place between RCMP Commissioner Starnes and Sir Basil Thomson’s replacement, Sir Wyndham Childs, concerning the nature and potential threat of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC).41 The contents of the discussion need not detain us here, but they are derived from British intercepts of CPC documents destined to Moscow for the Comintern archives. The materials include detailed budget information and the most secret internal party documents, all ironically labelled, “To be read to group and destroyed.” No doubt, British intelligence services still possess much Canadian material. Accessing it, however, may prove impossible. Indeed, assuming the materials reached Moscow, we may access them there first. The relationship with the United States is more difficult to trace. In September 1919 Comptroller Maclean complained to Rowell, “we are constantly encountering matters upon which consultation with the U.S. Secret Service is advisable, and often the formal channel not only takes time, but presents inconvenience.” The obvious answer was “a direct connection,” and Colonel Hamilton was sent to Washington to make the arrangements.42 The results of Hamilton’s visit remain unknown at this time. Hamilton visited Washington in 1919 to establish co-­operation. In addition, however, A.J. Andrews, the Winnipeg General Strike trials prosecutor, also visited Washington in 1919 to arrange further co-­ operation with the Department of Justice and with state efforts such as New York’s Lusk Commission. Nevertheless, apparently a formal relationship was not fully developed until 1937 after General MacBrien entered into an agreement with the FBI after visiting J. Edgar Hoover in Washington.43 If the evidence at this point is rather thin on intergovernmental ­developments, we have somewhat more to go on in the realm of interdepartmental relations. The RCMP was included in the Defence Committee of Canada (DCC) from its inception in October 1920. This committee represented part of the concerted efforts of generals Gwatkin, Currie, and MacBrien to develop a comprehensive post-war peace defence plan. Such peace planning, especially with the events of 1919 still r­everberating in the Canadian polity, initially demanded that a



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high “priority ... went to internal security because of the fear of communism and extended labour unrest.”44 Hence, the new RCMP enjoyed a place at the table alongside the chief of the general staff, the director of the Naval Service, and the inspector general of the Air Force. The ostensible aim of the DCC was “to co-ordinate efforts in pursuit of a common policy, and, especially, to ensure co-operation ... in the event of war or other emergency.”45 The RCMP role came to the fore in spring 1921 when at the sixth meeting of the DCC Commissioner Perry reported on the “threatened disturbances in British Columbia.” While there is no available detail presented as to the composition of the threat, it seems clear from later minutes and materials that it centred on the unemployed and fears that agitators might exploit the situation. The DCC action was certainly clear. It authorized the formation of a local defence committee to be composed of the GOC MD No. 11, the senior naval officer, the assistant commissioner of the RCMP, and the senior officer Canadian Air Force. The DCC ordered the committee to report on local conditions and to recommend appropriate actions to be taken with the available forces in an emergency. Such resources consisted of one hundred naval personnel with six machine guns, two hundred permanent force with ten machine guns in Victoria, and 162 RCMP with four machine guns. Also available were seven hundred reinforcements from the Prairies and about another four hundred from Winnipeg, although it was noted the latter might well be needed there. In addition the DCC recommended that the Canadian Naval Squadron be retained on the west coast, that all government arms be called in or protected, that the Air Force be prepared to supply aircraft, and finally that all militia units be asked what units would be available “in case of an attempted revolt in British Columbia.”46 While such plans now seem excessive, they suggest the tenor of the times.47 Indeed, the GOC, MD No. 11 responded from Esquimalt that the “situation warrants precautionary measures” and also recommended the retention of the naval squadron. The local defence committee had prepared a “concentrated striking force approximately 500 strong,” which included the RCMP. No reinforcements were needed at present as the “situation was not imminent.” A second telegram indicated that while “not as serious as two years ago,” it “should not be ignored” and “all counter measures should be taken.”48 Simultaneously, the director of flying operations, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Leckie, brought machine guns and ammunition from Victoria to protect the Air Station. He looked to May Day as the “critical date” because “certain elements in

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this city” threatened to hold meetings despite the mayor’s denial of permits.49 Such concerns were not unique to Vancouver. In Toronto General Williams decided to pursue a Citizens’ Committee–style strategy similar to Winnipeg 1919.50 When the DCC met again in mid-May Perry reported that Assistant Commissioner Starnes indicated that “the situation at Vancouver had improved; but that a recurrence of trouble, later on in the year, was not unlikely.”51 In early September Perry warned the DCC, “Recent information from Vancouver indicates the continuance of a disturbed condition of public opinion. Alarming rumours are numerous, one being that an outbreak will take place about October 1st. These do not seem worthy of much credence, the organization of the revolutionists not being sufficiently advanced to make such early action probable. They probably, however, are symptomatic of deep unrest and uneasiness.”52 Not surprisingly then at its first fall meeting, especially in light of Commissioner Perry’s report of serious problems in MDs No. 2, 4, and 11 (Ontario, Quebec, BC), the DCC decided to accept an RCMP recommendation and to create a Local Defence Committee (LDC) in each Military District. These LDCs were to mimic the DCC in composition with each of the three military services and the RCMP on each. At this same meeting Perry warned the military of possible communist attempts to infiltrate the armed forces through the “germ cell method.”53 Following the September meeting LDCs were created in most major MDs. Perry ordered his divisional OCs to arrange meetings with their military counterparts to discuss “the serious state of affairs ... in several parts of the Dominion caused by unemployment, the machinations of revolutionary agitators, and other factors of unrest.” OCs were warned, however, that such discussions were to be “absolutely confidential and personal” to ensure that the “public was not alarmed even by the bare fact of the existence of the Committee.” RCMP OCs were free to share with the LDC information on unrest and the disaffected, but they “must not, however, disclose the source of [their] information or the means by which it was obtained.” The new LDCs were to report on (1) “the dangers to be anticipated or apprehended from the several disturbing factors, such as unrest, the activities of extremist agitators, etc.,” (2) “the force available in the district to deal with any dangerous situation which may develop,” and (3) “the action to be taken if any emergency arises.”54 Responses from RCMP divisional OCs across the country indicate that such LDCs were set up in the fall of 1921. They also provide sketch-



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es of concerns in various districts. Reports from Vancouver, for ­example, indicate some improvement over the fall but also suggest continuous high alert: “The situation, as far as we are concerned, would be to repress any demonstration. In short notice a company of the Princess Pat’s machine gun section and the available flying force could be mobilized ... In the meantime, I am having our own men and horses constantly practiced and kept in shape.”55 Two months later the OC again noted, “in the meantime, the men are being quietly trained for any disturbance that may arise.”56 Similar meetings and planning sessions took place in Alberta with LDCs set up in Edmonton, Calgary, and Lethbridge, and in Manitoba.57 Meanwhile in Atlantic Canada, a LDC was created and immediately began to worry about the coal mining situation.58 Unfortunately, this source peters out in early 1922, and attempts through the Access legislation have failed to turn up subsequent materials. One other major initiative, however, emerged from the DCC in this period. In late September General Gwatkin wrote to C.F. Hamilton suggesting that Canada needed a more centralized intelligence bureau and indicating that the issue should be discussed by the DCC.59 At the tenth meeting of the DCC in December 1921 the idea received support “to avoid duplication of work, and to ensure that intelligence is communicated, quickly and regularly, to Departments interested.” Ironically, it was at the same DCC meeting that all member agencies, including the RCMP, endorsed the plan for a new Department of National Defence, “charged with the administration of the Navy, the Militia, the Air Force and the RCMP” as “conducive to efficiency as well as to economy.”60 The first meeting of the new Sub-Committee on Intelligence took place at RCMP headquarters on 13 January 1922. C.F. Hamilton was appointed secretary of the new body by the other members, C ­ ommander W.H. Eves of the Naval Service, Lieutenant Colonel H.H. Matthews of the Militia Department, and Flight Lieutenant F.C. Higgins of the Air Board. After an exchange of memoranda describing each department’s intelligence efforts, the parties agreed to the following objects: 1. To arrange for complete liaison and interchange of information among the several departments represented upon it; and to eliminate duplication of effort. 2. To consider what details of Intelligence are required as a basis for the work of the Defence Committee, and for the security of Canada, both internal and external.

156  The Origins of the Long Cold War 3. To consider whether these details are now being obtained, and, if not, by whom they should be obtained.61

This proposal received the subsequent support of the DCC at its meeting in early February 1922.62 The memoranda exchanged at the first meeting provide full descriptions of each group’s efforts in the realm of security and intelligence. The two with by far the largest effort were, not surprisingly, the Militia Department and the RCMP.63 The degree of their overlapping mandate as outlined by each in 1922 was considerable. Lieutenant Colonel ­Matthews described the Military Intelligence branch of which he was assistant director as reporting to Colonel J. Sutherland Brown, the director of military operations and intelligence. Beneath Matthews were district intelligence officers in each of the country’s twelve Military Districts. Parallel on the flow chart to the DIOs were special agents (“if any”), who reported directly to the ADMI.64 The organizational flow chart also showed area intelligence officers, who reported to the DIOs. Like most government flow charts, however, the reality was at some variance, as Matthews admitted candidly: “Owing to the lack of funds, DIOs have only been appointed in 5 of those 11 Districts. Two Districts have an officer of the Permanent Force detailed in an acting capacity, and in the remaining 4 Districts the General Staff Officer personally has charge of the work. In large Districts it is intended that the DIO should be assisted by area Intelligence Officers ... but no appointments have been made.” In describing the functions of Military Intelligence the replication of RCMP concerns became most clear: “Thirdly. – The keeping in touch with the political and internal or domestic situation in Canada sufficiently to insure that military aid to the civil power can be promptly furnished if, and where, required. ” Matthews, no doubt anticipating a critical response from the RCMP, immediately added, “The attitude of the Militia Intelligence Branch to the question of the co-ordination of, and prevention of duplication in, the work of the Intelligence Service of the Defence Forces is entirely sympathetic.” Indeed, after defining the appropriate areas of concern for the various military agencies, he added, “The RCMP should be entirely responsible for secret service work generally.”65 The RCMP memorandum simply summarized its sources of infor­ mation. Indicating its British and “to some extent” American foreign sources, Hamilton then outlined their internal structure, which he typified as  “decentralized.” He identified the eleven RCMP districts and



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e­ xplained that each DOC had “a sufficient investigation staff.” Headquarters possessed “a staff which collates, controls, and uses the information obtained.” While “decentralized,” the system was also “flexible,” and agents could be moved around the country as warranted. In addition, he noted proudly the Force could undertake investigations in twenty-seven languages.66 The RCMP submission to this committee appears sparse to say the least. In addition, it should be noted that Perry had warned his OCs that their co-operation in LDCs was not to include any revelation of sources or techniques. At this stage of research it is perhaps too early to stake a great deal on this, but the RCMP appears in the 1920s already to be initiating its protective attitude to sources, especially living ones. The longevity of the DCC Sub-Committee on Intelligence is not known. Minutes are available for the second and third meeting in March and June 1922 respectively. Aside from an interesting Comintern document circulated through the committee by Naval Intelligence, which it had received from its British counterpart, the major issue in those months was the surveillance of two Chinese aviation schools in Victoria and Saskatoon. These pilot training institutes were suspected of involvement with the Chinese National League and, more specifically, of preparing aviators for the nationalist forces of Sun Yat Sen.67 Conclusion In 1922 Commissioner A.B. Perry felt that he had had enough. While some secondary accounts imply that his departure at least partially stemmed from his general unhappiness about the nature of the new RCMP and more specifically about the proposed realignment with the newly created DND, there appears to be little supportive evidence.68 Indeed, it should be remembered that to a large degree Perry was the architect of the new RCMP. His memorandum of August 1919 to Prime Minister Robert Borden became the blueprint for the new Force.69 Moreover, if Perry was not happy with the shift in emphasis implicit in the new DND, there is no available evidence to document this unease. All we know with any certainty is that Perry in the DCC supported the proposal and agreed to lobby his minister on its behalf.70 Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the future of the Force was an open question. Perry’s successor, Cortland Starnes, the Winnipeg bourgeoisie’s hero of the General Strike, had a rough ten-year term as acting commissioner and, after 1923, commissioner. The uncertainties of the parliamentary debate of 1922, when J.S. Woodsworth moved to

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have the Force limited to the north, were followed by a similar unsuccessful effort in 1923 and then by various revelations about the RCMP role in Winnipeg in 1926.71 As we have noted from the accounts of Harvison and Kemp, the remainder of the 1920s were dismal for the RCMP. It was only the election of the Bennett government and Bennett’s subsequent choice in 1931 of General J.H. MacBrien to succeed Starnes as commissioner that began to change the RCMP’s status in the eyes of the government. As Rivett-Carnac put it, “From almost a question mark in when I had first joined – no one had seemed entirely certain as to what its future might be – it had found a new growth in a changed age of mechanization, its status greatly increased in Canadian affairs.”72 The depression decade was to provide the RCMP with considerable support for expansion and modernization under MacBrien’s more astute political leadership.73 In a recent stimulating paper, Wesley Wark has argued that the most appropriate interpretative framework for an analysis of Canadian security intelligence is that of the “national insecurity state.”74 Wark argues that in the Canadian context the “NIS” is characterized by a record of government fears of external threats and internal conspiracies and subversion, a popular mentality that stresses insecurity at home, an insecure security intelligence service, and parsimonious government support for the security service, which in turn heightens fears of subversion. There can be little question that the 1920s display the four characteristics to which Wark draws our attention. First, it was certainly a decade in which the Canadian government deeply feared the Bolshevik external threat and, as we have seen in the DCC minutes, also harboured real fears of revolution at home. The degree to which these fears were shared by the Canadian people, however, remains the subject for further research. Nevertheless, the Canadian business elite certainly shared and, indeed, often augmented the government’s terror, which at least partially confirms Wark’s second feature. Third, the entire RCMP, not just its security apparatus, was on the defensive throughout this decade with its very institutional survival often in question. It would have been impossible for the security work to have escaped this uncertainty and the low morale it bred. Finally, while no financial details are available on specific security costs, the RCMP itself faced severe budget difficulties in the 1920s. The minute size of the headquarters’ security establishment suggests that “parsimony” was a fact of life for the security apparatus from its inception.



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NOTES 1 Gregory S. Kealey, “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44; “The State, the Foreign Language Press, and the Canadian Labour Revolt of 1917–1920,” in Christiane Harzig and Dirk Hoerder, eds., The Press of Labor Migrants in Europe and North America, 1880s–1930s (Bremen, 1985), 311–45; “Introduction,” to Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919– 1929 (St. John’s, 1993); “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–1920,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992): 179–210 [Chapter 4 in this book]; and “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–1920: The Impact of World War I,” Canadian Historical Review 73, no.3 (1992): 281–314 [Chapter 3 in this book]. 2 T. Morris Longstreth, The Silent Force: Scenes from the Life of the Mounted Police in Canada (New York, 1927), 293–309. 3 This summary is drawn from Longstreth, The Silent Force, 313–23; Nora and William Kelly, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police: A Century of History, 1873–1973 (Edmonton, 1973); Vernon A. M. Kemp, Without Fear, Favour or Affection: Thirty-Five Years with the RCMP (Toronto, 1958), 78–84; and Kemp, Scarlet and Stetson: The RNWMP on the Prairies (Toronto, 1964), 7–8. See also Lorne and Caroline Brown, An Unauthorized History of the RCMP (Toronto, 1973). On the creation of DND see James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: From the Great War to the Great Depression (Toronto, 1964), 224–69, and Stephen J. Harris, Canadian Brass: The Making of a Professional Army, 1860–1939 (Toronto, 1988), 141–91. 4 NAC, RG 18, 83–84 / 321, Vol. 1, file 2–6 (1951), Perry to Borden, 7 August 1919. See also RG 18, Vol. 592, file 1099 / 19, Perry to Rowell, 11 and 12 February 1920. 5 General accounts of the First World War and immediate post-war experience include S.W. Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” Canadian Historical Review 61 (June 1980): 169–90; and the pertinent parts of his “Canada’s Security Service: A Brief History,” RCMP Quarterly 50 (Summer 1985): 38–49; and, by far the most important, his and Carl Betke’s Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline, 1864–1966 (Ottawa, RCMP Historical Section, 1978), released by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) in response to Access to Information request 117–90–107. On size see “Annual Report for 1918 RNWMP,” Sessional Paper, No. 28, 1920, 8.

160  The Origins of the Long Cold War 6 Kealey, “The Surveillance State.” 7 For early experience see RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file G-26–22, Comptroller to Commissioner, Aug. 1914. “You are authorized to employ men for special service to gather information with reference to the movements, disposition, etc. of the foreign settlers in the above provinces [Alberta and Saskatchewan], particularly those of German and Austrian extraction.” 8 Perry was born 21 August 1860 in Napanee, ON, of United Empire Loyalist stock on both sides. After graduation from the Royal Military College in 1880, he joined the Royal Engineers. After retiring owing to ill health he joined the RNWMP in 1883 and served in the North-West Rebellion. He was appointed Commissioner on 1 August 1900 and took one year’s leave in April 1922, before retiring in 1923. See Henry Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of Their Time (Toronto, 1912). 9 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 319. 10 RG 18, Vol. 592, file 1073 / 19, Maclean to Perry, 3 December 1919. 11 Routledge to OCS, 18 September 1919 in RG 18, Vol. 2380, CIB Circular Memorandum, No. 123. One subsequent commentator, H. Darling, the assistant superintendent for DCI, wrote to the commissioner in 1934 that the director of CIB “should go carefully into those employed as Secret Agents and the value of their work. This cannot properly be judged from their reports coming into Headquarters. It is found that some Secret Agents have been taken on without very careful examination in regard to them and that their work has been of little or no value after engaged. ” RG 18, 85–86 / 574, Box 9, G-537–1 “Organization of the CIB,” Darling to Com­ missioner, 22 May 1934. 12 All RG 18 (RCMP) records at the NAC are now fully open, even those that disclose the identity of secret agents. This resolution was negotiated recently by the information commissioner of Canada with the NAC and CSIS after many years of battle. My interest in this whole area was initiated by the discovery in the early 1980s that the RCMP documents removed from the PAC in 1971 and returned in 1982 were being subjected to restrictions and later to formal exemptions under the ATIP legislation. One can but express considerable wonder that it took almost a decade to resolve this issue once and for all. For an earlier account of this battle see my “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail 21 (Spring 1988): 199–226 [Chapter 9 in this book]. For the final verdict see Information Commissioner of Canada John Grace to G.S. Kealey, 16 April 1991 and Jay Atherton, access coordinator, NAC, to G.S. Kealey, 21 March 1991, in author’s possession.



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13 For exposure of Zaneth as an under-cover spy in Montreal by David Rees see Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 345, and RCMP Service File, F.W. Zaneth, accessed via ATI request, esp. Zaneth to OC Montreal, 19 October 1920. On Leopold’s assignment to the north, see James Ritchie, OC Edmonton to Inspector Moorhead, Fort Simpson, NWT, 9 June 1928, Leopold Service File. “The whole idea in sending Sgt. Leopold north is to get him out of the way for the time being.” See also Oscar Olson, I Joined the Mounties (New York, 1956), 42–4. 14 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 391, and RCMP Service File, John Leopold, accessed via ATI request; there is, however, far more than meets the eye to the illustrious history of the famous Sergeant Leopold. His service file and medical records indicate the following, which can only be mentioned here in passing: (1) syphilis in the early 1930s; (2) an unaccounted-for gun at his death which led to an RCMP investigation; and, perhaps most importantly, (3) an investigation in November 1931 for misuse of RCMP funds to support exorbitant living in Toronto during the CPC trials at which he was the star witness; and (4) another investigation of his financial misuse of RCMP funds in 1933, which resulted in the conclusions that he had been “drinking excessively” and probably turned over funds to drug dealers and other underworld types unnecessarily. The 1933 investigation recommended that the commissioner admonish him for this behaviour after he repaid the misused funds; that he be relieved of his detective duties “until our confidence is restored in him”; and, most significantly, that he become a CIB “reader” in Ottawa, where his “intimate knowledge of the Red element throughout Canada particularly, is of real value to the Department.” The investigator added, however, “I consider it would not be good policy to take any action which, if coming to the ears of the Communists, would be of great gratification to them and which they would publish far and wide throughout Canada.” Jennings, DCI to Commissioner, 9 December 1933. 15 C.W. Harvison, The Horsemen (Toronto, 1967), 34–64. 16 On Hann, see his personnel file, RG 18, Vol. 5057, Reg. No. 5057. See also obituary, Ottawa Citizen, 23 November 1959. 17 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 387–8; on the files see also Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929, esp. “Introduction.” 18 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 384–7. Hamilton was born in Roslin, Ontario in 1869 and died in 1933. He graduated from Queen’s in 1890 with an MA and the Gold Medal in English and History. He then moved to Toronto and wrote for the World, Star, Globe, and News. He

162  The Origins of the Long Cold War enjoyed considerable prominence as a journalist and covered the Boer War for the Globe. He later became the Ottawa correspondent for the News. He was the co-author with Principal Grant of the latter’s autobiography and later published in the field of military history. A “devoted Imperialist,” he was also an Anglican and a church warden. In a moment of enthusiasm, Dr John Reade opined that Hamilton was “a man whose English equals that of Goldwin Smith.” See Henry Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of Their Time (Toronto, 1912) and W.S. Wallace, MacMillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1963). 19 To date only scattered issues from the 1919–29 period have turned up, almost all in various politicians’ papers in the NAC. Interestingly Betke and Horrall report that they could not locate any of these (386). Those we have located appear in Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929. Subsequent years from the early 1930s on have been acquired via access requests to CSIS and will appear in future volumes. Already published is Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins: The War Series, 1939–1941 (St John’s, 1989). While it seems extremely unlikely that the rest of these will ever be located, two additional bulletins from the 1920s recently turned up in a personal file acquired from CSIS in response to an access request (John L. Counsell, 90-A-37). 20 RG 24, Vol. 4471, file 20–1-43 and the various reports in Vol. 4472, file 20–1-44. 21 On the Defence Committee of Canada, see Eayrs, In Defence, 224–69, esp. 225n, and Harris, Canadian Brass, 141–70. For additional detail see below. 22 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 390–400; on MacBrien see Eayrs, In Defence, 236ff., Harris, Canadian Brass, 152–6, and Norman Hillmer and W. McAndrew, “The Cunning of Restraint: General J.H. MacBrien and the Problem of Peace-time Soldiering,” Canadian Defence Quarterly 8 (Spring 1979): 40–7. 23 For suggestive, albeit vague, evidence see Harvison, The Horsemen, 14–43, and Charles Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit in the Wilderness (London, 1967), 292–4. 24 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 377 −80, 390–1. 25 For numbers of files see Kealey and Whitaker, “Introduction,” to RCMP Security Bulletins, 1919–1929. 26 This impression is based on a reading of the thousands of pages of reports on the Communist Party of Canada in Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton in the 1920s. Access to Information request to CSIS, 88-A-61. 27 RCMP, Confidential Monthly Reports, GC-579–27, OC Edmonton, 12 May and 8 July 1921. Acquired from RCMP via access request. Unfortunately all the security materials have been severed from these reports at some



Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left  163

unknown date in the past and apparently were destroyed, or so the RCMP and the information commissioner assure me. 28 Canada, Report of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the Year ended September 30, 1926 (Ottawa, 1927), 5. See also, for earlier complaints, RG 18, Vol. 3180, file G-1235–1-24. 29 Harvison, The Horsemen, 27. 30 Ibid., 19. 31 Ibid., 26. 32 Ibid., 14–60. For the RCMP and harvest excursions see also R.S.S. Wilson, Undercover for the RCMP (Victoria, 1986), 25–7. 33 Harvison, The Horsemen, 58–64 and Kemp, Without Fear, 85–8. 34 Kemp, Thirty-Five Years, 65–77. See also RG 18, 83–84 / 321, file G-2–6. 35 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 177–80. On Cawdron and retirement, see also RG 13, 86–87 / 361, file 1701 / 24. 36 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 400–4. Examples of the routing through the governor general abound in RG 7, NAC. The direct route can be seen in RG 18, Vol. 3161, file G-355–1-22, Basil Thomson, Scotland House to Perry, 31 March 1921. Similarly, the Canadian military also had direct access to military intelligence from the UK: see RG 18, Vol. 3182, file G-355–3, Director of Naval Intelligence Admiralty to Director of Naval Service, Canada, 8 March 1922, “Comintern Circular to the Bureau of the Western European Secretariat for Propaganda, 8 December 1921.” 37 Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London, 1985), Chs. 7–10. 38 PRO, CO 42 / 1011 / 192554, esp. 250–7, 455–61; CO 42 / 1014, Secretary of State Colonies to Governor General, 26 July 1919. See also CO 694 / 28, Register entries for 21 April, 6 May, and 14 May 1919, which reflect Sir Basil Thomson’s requests for consistent intelligence information. 39 PRO, CO708 / 7A. Register, 1919–20. See especially entries for 21 May and 23 June 1919. 40 PRO, CO 335 / 29, 30, and 31. These registers document clearly the regularity of information supplied by the RCMP to British Intelligence. A brief statistical summary shows the following: November 1920, 3 reports, December 1920, 4; January 1921, 5; March 1921, 5; April 1921, 4; May 1921, 6; June 1921, 4; July 1921, 3; August 1921, 5; September 1921, 5; October 1921, 5; November 1921, 6; December 1921, 8; etc. For the con­ tinuation of this tradition, see DO3, Dominions Register, 1928, entry for 2 January 1928 and 22 December 1929.

164  The Origins of the Long Cold War 41 CO 42 / 1044, 192408. Excerpts from this file appear in Labour / Le Travail 30 (Autumn 1992): 169–205. 42 RG 18, Vol. 1003, Maclean to Rowell, 11 September 1919 and Rowell to Maclean, 12 September 1919. 43 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 405–7. On A.J. Andrews’s visit see RG 13, 87–88 / 103, A-1688. 44 Harris, Canadian Brass, 169. 45 Eayrs, In Defence, 225n. 46 Proceedings of the Defence Committee, Sixth Meeting, 7 April 1921, RG 18, Vol. 3161, file G-355–1-22. For the military response, see RG 24, Vol. 2656, file 3568. 47 An assessment of the actual situation awaits release of the Vancouver CPC materials by CSIS. I can note, however, that the Confidential Monthly Reports from the OC Vancouver, even in their completely severed form available from the RCMP via an access request, indicate that on 15 February 1921 the OC indicated that he had submitted full reports on the unemployed situation earlier; on 18 March 1921 he reported the situation remained “unchanged”; and on 22 April 1921 he indicated that “the unemployed situation is bad and may eventually end in trouble. It is being watched closely.” RCMP, Confidential Monthly Reports, GC-579–27, via access request. 48 RG 18, Vol. 3161, file G-355–1-22, GOC MD No. 11 to Chief of the General Staff, nd and 12 April 1921. 49 Ibid., Leckie to Air Board, 25 April 1921. 50 RG 24, Vol. 2656, file 3576, HQC 363–47–1. 51 RG 18, Vol.3161, file G-355–1-22, 7th Meeting, 17 May 1921. 52 Ibid., Perry to Caldwell, Secretary, DCC, 7 Sept. 1921. See also Perry’s memo of 8 September 1921: “The situation is that on the one hand we hear from several sources, apparently unconnected, rumours that an actual outbreak is imminent; and that on the other hand the general conditions among the known revolutionists, such as the present state of their organization and the distribution of their personnel, are unfavourable to such an occurrence ... Nonetheless our agents hear from sundry sources that an outbreak of violence may be expected soon. One story gives the number of revolutionists as 20,000 and the date of ‘not later than about 1st October’ ... In my opinion there is little likelihood of immediate disorder; but the persistent unemployment has created a deep-seated unrest which is the real danger. If unemployment deepens into great distress, the danger of an outbreak will be considerable. The revolutionists are straining every nerve to promote uneasiness.”



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53 Ibid., 8th Meeting, 9 September 1921. See also Hamilton to Caldwell, 25 June 1921, which indicates that the RCMP received this information “from an exceedingly confidential source.” 54 For an example see ibid., Perry to OC, Montreal, 13 September 1921. 55 Ibid., OC, Vancouver to Perry. 30 September 1921. Ironically, only six months later the OC Vancouver was quite worried about how he would respond if municipal authorities resorted to repression against the unemployed, see OC Vancouver to Starnes, 22 April RG 13, Vol.269, file 1221 / 22. 56 Ibid., 26 November 1921. 57 Ibid., OC, Lethbridge to Perry, 22 November 1921 and OC, Winnipeg to Perry, 1 November 1921. 58 Ibid., OC, Halifax to Perry, 27 December 1921 and 6 January 1922. 59 Ibid., Gwatkin to Hamilton, 29 September 1921. 60 Ibid., Tenth Meeting, 15 December 1921. 61 Ibid., Sub-Committee on Intelligence, Report of Meeting No. 1, 13 January 1922. 62 Ibid., 11th Meeting, 2 February 1922. 63 For a general history of Canadian Military Intelligence see Major S.R. Elliot, Scarlet to Green: A History of Intelligence in the Canadian Army, 1903–1963 (Toronto, 1981), esp. 56–62. See also Wesley Wark, “The Evolution of Military Intelligence in Canada,” Armed Forces and Society 16 (1989): 77–98. It should be noted that Wark underemphasizes the role of the military in domestic intelligence in the inter-war years. 64 The “if any” remains an open question in 1921–2, but during the First World War and immediately after there were plenty of military secret agents. 65 RG 18, Vol. 3182, file G-355–3, Lieut. Col. H. H. Matthews, Memorandum, 12 January 1922. 66 Ibid., RCMP, probably C. F. Hamilton, “Memorandum on Sources of Information.” 67 Ibid., Meeting No. 2, 31 March 1922 and Meeting No. 3, 7 June 1922. See also Starnes to Pope, 9 June 1922, and Pope to Starnes, 26 June 1922, as well as various RCMP investigatory reports. 68 Kellys, The RCMP, 156–7; Kemp, Without Fear, 78–84; Longstreth, The Silent Force, 313–23. 69 RG 18, 83–83 / 321, file G-2–6, Perry to Borden, 7 August 1919. 70 RG 18, Vol. 3161, file G-355–1-22, 10th meeting, 15 December 1921. 71 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 4 April 1922, 675–81, and esp. speeches by Guthrie (660), Meighen (665, 673–5), Crerar (668), Graham (669–70), and Woodsworth (670–3).

166  The Origins of the Long Cold War 7 2 Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit, 293. 73 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 390–9; Kellys, The RCMP, 172–82; Harvison, The Horsemen, 60–4; Kemp, Without Fear, 148–77; Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit, 247–50, 292–302. 74 Wesley Wark, “Security Intelligence in Canada, 1864–1945: The History of a‘National Insecurity State,’” unpublished paper, University of Toronto, June, 1990.

6 Spymasters, Spies, and Their Subjects: The RCMP and Canadian State Repression, 1914–39

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Security Service – for most of the twentieth century Canada’s largely secret political police force – is finally being forced out of the historical shadows. The revelations of the McDonald and Keable royal commissions – which led to the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – and the passage of federal Access to Information legislation have combined to allow historians to begin to penetrate the deep shadows and scrutinize the role of Canada’s police spies. This new historical work is not without its controversies, and no doubt more debate will follow.1 One thing the historical record now clearly shows is that from its inception the RCMP has equated dissent with the foreign-born. Indeed, the issue of ethnicity is crucial to an understanding of the Canadian security regime. It comes into play both in terms of the people targeted by the RCMP and those doing the targeting. In the period 1914–39, the ethnic identity of not only immigrant workers and communists but also RCMP officers and their spies emerged as a critical factor in the Canadian stare’s surveillance systems. From the 1860s to the present, Canada’s various secret police agencies have primarily focused their attention on immigrants, labour, and the Left.2 Canada has had a secret service since 1864, when John A. ­Macdonald, then joint-premier of the Province of Canada, created the office to help protect Canada’s borders, both against US incursions related to the Civil War and against the threat of Fenian invasion.3 The story of the Fenians – Irish nationalist revolutionaries – nicely captures many of the salient themes. As immigrants to North America they simultaneously worked to transform North American industrial capitalism from within and to make revolution against Britain in their native

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land. They prefigured much of what the Canadian secret service would work against throughout its existence. While it was initially the Fenians that resulted in a secret police, targets since then have included “foreign agitators,” “Reds,” and “enemy aliens.” Significantly, though, the repression of labour and the Left neither began nor ended with the state, and even state repression was far broader than the operations of the RCMP Security Service. An array of  private and public police forces worked together co-operatively, and non-police institutions, both state and private, also exercised repressive functions.4 From 1864 to 1868 the Security Service was under the authority of  Gilbert McMicken’s Western Frontier Constabulary, which in 1868 became the Dominion Police. One of Britain’s earliest and most famous secret agents, Henri Le Caron, worked in close co-operation with ­McMicken, Macdonald’s spy chief.5 In the years from the outbreak of World War I until the start of World War II the major structures of the Canadian secret service, as it functioned until the creation of CSIS in 1984, were established, as was its underlying ideological logic. From the outset this ideology was nativist, anti-Semitic, and, above all, anti-communist. Initially imperialist, and closely identified with the interests of the British Empire, the Service later switched metropolitan allegiance from London to Washington.6 The outbreak of World War I brought a reorganization of Canadian security and intelligence. In the first fifteen years of the twentieth century such matters still rested in the hands of the Dominion Police, the force organized by McMicken in the aftermath of the alleged Fenian assassination of D’Arcy McGee. Primarily a force to provide guards for government buildings, the Dominion Police, under Chief Commis­sioner Sir Percy Sherwood at the war’s outset and then under Acting Commissioner Albert Cawdron after Sherwood’s retirement, also co-ordinated intelligence work with the emerging British secret service, another early twentieth-century phenomenon.7 Under McMicken co-operation with the British included ongoing surveillance of Irish nationalists by secret agent Le Caron. Under Sherwood and after it also included surveillance of Indian nationalists, especially in Vancouver. Thus William Hopkinson, a former Indian police officer, served simultaneously as a Canadian and British secret agent on the west coast from 1909 to 1914, when he was assassinated by Sikh nationalist Mewa Singh in the aftermath of the ­Komagata Maru incident. (The Komagata Maru, a Japanese-owned freighter, had arrived in Vancouver from Hong Kong in May 1914 carrying 376 ­natives of the Punjab, primarily Sikhs. This direct challenge to



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­ anada’s racist immigration restrictions failed, and the vessel returned C to ­Calcutta after spending months in the Vancouver harbour. After the ship’s arrival in India, a riot ensued in which police killed at least twenty passengers.) Hopkinson worked openly as an immigration inspector and was also paid as a secret operative by both the Dominion Police and Indian intelligence.8 After his death his secret service mantle passed to Malcolm Reid, his former superior at Immigration in Vancouver. The Dominion Police also played an important imperial role during the period of US neutrality in the initial years of World War I by functioning as the conduit through which British intelligence material on German subversive activities in the United States was passed on to US authorities. In so doing the Dominion Police aided British intelligence in its successful effort to disguise its active secret service work in the United States before that country’s declaration of war against Germany.9 While Irish and Indian revolutionaries provided the first targets for Canada’s political police, it was the Bolshevik revolution and the domestic labour revolt of 1917–20 that led to a reorganization of Canada’s secret service.10 After an initial flirtation in the fall of 1918 with a civilian security agency, the Public Safety Branch of the Department of Justice under C.H. Cahan, the government of Robert Borden turned to the Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP), which had played a key role in handling the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. The RNWMP had begun recruiting secret agents in the early days of World War I, and by December 1918 employed eight secret agents and six detectives across Western Canada. Many government officials and much of the Canadian bourgeoisie felt threatened by the rising spectre of Bolshevism, and with the increase in labour agitation in 1917–20 the Borden government amalgamated the Dominion Police and the RNWMP into the RCMP, which quickly assumed responsibility for domestic intelligence and security work, a mandate it would retain for over sixty years, until the creation of CSIS.11 The RCMP continued the pattern of using secret agents, especially to track so-called subversives, from 1919 onwards. According to a memo from Commissioner A.B. Perry, RCMP secret agents were to become fully acquainted with labour organizations to determine if they had Bolshevik tendencies.12 In these early years the RCMP Security Service began developing its distinct identity, but did not become a separate part of the RCMP until 1936, when the Intelligence Section was officially formed.13 Cortlandt Starnes, who had been in charge of the RNWMP contingent during the Winnipeg General Strike, succeeded Parry as commissioner in 1923. Starnes ran the Force through the 1920s, a period

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of stagnation and down-sizing. Only the return to provincial policing in Saskatchewan in 1928, where Starnes used the Security Service as a strong pro-RCMP lever, and the election of the Conservative government of R.B. Bennett reversed the tide. Bennett’s choice of General J.H. MacBrien to head the Force after Starnes’s retirement, combined with the takeover of the Preventive Service (Customs) and the renewal of provincial policing in the Maritime provinces, Manitoba, and Alberta, led to a major reinvigoration of the RCMP after 1932. Bennett chose MacBrien as the new commissioner because he was impressed with MacBrien’s fervent anti-communism, military background, and emphasis on the need for a strong political police force. True to form, MacBrien became the first RCMP commissioner to speak out against communism, and he founded the RCMP Quarterly as a medium for informing the nation about communist activities.14 Just as Starnes had used the Security Service to buttress his arguments for the RCMP role in Saskatchewan in 1928, MacBrien did the same in 1932.15 Indeed, the new commissioner issued a highly unusual General Order to celebrate the Force’s expansion. In it he emphasized that the Criminal ­Investigation Branch (CIB), in which the Security Service resided, was the key element of the RCMP. “It corresponds to the General Staff of the Army,” the former chief of the general staff said. Moreover, MacBrien argued, “The past record of the RCMP is one to be proud of, and it is thought that there is a very special opportunity, at the present time, for the Force to enhance its splendid reputation through the opportunity that now exists to render a very special service to Canada in the present conditions prevailing in the country, due to the economic depression, and the activities of the Communists.”16 The increasingly repressive nature of Bennett’s response to the Depression also fuelled the growth of the Security Service within the Force. The intelligence functions which for well over a decade had been largely centred on one officer, C.F. Hamilton, became more formal under MacBrien and grew considerably as the Depression continued. World War II and the Gouzenko affair led to its massive growth in the Cold War period.17 This growth, however, was not purely a phenomenon of the post–World War II Cold War. To put it more bluntly, the Cold War commenced with the success of the Bolsheviks in 1917.18 The RCMP’s obsession with communism shows itself starkly in a response to a letter sent to the prime minister’s office from businessman A.L. Lawes of Montreal. Writing in late 1938, Lawes had noted that “there will be little disagreement with the suggestion that these three



Spymasters, Spies, and Their Subjects  171

enemies [of democracy] are Nazi, Fascist and Communist, in the order named.”19 Inspector Charles Rivett-Carnac (who would later head the RCMP Security Service) took six pages to refute Lawes’s analyses, ultimately concluding, “The main point which I wish to make in this connection is that while the Communist program embodies the destruction of the state apparatus of the Government and the setting up of a new economic order, the Nazi program which has been brought into being in Germany has retained the principles of the old system to the extent that a modified form of capitalism now exists in that country.”20 In essence, the RCMP showed more concern in January 1939 about the threat to capitalism than the threat to liberal democracy – even though RCMP officers, including Rivett-Carnac, were sitting on committees concerned with the preparation of war against Germany. Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe concurred with Rivett-Carnac’s memorandum, adding that “regardless of what military pacts were signed,” communism was at least as abhorrent as fascism.21 By far the fullest picture of Canadian political policing is available for the relatively short period from 1917 until the creation of the RCMP in 1920. For reasons that remain obscure (and were subsequently deemed to be a mistake in 1971), the RNWMP’s historical records for those early years were passed to the Public Archives of Canada in the early 1960s.22 These records include complete registers of the anti-subversive (antiBolshevik, in the Force’s vocabulary) efforts of those early years and the institutional record of the creation of the first secret agent network. Even now, with the deposit in the National Archives of Canada of the vast remaining records of the RCMP Security Service, the nature of the Access to Information process leaves researchers with a far less complete record for the years after 1920.23 The major documentation falls into five primary categories: Personal History Files, subject files, publication files, RCMP personnel files, and the RCMP Security Bulletins. The first three are raw data accumulated by the Mounties from covert and other sources. The Personal History Files, which commenced in 1919, would, by 1977, at the time of the ­McDonald Commission inquiry, run to some eight hundred thousand files with a name index of 1.3 million. The subject files, which primarily focus on radical political parties, foreign-language organizations, and labour unions, are equally massive. The publication files are extensive collections of radical newspapers and magazines, sometimes with appended translations and commentaries. The RCMP personnel files sometimes inadvertently provide considerable information about

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s­ ecurity and intelligence work. The Security Bulletins are weekly or monthly compilations of digested intelligence intended to keep the Force’s political and bureaucratic masters up to date on the state of the Canadian Left as seen by the Security Service. Unfortunately most of the Bulletins from their origin in 1919 through to 1933 have been lost or destroyed by the Security Service.24 The Spymasters Who were the spymasters and the spies? Among the spymasters were the last two commissioners of the Dominion Police, the first four RCMP commissioners, and the first four heads of the Security Service. Sir Percy Sherwood (1854–1940) was Ottawa-born and came from a combined military and police background. A member of the governor general’s Foot Guards, he rose to command the 43rd Regiment with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He served as Ottawa chief of police from 1879 to 1882, when he joined the Dominion Police as a superintendent; and he was later promoted to commissioner (1885) and chief commissioner (1913). He also served as chief commissioner of the Boy Scouts Association of Canada from 1910 to 1918.25 His successor, Albert John Cawdron, was also born in Ottawa. He joined the Dominion Police in 1897 and later enlisted in the first Canadian contingent going to South Africa for the Boer War (1899–1902). After returning to Canada he entered the secret service branch of the Dominion Police and succeeded Sherwood in 1918. He joined the RCMP after its creation and rose to assistant commissioner before retiring in 1936.26 The first commissioner of the RCMP, A.B. Perry (1860–1956), stemmed from United Empire Loyalist stock in Napanee, Ontario, graduated in the Royal Military College’s first class, and joined the RNWMP in 1883 after a brief British military career in the Royal Engineers. As a Mountie he served in the North-West Rebellion and was commissioner of the RNWMP from 1900 to 1920 and of the new RCMP in 1920–3.27 His successor, Cortlandt Starnes (1864–1934), was born in Montreal, also of Loyalist background. He served with the 65th Regiment in the NorthWest Rebellion, joined the RNWMP in 1886, and served as commissioner from 1923 to 1931.28 General J.H. MacBrien (1878–1938) hailed from Myrtle, Ontario. He served briefly as a Mountie at the turn of the century, fought in the Boer War, and served six years in the South ­African Constabulary before returning to Canada and the military. He



Spymasters, Spies, and Their Subjects  173

rose to the rank of brigadier-general in World War I and served as chief of the general staff from 1920 to 1928. From 1931 until his death in 1938 he headed the RCMP.29 The last commissioner during the first half of the twentieth century was S.T. Wood (1889–1961), whose father, Zachary, had been assistant commissioner of the RNWMP. Ottawa-born, Wood graduated from Upper Canada College and the Royal Military College, joined the RNWMP in 1912, and served as commissioner from 1938 until his retirement in 1950.30 Rounding out this picture is the Force’s first intelligence officer, C.F. Hamilton (1869–1933). Born in Roslin, Ontario, and a graduate of Queen’s University, Hamilton became a journalist and covered the Boer War for the Globe. He was active in the militia and authored many books as an amateur military historian. He joined the RNWMP in 1913, becoming assistant comptroller in 1914 before taking a leave of absence to serve in the militia as deputy chief press censor and director of cable censorship during World War I. Hamilton rejoined the RNWMP in 1919 just in time for its reorganization into the RCMP in 1920, and was quickly appointed secretary of the RCMP, a title later changed to liaison and intelligence officer. He was one of the few RCMP officers whose full-time duties were intelligence and security, and as liaison officer he was the second-highest-paid member of the Force, behind the commissioner, to whom he reported directly. Hamilton’s successors in intelligence followed a slightly different pattern.31 Arthur Patteson (1887–1934), who had briefly been Hamilton’s assistant, was an English immigrant educated at Marlborough, one of the most prestigious schools in England. After an attempt at farming in Alberta he joined the Force in 1914. He made corporal in 1917, enrolled in the RNWMP Cavalry Unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and rejoined the RNWMP in 1919 as a sergeant. He worked as an orderly room clerk in Edmonton until he made inspector in 1932 and was called to Ottawa as the ailing Hamilton’s assistant in  late 1931. There Patteson assumed more and more of Hamilton’s duties, and with Hamilton’s death in 1933 he took over the newly created post of intelligence officer, which replaced the liaison position. As  intelligence officer Patteson was responsible for not only Hamilton’s old responsibilities but also the Criminal Investigation Branch security work. After his unexpected death by heart attack at age fortyeight, the RCMP Quarterly obituary emphasized his British publicschool background.32

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Patteson’s immediate successors were also British immigrants. Robson Armitage, an RCMP inspector decorated for his role in capturing an armed bank robber in Ottawa, served for only six months and ­retired in 1950 as an assistant commissioner. Charles Rivett-Carnac (1901–1980), was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1901. His father was an officer in the Indian police, and he grew up in India until returning to England for public school. He later worked in India in the 1920s ­after a brief period in France during World War I as an ambulance driver. In the early 1920s he migrated to Canada and joined the Force.33 Rivett-Carnac served in the Yukon for over a decade before being appointed intelligence officer in 1935 and returning to the post for a year in 1944–5 before being appointed director of criminal investigations and later commissioner. Hence, of the ten police leaders, seven were Canadian-born of middle-class stock, and two of these claimed Loyalist ancestry. Two were RMC graduates and eight had military experience. Six had prior police experience and one (Hamilton) had experience as the deputy chief press censor. The three English immigrants had public-school backgrounds, First World War experience, and, in one case, Indian police background. The pattern is clear. The spymasters represented an Anglo-Canadian, central Canadian-born, military elite with a few British immigrants with public-school backgrounds thrown into the mix in the 1930s and 1940s. Our spymasters all flourished in what historian Desmond Morton describes as the “moment of Canadian Militarism.” That they imported this militarism and its concomitant masculinity into the new RCMP with its paramilitary structure is not surprising.34 Indeed, an attempt to place the RCMP under the new Department of National Defence in 1922 was avoided only because of Progressive Party opposition. Not only were there no women in the Force in these early years, but marriage was largely prohibited for the rank and file (constables could only marry after twelve years, non-commissioned officers after eight years) except in rare cases and then only with the permission of the commissioner upon the recommendation of the officer commanding. Barracks life with military discipline was the lot of the young Mountie recruit. All autobiographical accounts, and RCMP Annual Reports as late as 1940–1, emphasize Mountie basic training as being essentially cavalry training with all the accompanying military implications.35 The Spies Not surprisingly, the rank-and-file Mountie did not share the leadership’s background – and the spies shared even less. The regular



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Mounties who went underground in the time of the labour revolt of 1917–20, some not to surface for years, hardly fit the stereotype of the red-coated hero. The best-documented cases are those of Frank Zaneth (a.k.a. Harry Blask), whose cover was blown when he was forced to testify in the Winnipeg Strike trials, and of John Leopold (a.k.a. Jack Esselwein), the main witness at the 1931 Toronto show trial of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) leadership.36 There were almost certainly many other similar cases that have never surfaced and remain unknown. Frank Zaneth was born Franco Zanetti in Gombolo, Pavia, southwest of Milan, in 1890, the son of a cabinet-maker. He moved to the United States with an older brother in 1899 and a few years later was joined by the rest of the family in Springfield, Massachusetts. He married in 1910 and the following year migrated with his new wife to Moose Jaw in the hope of acquiring a homestead, which he succeeded in doing in 1912. By 1917 his marriage had ended and he was back in Springfield. From there he applied to join the RNWMP under his newly assumed name, Frank Zaneth, and upon acceptance enlisted at Regina in December. When he completed his basic training, he was immediately sent underground to work as a secret agent, largely because of his ethnic background and language skills. Initially, in spring 1918, he worked in Quebec City seeking out draft evaders after the Easter riots against conscription. In September he moved on to Drumheller, Alberta, to investigate rumours of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) influence among the immigrant coal miners there. Here “Harry Blask” first stepped forward. In December he moved on to Canmore and then to Calgary, where he reported to another under-cover Mountie, Corporal S.R. Waugh. In Calgary Blask enjoyed even greater success than he had in the coal camps. He became socialist machinist George Sangster’s right-hand man and through him gained access to the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) and the whole local radical scene. In this capacity he attended the District 18 convention of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and later in March 1919 the Calgary Western Labour Conference, at which UMWA leader David Rees spotted another RNWMP agent, ­Robert Gosden, and denounced him as a stool pigeon. In May Blask removed himself to Regina to report personally to Perry, who conveniently arranged to have him arrested to prop up his reputation as a socialist militant. After a conviction and a week in jail, Blask returned to  Calgary with his revolutionary reputation reinforced. Throughout the crucial weeks of the Winnipeg General Strike “Blask” continued to

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r­eport to his RNWMP masters on every radical event in Calgary, including the identity of the radicals’ own spy in the anti-strike Citizens’ Committee. As the crisis intensified, RNWMP security tightened as well and headquarters sent a new controller, Staff Sergeant Hall, to handle Zaneth for fear that Waugh was too easily identifiable. Throughout the entire crisis, which included a general sympathy strike, Zaneth filed report after report from the centre of Calgary’s radical community.37 Throughout the summer of 1919 a debate raged within state corridors. A.J. Andrews, the prosecutor for the strike trials in Winnipeg, wanted Zaneth as a star witness; the RNWMP did not want their top labour spy’s cover blown. Andrews won the debate, and on 5 D ­ ecember 1919, “Harry Blask” made his last appearance as a key witness against Bob Russell, an SPC and One Big Union (OBU) leader. After a brief spying mission against the OBU in the United States in 1920, Zaneth turned up in Montreal as “James Laplante,” allegedly a Québécois immigrant to New England now returning home with US radical credentials. After a summer of under-cover work there he was identified by the UMWA’s Rees as a spy and denounced in the radical press. Thus ended Zaneth’s career as a spy, although he rose through the Mountie hierarchy until retiring in 1951 as an assistant commissioner. His final flirtation with the repression of radicalism came in 1938, when he prepared the groundwork for what would have been the second major national prosecution of the Communist Party of Canada leadership, this time for its role in recruiting volunteers to fight for the Spanish Republic. On this occasion, despite meticulous planning and a large expenditure in preparing the legal background for the prosecutions, the RCMP was persuaded by its political masters to drop the case at the eleventh hour.38 John Leopold (a.k.a. Jack Esselwein, 1890–1958), who worked undercover as a secret agent in Regina for a decade, joined the Force in 1918 and retired as a superintendent in 1952. Leopold’s career mimicked Zaneth’s, except for a blown cover, but despite his fame as the leading anti-communist intelligence officer, much of which came in the wake of the Gouzenko controversy, his RCMP career proved far less successful. Bohemian-born Leopold, like Zaneth, was chosen for under-cover work because of his ethnicity and language skills. Also like Zaneth, he was diminutive, which no doubt augmented his utility as a secret agent. (They were both under five-foot-five, shorter than the minimum height for normal service in the RCMP.)39 Leopold had come to Canada in 1912 and farmed in Alberta before joining the Force. Working under-cover in Regina under the name of



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Esselwein after he finished basic training, he quickly gained the confidence of local radicals and progressed through their ranks, moving from the SPC into the CPC. A case of typhoid fever in October 1920 caused great concern on the part of his handlers, though they were seemingly far more worried about his cover than his health. To maintain the pose, another under-cover Mountie, T.E. Ryan, prepared a careful subterfuge through which another left-wing activist removed the radical materials in the patient’s possession; and the hospital staff cooperated with an RCMP request by refusing any visitors to the delirious Leopold.40 In July 1921, when he had to face a career decision to re-enlist or not, Leopold wrote, “I have no desire to become a ‘secret agent’ to the RCMP. If I continue my service it would be as an active member of the Force.” In that same letter he also indicated what his handlers were planning for him: “If I am pressed to organize the Regina Branch of the Movement [CPC], I will do so with the least amount of effort as possible, and endeavour to get someone else to do the actual work or appear to do it. I will be on my guard against doing anything which could be brought home to me individually.”41 Apparently the contradiction inherent in the spy who becomes an agent provocateur was not lost on either Leopold or his masters. Indeed, in a careful exchange of letters, the Regina officer in command, A.B. ­Allard, explored the implications of the problem with Commissioner Perry. Gilbert Salt, Leopold’s RCMP handler, had written to Allard, who in turn sought the advice of the commissioner, on the question of the role Leopold should play in the new CPC. Salt pointed out, “Should he take an active part, presumably that of leader or organizer he would be liable to most severe punishment when the final break-up comes, as it would be out of the question to uncover him, and even if uncovered he would still be liable, as it would be impossible for him to carry on without doing criminal actions occasionally.”42 Salt assured Allard that Leopold was willing “to go to any length the Service requires” and that the agent had been exceeding his role as a passive spy: He has shown himself capable of neutralizing the efforts of the leaders of the OBU on many occasions, and has not mentioned his efforts in his reports, for instance nearly all the OBU literature, especially the more radical, is sent directly to him, which instead of distributing he has been destroying in large quantities, only parting with sufficient to keep himself

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above suspicion. He has on many occasions by using diplomacy spoiled meetings, by being unable to find a suitable hall, or neglecting to advertise the meeting etc. He has discouraged organization work by many tricks, has diplomatically wasted OBU funds etc. always at the same time being shrewd enough to keep his real object out of sight. I lay stress on this as showing that he may be counted on not to promote the Communist Party in any way on his own initiative, but only when driven or compelled to.43

For his part, Allard recommended to Perry that Leopold “pursue his role to the full extent provided it is not anticipated that he would ever be uncovered,” not a particularly useful assumption. Perry showed no hesitation on the matter, instructing Allard that “the opportunity offered of gaining access to Communist plans must not be allowed to escape us.” While opining that it was “undesirable that Leopold should actually commit illegal acts himself, or should incite others to commit them,” he nevertheless instructed that “he should throw himself into the movement and his aim should be to obtain an appointment as organizer” – which is exactly what Leopold did.44 The difficulties of leading a secret life became manifest again in 1922, when Leopold was faced with the loss of his Alberta homestead unless he became naturalized. As he pointed out to headquarters, this was difficult to do given his assumed identity. Ottawa made the appropriate arrangements, as it did later that year when it transferred all his pay arrangements from Saskatchewan to Ottawa to ensure that no paper trail would connect him to Regina. In addition, it arranged that his income tax be paid through Ottawa as well.45 In Regina Leopold became the secretary of the local branch of the Workers Party of Canada in December 1921 and at the same time functioned as the key local figure in the secret underground Communist Party. After the CPC decision to undermine the OBU, he became secretary of the Regina local of the International Brotherhood of Painters and in 1924 vice-president and in 1925 president of the Regina Trades and Labour Council. In 1926 he temporarily moved to Winnipeg at Commis­ sioner Starnes’s request, because things had become so quiet in ­Regina that Starnes believed his agent would prove more useful elsewhere.46 For the first time a note of concern crept into the handlers’ comments about Leopold. In direct response to a worried query from Starnes, the officer commanding in southern Saskatchewan wrote, “This man is somewhat disposed to work alone and without sufficient consultation with his superiors.” That note has a cryptic comment scrawled upon it



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by Starnes: “See Hamilton” (the chief intelligence officer). Hamilton must have calmed the commissioner down, because Starnes then wrote a restrained instruction to Regina suggesting that they chat with Leopold upon his return there and encourage him to stay in closer contact with his control.47 In 1927 Starnes moved Leopold to Toronto.48 While in Winnipeg for the convention of Division 4 of the Railway Running Trades that year, Leopold served as convention chair and subsequently worked on communist William Kolisnyk’s successful campaign for alderman. While Leopold always contended that he had done nothing improper in those years as a communist activist, it seems unlikely that an operative could have risen so high in the CPC and not influenced the outcome of events in which he participated. In addition to the RCMP’s worries about Leopold’s activities in 1927, the CPC also began to close in upon him. In November CPC secretary Jack MacDonald informed him that the CPC had received information from two ex-Mounties that identified Leopold as a government agent. Although this storm blew over, clearly CPC suspicions were aroused. Not surprisingly, the value of Leopold’s work fell off in the period after the scare about discovery, and as late as April Starnes was considering moving him back to Winnipeg.49 After his cover was finally blown by MacDonald in May 1928 and he was expelled from the CPC as a government agent, the RCMP transfer­ red him to the Yukon to get him as far away as possible from his erstwhile comrades.50 To maintain his secret, even then his pay was maintained on the Ottawa rolls. In April 1931 he was recalled to O ­ ttawa, no doubt in preparation for a planned role as main witness in the ­Toronto communist trials, held in November. After working as detective in western Ontario for a time, Leopold was brought back to Ottawa in late 1933 as an expert on communism to work in the Intelligence ­Section of the Criminal Investigation Branch.51 Rather than being a promotion, this move came after a reprimand from his superiors for a series of financial irregularities that included exceeding expenses while testifying in Toronto and a subsequent mishandling of funds while working as a detective in Windsor. In effect Leopold had been demoted to Ottawa and uniform service, forced to make restitution, and given only a one-year service extension instead of the customary three years. The discovery that he had contracted syphilis that year probably also did not impress his superiors.52 Nor, one suspects, would they have been impressed with the series of letters written over a year-long p ­ eriod

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from his mother in Czechoslovakia seeking information about his circumstances. The letters went directly to the RCMP because Leopold had not contacted his mother in years.53 In 1936 Leopold was twice reprimanded and then demoted for intoxication on duty and insubordination. As in the case of his earlier disciplining, the Force found this a massive embarrassment, especially when it was seized upon by the radical Canadian press as further evidence of the unsavoury character of the RCMP’s labour spies. Further embarrassment followed in summer 1937, when M.J. Coldwell, the CCF MP for Regina, revealed that Leopold, or rather Esselwein, had been arrested and convicted in Toronto a decade before during a communist demonstration against the prosecution of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian-American anarchist martyrs.54 The RCMP was only slightly reassured by the information that Leopold’s fine had been paid by the CPC. Leopold did find a supporter finally in the Force when RivettCarnac became Intelligence head. Thereafter Leopold’s career unfolded more conventionally, with a return to his previous rank and subsequent promotions. No doubt this related to the increased profile of the Intelligence Section within the RCMP under MacBrien and later Wood.55 A vast social distance existed, then, between the spymasters and their spies. Even the underground redcoats, the crème de la crème of secret agents, possessed ethnic and class backgrounds at total variance from their controllers.56 While the stories of Zaneth and Leopold tell us much about underground activity, they are only the tip of the iceberg. While information on “human sources” is the most difficult to gain from CSIS and is largely protected under the Access to Information legislation, we do know that the Regina and Calgary pattern was the norm. In addition we know from the old RNWMP records that of some forty-five early agents – both Mounties and civilian – about half were European immigrants with foreign-language skills.57 Those from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds included individuals with truly exotic backgrounds, such as the English-born former Wobbly Robert Gosden.58 Born in Surrey in 1882, Gosden fought in the Boer War before immigrating to North America. After extensive travels, he settled in British Columbia in 1906 and eventually joined the IWW. He spent three months in a Prince Rupert jail after a confrontation between strikers and police. The next year he spent nine months in a San Diego jail after a Wobbly free-speech fight there. He gained prominence and a leadership role in the Miners Liberation League during the Vancouver Island coal miner strike. Suggestions that he was an agent provocateur



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began to circulate and were promoted by his involvement in a provincial election scandal in 1916, in which he had organized rampant illegal voting. Certainly by 1919 he was an RNWMP secret agent and, as such, worked in Blairmore, Fernie, Macleod, and Hillcrest in the early months of that year. In March he attended the Western Labour Conference in Calgary, where he was denounced as a police spy by miners’ leader Rees. As special agent no. 10, he authored the most extraordinary document of 1919 – a letter to Commissioner Perry in which he recommended that the SPC leadership be made to “disappear.” Perhaps it is not surprising that Gosden was simultaneously a paid agent and also among the earliest radicals to get a Personal History File. Almost as exciting as Gosden were the two Russian agents, Alexander Durasoff and Barney Roth, who embarrassed the new RCMP terribly in 1920 by getting themselves indicted for perjury after Immigration Department deportation hearings in Vancouver in late 1919 against some twenty or more alleged members of the Russian Workers Union. Commissioner Perry was not amused.59 Perhaps slightly less exotic than Gosden or the Russian agents was the Petrograd-born Mervyn Black, who had managed cotton mills in the Soviet Union before migrating to South America and later to Saskatchewan. He failed as a farmer and joined the RCMP as a secret agent. Men with foreign backgrounds thus provided the Anglo-Canadian leadership of the Force with their human sources. However, Leopold’s career after his exposure as a spy suggests that this relationship was fraught with tension. The personnel files of other agents often contain poignant reminders that life underground was never easy. The medical file of under-cover Mountie T.E. Ryan, Leopold’s handler in Regina, for example, offered an explanation from his personal physician for his poor health: “Many years as a plain clothes man with all the temptations that go when there is no uniform.”60 As the stories of Zaneth and Leopold suggest, the major target of the RCMP Security Service throughout this period was the Canadian Left and especially its communist wing, although the RCMP’s ability to make discerning distinctions in this regard was never strong. As a result the RCMP security and intelligence archives are filled with materials about immigrants to Canada and their associational life. For instance, the first list of “Chief Agitators in Canada,” compiled by the Public Safety Branch of the Department of Justice, contains roughly a two-to-one ratio of easily identifiable non-Anglo-Celtic immigrant names. Given the propensity of some immigrants to anglicize their

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names, as Franco Zanetti did, this ratio seems extremely high. As well, the first 2,600 Personal History Files compiled by the RNWMP and RCMP, while not showing as high a ratio, also demonstrate the Security Service’s fascination with Canada’s immigrant workers. The earliest RCMP Security Bulletins offer a similar picture. Among the few early surviving copies, we find in January 1920 considerable coverage of “Ukrainian Propaganda,” which surveyed associational and cultural life, and “Finnish Propaganda,” which did the same. The Mounties, of course, were quite familiar with the foreign-language press and many of the groups because of the ban on these activities in late 1918 by order-in-council. That step was based on the charges of the Public Safety Branch’s C.H. Cahan, whom Borden had commissioned to study radicalism and whose July 1918 report focused on the immigrant threat, and of E.J. Chambers, the chief press censor. Finally, the ­recently released Finding Aids for RG 146, the CSIS records at the National Archives of Canada, also reveal the extraordinary attention paid to the immigrant community by the RCMP Security Service from its creation in 1920. As General MacBrien remarked in 1932, “It is notable that 99 per cent of these fellows [communists] are foreigners and many of them have not been here long. The best thing to do would be to send them back where they came from in every way possible. If we  were rid of them, there would be no unemployment or unrest in ­Canada.”61 That sentiment was certainly an article of RCMP faith during this period and beyond. Any attempt to analyse the nature of state repression in the period from 1914 to 1939, then, must grapple with the duality of ethnicity. Not only was the ethnic identity of the immigrant workers and Reds important, but so too were the national and socio-economic roots of the redcoats, both spymasters and spies. Similarly, gender too is an important category, for the RCMP was a very male institution – a near total institution, as the McDonald Commission noted, which “through its recruiting, training and management practices engulfs its members in an ethos akin to that found in a monastery or religious order.”62 The historical analysis of that ethos, and especially of the even more ingrained Security Service, is in its infancy, but at least it is now possible, thanks to Access to Information legislation, to begin that work. The historical responsibility to do the necessary research and rethinking should be impressed on us all on every occasion – of which there have been many – when CSIS, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), and the rest of the Canadian intelligence community’s current practices are called into question.63



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Thanks for assistance to Michelle McBride, who helped see this paper through to publication, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for funding. NOTES 1 Canada, Commission of Inquiry Concerning Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police [McDonald Commission] (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1981). For information on the Keable Commission, see Robert Dion, The Crimes of the Secret Police (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1982). For recent controversies, see R.C. Macleod, “How They ‘Got Their Man,’” Literary Review of Canada 5, no. 8 (September 1996): 19–21; and Gregory Kealey and Reg Whitaker, “The RCMP and the Enemy Within,” Literary Review of Canada 5, no. 10 (November 1996): 22. 2 Richard Cleroux, Official Secrets: The Story behind the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (Montreal: McGraw Hill, 1990); J.L. Granatstein and David Stafford, Spy Wars: Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost (Toronto: Key Porter, 1990); Carl Betke and Stan Horrall, Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline 1864–1966 (Ottawa: RCMP Historical Section, 1978), Document No. 20, File 117–90- 107. 3 Jeff Keshen, “Cloak and Dagger: Canada West’s Secret Police, 1864–1867,” Ontario History 79 (1987): 353–81. 4 See, for instance, Paula Maurutto, “Private Policing and Surveillance of Catholics: Anti-communism in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, 1920–1960,” Labour / Le Travail 40 (Fall 1997): 13–36. 5 J.A Cole, Prince of Spies: Henri Le Caron (London: Faber and Faber, 1984). For more on McMicken, see Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 82–4, 86–8, 94–6, 126–7. 6 Gregory S. Kealey, “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–1920,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992): 179–210 [Chapter 4 in this book]. Evidence of the anti-Semitism is common in documents from the post-war Red Scare. 7 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 183–7; Wayne A. Crockett, “The Uses and Abuses of the Secret Service Fund: The Political Division of Police Work in Canada, 1864–1877,” MA thesis, Queen’s University, Kingston, 1982; Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London: Heinemann, 1985); and Bernard Porter, The Origins of

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8

9 10

11

12

13

1 4 15

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the Vigilant State: The London Metropolitan Police Special Branch before the First World War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1987). Richard Popplewell, “The Surveillance of Indian ‘Seditionists’ in North America, 1905–1915,” in Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes, eds., Intelligence and International Relations, 1900–1945 (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1987), 49–76; Richard Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence of the Indian Empire (London: Frank Cass, 1995); Hugh Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists in North America, 1908–1918,” British Columbia Studies 78 (1988): 3–27; and Hugh Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979). W.B. Fowler, British-American Relations 1917–1918: The Role of Sir William Wiseman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). Gregory S. Kealey, “The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (July 1993): 130 [Chapter 5 in this book]; Stan Horrall, “Canada’s Security Service: A Brief History,” RCMP Quarterly 50, no. 3 (Summer 1985): 43. Gregory S. Kealey, “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–1920: The Impact of the First World War,” Canadian Historical Review (CHR) 73, no. 3 (1992): 281–314 [Chapter 3 in this book]; Stan Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” CHR 61 (June 1980): 169–90; Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929 (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1994). “Perry to Officers Commanding,” 6 January 1919, National Archives of Canada (NAC), RG 18, vol. 599, file 1328. See also files 1309–35, circular memos 807, 807A (6 January 1919), and 807B (5 February 1919). Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 380–3. The staff of the Intelligence Section included six members: Inspector Rivett-Carnac, Sergeant Leopold, two officers – one in charge of agents, the other in charge of the Registry – a stenographer, and a translator. Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Secret Service, 436–7. Macleod, “How They ‘Got Their Man,’” 19–21; Kealey and Whitaker, “RCMP and the Enemy Within,” 22. Recently the provincial policing function has been glorified at the expense of the Security Service. General Orders, NAC, RCMP Records, RG 146; ATIP request no. 95ATIP271,272. Larry Hannant, The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995).



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18 Steve Hewitt, “‘Old Myths Die Hard’: The Transformation of the Mounted Police in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1914–1939,” PhD thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 1997. 19 Michelle McBride, “From Indifference to Internment: An Examination of RCMP Responses to Nazism and Fascism in Canada,” MA thesis, Memorial University, St John’s, NL, 1997; citing Lawes to A.D.P. Heeney, principal secretary of the PMO’s Office, 25 November 1938, NAC, MG 30, E163, vol. 12, file 137. 20 Rivett-Carnac to Norman Robertson, undersecretary of state for external affairs, 24 January 1930, p. l, NAC, MG 30, E163, file 127. 21 Lapointe to S.T. Wood, 25 August 1939. NAC, MG 30, Lapointe Papers, vol.50, file 50. 22 Gregory S. Kealey, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail 2l (Spring 1988): 199–226 [Chapter 9 in this book]. 23 Gregory S. Kealey, “In the Canadian Archives on Security and Intelligence,” Dalhousie Review 97, no. 1 (1996): 26–38. Much of what follows is dependent on either the substantial record for the early years 1917– 20 or on the more problematic documentation based on the heavily exempted records acquired via extensive use of the Access to Infor­ mation legislation. 24 Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins, 1919–1929. 25 Henry Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Time (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1912); Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 130–2. 26 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 131, 225–6, 378–9, 384. 27 Ibid., 231, 350; Morgan, Canadian Men and Women. 28 NAC, RG 18, vol. 3440. See also Starnes entry in Canadian Who’s Who, 1938– 61. 29 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 436–7. See also MacBrien entry in Canadian Who’s Who. 30 NAC, RG 18, vol. 3450. See also S.T. Wood entry in Canadian Who’s Who. 31 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service. Hamilton made a minimum of three thousand dollars per annum and was responsible for producing a weekly intelligence summary for government and other officials, for contacts with Scotland Yard and other foreign agencies, and for the secret correspondence of the department. Morgan, Canadian Men and Women. See also Jeffrey A. Keshen, “All the News That Was Fit to Print: Ernest J. Chambers and Information Control in Canada, 1914–1919,” CHR 73, no. 3 (1992): 315; Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship during Canada’s

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Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996); and Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 384–7. 32 Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 390–1. The new post of intelligence officer was placed under the director of criminal investigations, unlike the old liaison officer, who reported directly to the commissioner. 33 Charles Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit in the Wilderness (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), esp. chs. 1, 8; see also Canadian Who’s Who, 1958–1970. For more information on Armitage see Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 391, 465. 34 Mike O’Brien, “Manhood and the Militia Myth: Masculinity, Class and Militarism in Ontario, 1902–1914,” Labour / Le Travail 42 (Fall 1998). 35 RCMP, Annual Reports, 1940–41, 135. As late as 1941 initial training was described as consisting of two parts: the cavalry / military-style training and the practical policing side, which in 1940 included typewriting, powers of observation, finger-printing, public speaking, and the use of gas. For an illustration of the cavalry training, see C.W. Harvison, The Horsemen (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967). 36 Gregory S. Kealey and Andy Parnaby, “How the ‘Reds’ Got Their Man: The Communist Party Unmasks an RCMP Spy,” Labour / Le Travail (Fall 1997): 251–66; James Dubro and Robin Rowland, Undercover: Cases of the RCMP’s Most Secret Operative (Markham, ON: McClelland and Stewart, 1991); and Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 391–2, 439–40, 449–52. 37 Dubro and Rowland, Undercover, esp. ch. 2; CSIS Records, RCMP Personnel file 5743, NAC. RG 146; ATIP 88HR-2533. 38 Dubro and Rowland, Undercover, esp. ch. 11; Martin Lobigs, “Canadian Responses to the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, 1936–1939,” MA thesis, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, 1992; Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 445. 39 Leopold Medical Record, 25 September 1918 NAC, CSIS Records, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, John Leopold; ATIP 88-HR 2533. 40 Leopold Medical Records, 8 August 1921, NAC, CSIS Records, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, Leopold; ATIP 88-HR 2533; Betke and Horrall, Canada’s Security Service, 392, 439–40. 41 Salt to OC, S. Saskatchewan, 2 July 1921, NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, Leopold, vol. 3. 42 NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, Leopold. 43 Ibid. Not surprisingly, that entire passage was deleted from the first released version of this document and was only given to me after a complaint was made to the information commissioner. 44 NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, Leopold; ATIP 88-HR 2533.



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45 Starnes to OC, S. Saskatchewan, 19 April 1923, re: Income Tax Act; Allard to Starnes, 7 August 1923, re: John Leopold, NAC, RG 146, Personnel file 0333, vol. 2. 46 Starnes to R.S. Knight, assistant commissioner, Regina, 31 August 1926, NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, vol. 2. 47 Starnes to Knight, 27 October 1926, NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, vol. 2. 48 Kealey and Parnaby, “How the ‘Reds’ Got Their Man,” 259–67; Starnes to Knight, 25 March 1927, NAC, RG 146, file 0333, vol. 2. 49 H.M. Newson, Supt, Western Ontario, to Starnes, 16 November 1927 and Starnes to Newson, 19 November 1927, NAC, RG 146, file 0333, vol. 2. 50 Jas. Ritchie, Supt, to Inspector Moorhead, Simpson, NWT, 9 June 1928 NAC, RG 146, file 0333. 51 G.L. Jennings to Commissioner, 2 October 1933, NAC, RG 146, file 0333, vol. 2. 52 Medical history, RCMP Acquaintance of Claim Form, 21 September 1935, NAC, RG 146, file 0333. 53 Mary Leopold to Chief Officer, RCMP, 2 April 1932, NAC, RG 146, file 0333. 54 Memo regarding Sgt. Leopold: Extract from Hansard, 8 April 1937, p.2969; memo to Commissioner, Re: Arrest of J.W. Esselwein (Sgt. J. Leopold), 27 July 1937, NAC, RG 146, file 0333. 55 Jennings to Commissioner recommending re-engaging Leopold given his recent good behaviour, 11 September 1934; and Rivett-Carnac to Director of Criminal Investigation, 6 October 1937, NAC, RG 146, file 0333, vol. 2. 56 For more on the RCMP’s use of secret agents, see Michelle McBride, “Fascism, Secret Agents, and the RCMP Security Service, 1939–41: Preliminary Remarks on Three Secret Agents in the Italian-Canadian Community of Montreal,” paper presented to CHA / CASIS Panel, Learned Societies Conference, Ottawa, 31 May 1998. 57 Kealey, “Surveillance State.” 58 See Mark Leier, “Portrait of a Labour Spy: The Case of Robert Raglan Gosden, 1882–1961,” Labour / Le Travail 42 (Fall 1998), and Mark Leier, Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2000). 59 NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333. 60 NAC, RG 146, RCMP Personnel file 0333, Leopold; ATIP 88-HR 2533. 61 Lorne and Caroline Brown, An Unauthorized History of the RCMP (Toronto: James Lewis and Samuel, 1973); Hewitt, “‘Old Myths Die Hard.’” 62 For an examination of how the RCMP treated female fascists and other women interned during World War II see Michelle McBride, “The Curious

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Case of Female Internees and the Inter-departmental Committee on Internment during World War II,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italians and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad, 148–70 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000). 63 For more on the CSE, see James Littleton, Target Nation: Canada and the Western Intelligence Network (Toronto: Lester, Orpen Dennys, 1986), and Mike Frost with Michel Gratton, Spyworld: Inside the Canadian and American Intelligence Establishments (Toronto: Doubleday, 1994).

7 A War on Ethnicity? The RCMP and Second World War Internment Co-authored by REG WHITAKER

The story of internment during the Second World War can be told from various points of view. One of these is from the perspective of the Se­ curity Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the agency charged with developing the intelligence base for identifying those considered, according to government criteria (to which the RCMP itself contributed), threats sufficiently dangerous to national security and the war effort to require internment. How did the “Mounties” view the internment process? What did their performance reflect of their strengths and weaknesses as a security intelligence force? What lessons did they draw from the experience? This essay attempts to address these questions by looking at what the RCMP did for internments, at ethnicity and ideology, at ethnicity on trial, at home-grown fascism, and at what internments did for the RCMP. What the RCMP Did for Internments Nothing in the wartime experience has led to more notoriety for the RCMP’s Security Service than the internment of various people under the Defence of Canada Regulations (DOCR). Depriving people of their liberty without the normal safeguards of charges under the Criminal Code, legal counsel, habeas corpus, and a “day in court” – all possible to some degree under the draconian provisions of the DOCR that put the safety of the state first – was bound to rouse resentments on the part of those on the receiving end. Internment of unpopular minorities was widely applauded at the time by the majority. This only deepened the anxieties of affected minorities, especially in retrospect, when a new era of post-war multiculturalism spurred feelings of ethnic victimization

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that could not have been openly articulated during the war itself. The Japanese-Canadian community has been offered an official apology by the Canadian government for the forcible relocation and confinement of the entire Japanese population of the Pacific coast and the confiscation of its property. Italian Canadians too have received an official apology from Ottawa for the internment of six hundred Canadians of Italian origin, while at the same time criticism of how that apology was obtained has surfaced from within the Italian-Canadian community.1 Scholarly arguments have also been made about the efficacy of the internments of 847 German Canadians.2 In other cases where ethnicity was replaced by ideology as grounds for internment, complaints of serious injustice have also been sounded.3 The RCMP was the agent of the state in this activity, as in other intelligence and national security matters. The commissioner of the RCMP was appointed registrar general of enemy aliens under the authority of the DOCR. By March 1940, sixteen thousand “enemy aliens” (­Canadian residents of German birth not British subjects by 1922) had been registered through a special branch of the RCMP set up for this purpose.4 The Mounties were expected to gather intelligence on subversive activities carried out by groups banned under the DOCR by the cabinet, to prepare lists of persons associated with such groups designated for internment, and to take such persons into detention when their names were approved by an advisory internment committee of senior government officials. Under an order-in-council of 4 June 1940, RCMP officers were made justices of the peace for the purpose of issuing search warrants regarding illegal organizations. As William Kaplan explains, “The effect of the new regulation was that any time an RCMP officer wished to search any premises all he had to do was prepare in his own hand an order giving him the authority to enter and search for any reason, or no reason.”5 Police forces are rarely heard to complain about being given too many powers; the Mounties were no exception. The DOCR and the atmosphere of wartime emergency allowed the Force to exercise a degree of intrusive surveillance and control over groups that it considered suspicious, without the usual set of peacetime constraints. Policies such as national registration of aliens offered the Force the opportunity to expand its surveillance database, as did security screening of government employees and the application of finger-printing.6 These ­developments accelerated the acceptance of modern techniques of political policing and as such were welcomed by a force eager to build up its overall capabilities.



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Ethnicity and Ideology The actual conduct and conditions of internment were not an RCMP responsibility. The instance of apparent ethnic victimization that has gained most attention – that of the Japanese relocations – actually fell outside the internment program as such; ironically, the RCMP was taken off this case precisely because its advice was not alarmist about the supposed threat of a Japanese “fifth column.” Nor was the RCMP particularly hawkish about the threat posed by German and Italian Canadians, despite well-founded concerns about Nazi and fascist activists among their ranks.7 Another group that drew unwelcome attention because of its pacifism and unconventional social customs – the Mennonites (of largely German extraction) – was viewed with some sensitivity by the Mounties.8 When ethnicity was mixed with left-wing ideology, it was a different story. The RCMP, in keeping with the always dominant anti-­communism of the Security Service, was implacable in pursuit of pro-communist Ukrainians, Red Finns, and other ethnic associations of leftist bent. While able to conceive of the notion that most Canadians of German, Italian, and Japanese origin were probably loyal and law-abiding, especially if treated fairly, to be firmly distinguished from the potentially disloyal minority of activist trouble-makers, the RCMP showed few signs of any sympathy for members of leftist ethnic associations – even when these associations were enthusiastic supporters of the war effort, as they were following the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941. One of the groups that did suffer from internments and from property seizures was the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), which had its string of cultural centres across the country closed and their assets disposed of. The RCMP not only kept close scrutiny on the ULFTA but invariably interpreted the words and behaviour of its officers in the worst possible light.9 Close to a hundred communists or those associated with communism according to the dossiers of the Security Service were interned, eventually all together in the Hull Jail just across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill.10 Even after the USSR entered the war on the allied side, many of the communist internees were kept behind prison bars for close to another year. In this and in the maintenance of the ban on the Communist party throughout the war, the RCMP was not simply a silent agent but an active lobbyist within government against any legitimation of the communists.

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Communist activist Stewart Smith (facing camera) being taken by paddy wagon to Toronto’s Don Jail (no date).

Yet when it came to drawing up the “particulars,” as the official charges against the internees were called, the Security Service, which would have contributed the bulk of the evidence, was not always very precise, or even credible. Ludicrous particulars in the case of individual communists (that X had attended a civil liberties meeting or that Y “­associated” with Z, who associated with Y, thus demonstrating a conspiracy) eventually drew unfavourable press attention. One communist internee was even charged with contesting the constitutionality of Quebec’s notorious Padlock Law.11 Despite detailed knowledge of who was who in the party, amassed from under-cover sources, evidence of actual treasonous or even illegal behaviour by individual communists seemed hard to come by. Perhaps there was no such evidence, despite revolutionary rhetoric that the RCMP no doubt found seditious. Or perhaps what evidence there was would have pointed to secret sources the RCMP had no wish to disclose, nor any need, given the expansively draconian scope of the DOCR.



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Ethnicity on Trial?

The Italian Community A major criticism made of the RCMP in relation to the German and Italian groups is that the Force lacked intelligence resources of sufficient quality to identify properly and then isolate the small minority of actively disloyal agents of the Axis powers from the wider ethnic communities in which they were hiding. Some critics have gone so far as to deny the very existence of enemy agents. The result is that in the eyes of these critics, innocent persons were rounded up and interned, on the basis of their ethnicity alone: thus, critics argue, the RCMP and the Canadian state in effect abused minorities in the name of WASP hegemony, making the internments a case of “ethnicity on trial.” The Security Service was certainly aware of its own deficiencies with regard to the Japanese community. In its internal annual report for 1941–2, the Intelligence Branch conceded that surveillance of the community was “maintained only with difficulty, as due to racial and physical dissimilarities, our sources of contact are limited.”12 Yet similar arguments regarding the German and Italian communities do not stand up to close scrutiny. For one thing, the Security Service did generally possess adequate language facilities to watch political developments in these communities. For another, its surveillance of pro-Nazi and pro-fascist activities had long antedated the war. In fact it had been acting closely with ­Norman Robertson, a senior official in the Department of External Affairs soon to become under-secretary of state, and other senior civil servants through the latter half of the 1930s to monitor such activities. J.L. Granatstein describes this as a “desultory process of planning” and a “belated effort” and implies that Robertson had to do some of the RCMP’s intelligence work. No doubt Robertson, who semi-­humorously described his role to his parents as a “one man Cheka or Gestapo ... c­ ivilian commissar with the RCMP” did marshal some useful intelligence (including information on fascists quietly acquired from communist and later convicted Soviet spy Fred Rose), but it is misleading to suggest that the RCMP had no interest of its own in Nazi and fascist activities in Canada.13 Intelligence on fascism in the Italian community began prior to ­Robertson’s initiative. Interest was spurred, several scholars suggest, by the Ethiopian invasion of 1935–6, which revealed to the Canadian government the potential dangers of fascist oaths taken by Italian Canadians when Canadian and Italian foreign policies came into ­

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c­ onflict.14 Constant reports flowed from Commissioner Wood to Robertson.15 Translations and analysis of the Italian-language press in North America (including the United States) were supplied, but, much more important, sources were developed within the various Italian communities around the country, which yielded increasingly detailed reports in the late 1930s.16 The RCMP found especially useful a network of informants from the communities. Willing collaboration was fairly widespread, perhaps reflecting anti-fascist sentiments and resentment against some of the community leaders enlisted by the Italian diplomats, in other cases involving more mixed motives.17 Undercover RCMP operatives, such as John Leopold and Frank Zaneth, who had been employed to penetrate the Communist party and labour unions, proved less useful than voluntary informants from the community; there were few RCMP officers with the requisite language skills to be credible under-cover “Italians.” When Italy and Canada formally went to war in June 1940, the RCMP was very well prepared. According to an internal RCMP memorandum, ninety-five per cent of the Italian fascists were “known to us”: “We have complete files and enough evidence to warrant their immediate arrest.”18 As McBride puts it, “Essentially ... the Canadian government interned those whom the Italian community told it to arrest.”19 A crucial distinction was made between leaders and rank-and-file followers. The registration of “enemy aliens” was also a key surveillance tool. Finger-printed, the dangerous could be detained while the “sheep,” the words of a Justice Department official, could be “kept track of.”20 Once Canada was at war with Italy, the DOCR permitted the seizure of documents that led police to make further arrests. In Quebec, the RCMP asked the Quebec provincial police to assist them, using Maurice Duplessis’s Padlock Law. It is hard to square this account with the image of a force too ill-­ informed to finger those likely to cause trouble or potentially vulnerable to Mussolini’s agents. Indeed, despite retroactive protestations of innocence, it does seem that the activities of most of those rounded up in 1940 constituted prima facie threats to national security in a war in which Italy was an enemy state.

The German Community Similar points could be made with regard to pro-Nazi organization among Canadians of German background, although the latter community was more dispersed than the Italians, especially in the west, where



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pro-Nazi activity was most successful, and thus a somewhat more difficult target for surveillance. According to Jonathan F. Wagner, the ­Germans, predominantly farmers, who settled the Prairies were more recent arrivals than the more urban workers and artisans in the east, were less assimilated than their eastern counterparts, and were more likely to have been exposed to strong German nationalist ideas prior to emigration. Moreover, during the Depression years they tended to be more economically insecure, thus easier targets for pro-Nazi agitation. Not surprisingly, much of the pro-Nazi activity was in fact directed at the west, but the small, rural, rather self-contained German communities on the prairies were perhaps somewhat harder targets for the RCMP to penetrate than the urban Italian communities.21 The RCMP had been keeping tabs on German-Canadian political activities (of both Left and Right) as early as 1931,22 but after Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, the politics of anti-communism sometimes played against building an effective dossier on pro-Nazi organizations. For instance, when the Deutscher Bund, one of the most important tools for Nazi influence in Canada, applied for a beer licence in 1936, the RCMP determined that the Bundists were “anti-communist” and thus less dangerous than their left-wing rivals.23 By mid-1938, however, public opinion in Canada had turned sharply against Nazi Germany, increasingly seen as a potential adversary. The RCMP began directing closer attention to the influence sought by the Nazis over the Auslandeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside the Reich) and to the specific mechanisms of influence through various German-Canadian organizations with connections to the homeland. Obviously, the racial ideology of Nazism lent itself to potential extensions of the Nazi state through “Aryan” brethren abroad. Yet if notions of the “master race” and of German cultural and racial superiority were breeding grounds for Canadian Nazism, they also limited the potential reach of these ideas. German Nazis had little or nothing to do with homegrown Canadian pro-Nazi activists, whom they tended to look down on as racially inferior. There was thus little likelihood of any proHitler infection spreading into the wider population from the seeds planted by the German government in the German-Canadian community – unlike the potential of a common conservative Catholicism to lead to links between the Montreal Italian pro-fascists and the extreme right wing in Quebec, as noted in RCMP reports. The Canadian government made a serious error, as senior officials later admitted among themselves, in not making some official statement indicating the potential disloyalty implicit in membership in suspect

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­ ro-Nazi organizations. Consequently, some German Canadians may p have joined such groups without realizing that it put them in jeopardy when war broke out with Germany.24 Scholars argue that Canada had failed its ethnic communities in the 1930s by not stopping the ­actions of the German and Italian consuls earlier and then had little choice with the war “but to attempt to protect the rest of the country from the potential problems of allowing a portion of its population to embrace fascism.”25 Whatever the limitations of past practices, when war did break out it would seem that the RCMP did have relatively good intelligence on potential German trouble-makers – not perhaps as detailed or as rich as the information on the Italian pro-fascists but good enough to yield a  list of virtually all the leaders. Wagner declares that by 1939 “little escaped the force at this point, as informers and agents reported on any activity which might be construed as pro-Nazi.” He adds that within the space of a few days at war’s outset, “the country’s leading Nazis were rounded up and detained.”26 The first and biggest sweep was accomplished in lightning police raids before dawn on 4 September 1939 (before Canada was officially at war, thus pre-empting some though not all evasive action). Some of those initially detained were later found to be less serious cases and were subsequently released. Others were later detained as a result of information gathered in the first round of internments, thus illustrating once again that internment and seizure of assets and information were effective surveillance tools in themselves. That some Germans rounded up may not have been real Nazi activists would not be surprising; mistakes can be made in such wide sweeps. Some “mistakes,” however, may have been deliberate. For instance, the German-Canadian League, an anti-Nazi organization, reported that a detainee in the initial sweep was one of its “under-cover” members. The League did not wish to see him released, however, as he might prove a useful informant to the police from within the internment camp. While the RCMP had been reluctant earlier in the 1930s to co-operate with anti-Nazi elements in the German-Canadian population because of its anxieties about communist influence, it was actively co-operating with the German-Canadian League as well as other antiNazi forces in 1939. A handwritten note to the commissioner in October 1939 gloats that it is “interesting to note how dog eats dog, thus simplifying our campaign.”27 Keyserlingk condemns the RCMP for interning farmers and workers, whom he assumes were unlikely to be effective agents of Nazi sabotage or subversion. Yet he admits that almost all those included in the initial sweep were members of pro-Nazi organizations. Keyserlingk derides



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the arguments of the RCMP that such action broke the back of potential Nazi activity against the war effort.28 The RCMP’s claims were indeed stated somewhat extravagantly. Clifford Harvison of the Intelligence Branch, later an RCMP commissioner, wrote that within forty-eight hours “more than 200 leaders and sub-leaders of Nazi groups were arrested” in Quebec, mostly in Montreal. “Due to the surveillance work that had continued up to the last moment, all but two or three of the leaders were among those apprehended and they were arrested within the next few hours ... Years of painstaking investigation that had at times brought severe criticism proved its value.” Harvison claimed that captured enemy agents later told the RCMP that the “speedy arrests had completely wrecked the carefully built German espionage apparatus in Canada.” As additional proof of the “effectiveness of the anti-subversive work ... not one case of enemy sabotage occurred during the war.” Harvison went further to state that the German High Command confirmed all this after the war. There appears to be no evidence to support this latter assertion. Another official in the Security Service, Charles Rivett-Carnac, was only slightly less restrained in his praise of the branch that he supervised in the late 1930s, asserting that “we were able to take effective measures against those aliens in Canada who could otherwise have proved hostile to the Allied cause.”29 Keyserlingk assumes, along with other critics, that because little or no pro-Nazi activity against the war effort was later uncovered, no threat existed in the first place. It is surely equally reasonable to conclude that prompt action had pre-empted such activity by removing those whose previous links with pro-Nazi or pro-fascist organizations would make them the nucleus of any potential enemy-directed plots. After all, Nazism and fascism were racial ideologies that claimed the loyalties of “blood brothers” across the seas. The fifth-column scare in the spring of 1940 serves to highlight a marked gap between popular anti-German hysteria and the relative coolness and professionalism of the RCMP. As Harvison recalled years later, “Each setback in Europe was followed by a flood of calls, letters and visitors volunteering information” on alleged fifth columnists. ­After the fall of France, “the flood became so heavy as to require the setting up of a large, special staff to receive visitors and to handle mail and telephone calls ... Almost always, the information was the result of overwrought imaginations, but every scrap of information required checking. There was always the long chance that the information might contain a grain of truth. More important was the need for reassuring the public as to the interest and alertness of the security service.”30

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While it was important that the RCMP be seen to be responding to public anxieties, it is evident in retrospect that they remained steady in the face of the anti-German prejudices that were animating many people. The internments were more remarkable for their relative selectivity than for putting “ethnicity on trial,” striking not at the ethnic communities in general but at the ideologically suspect minority – in striking contrast to the experience of the 1914–18 war. At most, 847 pro-­ Germans  were interned (out of a potential population base of more than a half-million), with most released by late 1944 or early 1945 – in striking contrast to the nine thousand or so persons of German and Austro-Hungarian origin interned during the first war. The total numbers of Italian internees peaked at 632, with most released by the end of 1943. If we add in communists and Canadian Nazis, the total number of internees appears to have reached just over 1,200 in 1940. This total excludes the “relocated” Japanese population of British Columbia, and also the refugees from Hitler’s Germany, many of them Jewish, sent from Britain to Canada and kept behind bars for much of the war. The Japanese experience is of course a notorious exception to this  observation, as this community was indeed severely penalized on the basis of ethnicity, but again the RCMP played no active role in this sorry tale. Where it was directly involved, the RCMP might actually be given some credit for the relative selectivity that the state did demonstrate. Homegrown Fascism The RCMP’s intelligence on the homegrown varieties of Nazis and fascists was not as good at the outbreak of war as its knowledge of the German and Italian communities.31 The leading force on the extreme Right in Canada was Adrien Arcand, the firebrand “führer” whose activities were centred in Quebec. Although investigation of Canadian fascism was launched seriously in 1935, detailed information on ­Arcand and his followers (whose public activities were systematically scrutinized from 1938 on) came with internment, rather than preceding it. When Arcand was interned in 1940, an impressive array of documents was seized relating to correspondence with German Nazis since 1933, and membership lists from the Arcand group and others across Canada came into possession of the police.32 By that time, war with the fascist powers put paid to any future for homegrown Canadian fascists in the post-war era. Perhaps the RCMP had not taken these groups as seriously as it might have before the war, but it was clear that they hardly posed a



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continuing security threat. This may explain the absence of much mention of Nazi activities in the RCMP’s internally circulated Intelligence Bulletins,33 a point noted by critics of the RCMP within the civil service.34 While this has led some to conclude that the RCMP was blind to right-wing extremism allied to Canada’s foreign enemies while hypersensitive to left-wing groups allied to the USSR (which take up most of the attention in the Intelligence Bulletins), McBride makes the entirely sensible point that fascists were considered by the RCMP important enough to be candidates for internment, but not to be as significant long-term security threats as the communists.35 The notion that there was some active sympathy in the RCMP with fascists, apart from a shared anti-communism, is not very convincing. It is true that on the eve of the Nazi–Soviet pact, Charles Rivett-Carnac, then head of the Intelligence Branch, attempted to assure Norman Robertson that communists were a worse menace than Nazis, since fascism did not involve ‘the overthrow of the present economic order – and its administrative machinery ... Fascism is the reaction of the middle classes to the Communist danger and, as perhaps you are aware, the Communists describe it as ‘the last refuge of capitalism.’”36 Yet despite this predisposition to view fascist activity less seriously as a security threat than communism, and despite an official Canadian attitude towards Hitler’s Germany in the late 1930s that combined isolationism with occasional naiveté (at least on the part of Prime Minister Mackenzie King), evidence of positive pro-Nazi sentiment, or even a willful blind eye, on the part of the RCMP is simply not there. Certainly the doctrine of German racial supremacy was hardly calculated to appeal to a force thoroughly impregnated with the ideals of a Canada loyal to the British imperial mission. Nor were the clandestine, “subversive” aspects of extreme right-wing organizations, with their overtones of foreign interference, likely to commend themselves to a force fully committed to the conservative political policing of Canadian society. Once war with the Axis powers had begun, the RCMP knew very well who Canada’s enemies were and who their potential Canadian allies were – although this did not diminish its certainty that the communists remained once and future threats, despite the wartime alliance with the USSR. What Internments Did for the RCMP If the RCMP and its small Intelligence Branch were key instruments of the state in the implementation of the internment policy, interment also

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represented concrete advantages for the RCMP’s security intelligence role. Emergency wartime powers, especially of detention, search and seizure, and censorship, provided unparalleled opportunities to extend and consolidate political policing. Internment particularly contributed to the de-legitimation of political extremism in ways especially helpful to the RCMP. The idea that certain kinds of political activity were subversive had always been a powerful tool, but the Intelligence Branch had always been constrained to a degree by the need to fit its political policing into a framework of criminal law enforcement. Policing of the communists had reached a peak in the early 1930s with the use of section 98 of the Criminal Code, deportations of foreign-born communist union organizers, and the jailing of a number of communist leaders following the Rex v. Buck et al. treason trials of party officials in 1931, but this had proved controversial and allowed communists such as Tim Buck to pose as martyrs. In 1938, the RCMP prepared a nationwide assault on the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) with detailed plans for the arrest of the leadership for violations of neutrality and passport regulations relating to recruitment for the Spanish Civil War. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the memories of CPC successes in the aftermath of the Buck trial played a major role in the decision not to arrest and prosecute people. The DOCR, with their banning of political associations and arbitrary powers of internment, provided a far more flexible and politically effective instrument in the context of wartime patriotism and national discipline. Above all, the linkage between extreme ideologically motivated political movements and Canada’s foreign enemies served to discredit these movements and to place them in a kind of special quasi-legal status as legitimate targets for permanent surveillance. For the RCMP, the quiet go-ahead given to the Intelligence Branch to penetrate and monitor Italian and German pro-fascist groups in the late 1930s was a very useful precedent. These groups were not illegal entities under the current law of the land, and the government of Canada had given no official warning that membership or participation in such groups should pose any concern to individuals. Yet under the shadow of war the government had, in its secret councils – in which the RCMP was a key participant – made certain definitive judgments about the potential disloyalties attached to membership in specific groups and had then charged the RCMP with responsibility to identify and locate the leaders and potential trouble-makers from within the groups for internment the instant the previously prepared orders were enacted.



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The relative effectiveness of the Force in carrying out these responsibilities, along with the apparent nullification of the espionage, sabotage, or subversion threats believed to have been posed by these groups, ensured that the RCMP would carry out of the war an enhanced prestige within the Canadian state and some surety of a continued pre-eminent role in security intelligence in the post-war era. In retrospect, it is apparent that the wartime internment experience helped lay the groundwork for the Cold War anti-communist security measures that followed. Once again, as it had been since the labour revolt of the First World War, the RCMP’s Security Service was given the task of developing intrusive surveillance of a legal political entity – the CPC – and its various arms and fronts.37 Once again, such extraordinary peacetime political policing was set up by a government decision that communists, in the context of a possible future war with the Soviet Union, would constitute a serious security risk that would require internment. Once again, lists were to be drawn up for action when warranted. The maintenance of such lists was part of the justification for a vast post-war surveillance operation against communists, communist allies, and people with any associations with communists. Such was the scale of this operation that a royal commission in the late 1970s discovered that the RCMP held security files on some 800,000 individuals and organizations.38 Potential internment was not the only basis for such a vast operation – the security clearance system in the public service and immigration lent powerful impetus to the accumulation of secret dossiers as well – but, especially in the 1950s, when war sometimes seemed a very real possibility, preparation and maintenance of the lists of internees (code-named operation PROFUNC) ate up some of the Security Service’s time and resources. There was one other lesson that the RCMP may have drawn, to its profit, from the wartime internment experience. Indiscriminate internment of “enemy aliens” as in the First World War, or the direct targeting of an entire ethnic community for relocation and detention, as with the Japanese in the Second World War, was inherently divisive in a country with large immigrant communities. The RCMP record from 1939 to 1945 on this issue is not at all as questionable as some critics have claimed. On the whole, and given the obvious limitations imposed on it, the RCMP proved fairly adept at distinguishing ideology from ethnicity. There is a complex wartime history of the relationship between the Ukrainian-Canadian community and the Canadian state and the relationship between pro-communists and nationalists within that

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community that illustrates the difficult passage that had to be negotiated by the Force. Pro-communist Ukrainian groups were of course fundamentally suspect, and in 1940 the Canadian government had taken an active hand in creating the Ukrainian-Canadian Committee as an umbrella group of respectable anti-communist nationalists. After the Nazi invasion of the USSR the following year, however, a delicate problem presented itself: pro-communist Ukrainians were now vociferously supporting the war, while the loyalties of some of the antiSoviet nationalist Ukrainians might be considered suspect. The RCMP kept a close watch on all factions and employed well-placed informants to pass on detailed information. For a time in 1941, a key figure in the wartime effort by Ottawa to develop a policy towards ethnic communities was employed by the RCMP as a temporary director of the “European section.” Tracey Philipps, an Englishman with inter-war experience in British intelligence, was cautiously anti-communist but above all interested in building unity behind the war effort. Following his stint with the RCMP, he continued as an adviser on nationalities but ran into fierce (and unfair) criticism from the pro-communist Ukrainian language press – criticism that in the prevailing atmosphere of the Grand Alliance was picked up by some sections of the mainstream press as well. External Affairs, pressured by its new Soviet allies, was doubtful about allowing public assertions of Ukrainian independence, and Phillips was eventually squeezed out of  official Ottawa. So was a close ally on minorities policy, Professor Watson Kirkconnell, who, though never directly employed by the ­ RCMP, was to be an ally of sorts in the coming Cold War as an inveterate anti-communist public crusader. While official policy on minorities never formally gelled around firm  support of anti-communist ethnic organizations during the war, the  RCMP, in its careful handling of the prickly Ukrainian-Canadian problem, showed the way towards the future of state–ethnic relations. Keeping a watchful eye on all factions, the RCMP nevertheless steered towards legitimizing and thus domesticating the more conservative ideological tendencies, while identifying and isolating the pro-­communist Ukrainians as potential security threats.39 The contrast with the much blunter sweep of the First War against “enemy aliens” was sharp and instructive. This lesson was to stand the RCMP in good stead in the  Cold War days ahead, when it was careful to target only the pro-­communist ethnic associations and to establish working relationships with anticommunist organizations from the same communities.



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It cannot be said that in the wartime internments the RCMP showed any great respect for civil liberties.40 Of course, it did not have to, given the extraordinary wartime state of emergency and the powerful forces, both populist and governmental, demanding stern and swift action in the name of national security. Nor was there in the Canada of the 1940s any Charter of Rights or the same consciousness of the rights of minorities as exists in the twenty-first century. In any event, the RCMP’s Intelligence Branch was a security force and a political police; concern for civil liberties was neither part of its job description nor on the list of tasks presented it by the government. That said, it is noteworthy that it acted within the parameters set for it with reasonable restraint, especially in the face of the temptations to exploit ethnic prejudices – temptations to which other agencies of the Canadian government succumbed in the case of the Japanese Canadians, to Canada’s lasting shame. NOTES 1 Bruno Ramirez, “Ethnicity on Trial: The Italians of Montreal and the Second World War,” in Norman Hillmer, Bohdan Kordan, and Lubomyr Luciuk, eds., On Guard For Thee: War, Ethnicity, and the Canadian State, 1939–1945 (Ottawa: Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War, 1988), 71–84; papers presented at the “Internment of Italian Canadians during World War II” conference at York University, Toronto, October 1995; Franca Iacovetta and Roberto Perin, “Introduction,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 1–23; Franca Iacovetta and Robert Ventresca, “Redress, Collective Memory, and the Politics of History,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 379–412. 2 Robert H. Keyserlingk, “‘Agents within the Gates’: The Search for Nazi Subversives in Canada during World War II,” Canadian Historical Review 66 (1985): 212–39, and “Breaking the Nazi Plot: Canadian Government Attitudes toward German Canadians, 1939–1945,” in Hillmer, Kordan, and Luciuk, eds., On Guard for Thee, 53–70. 3 William Repka and Kathleen M. Repka, Dangerous Patriots: Canada’s Unknown Prisoners of War (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1982); Reg Whitaker, “Official Repression of Communism during World War II,” Labour /  Le Travail 17 (Spring 1986): 135–66.

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4 Carl Betke and Stan Horrall, Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline, 1864–1966 (Ottawa: RCMP Historical Section, 1978), 484. 5 PC 2363, 4 June 1940. William Kaplan, State and Salvation: The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Fight for Civil Rights (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 49–50. 6 On screening and finger-printing, see Larry Hannant, The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995). 7 Caution and moderation with regard to the “enemy alien” minorities are quite evident from the annual wartime reports of the Security Service. During the height of the fifth column scare in 1940, RCMP headquarters was flooded with denunciations by Canadians of their German-origin neighbours, including a list of “traitors” submitted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The RCMP handled these complaints with what can best be described as weary forbearance: those checked out invariably proved unfounded. See the papers of the House of Commons Committee for the Defence of Canada Regulations, and Office of the Clerk of the House of Commons, Ottawa. Also see Angelo Principe, “A Tangled Knot: Prelude to 10 June 1940,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 27–51; Luigi Bruti-Liberati, “The Internment of Italian Canadians,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 76–98. 8 Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The War Series, Part II, 1942–1945 (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1993), 1 March 1943, 64–6, and Introduction, 22. 9 On the ULFTA, see Whitaker, “Official Repression of Communism.” The ULFTA’s complaint that its property and halls had in some cases been sold by the Custodian of Alien Enemy Property to its “bitter political enemies” the Ukrainian National Organization (a complaint echoed by a number of respectable civil libertarians in mainstream Canadian society), was dismissed by the RCMP in its internal Intelligence Bulletin in the following extraordinary fashion: “The psychological effect upon the ... membership through loss of their halls to its [sic] opposition helps to keep alive the enthusiasm in their organization and produces a state of exuberance [!] so necessary to back their demands to the Government.” Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins: War Series, Part II, 1 March 1943, 56.



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10 See Ian Radforth, “Political Prisoners: The Communist Internees,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 194–224. 11 The “Padlock Law” allowed the Quebec government to close premises deemed to be used for the dissemination of “Communist propaganda,” the latter term being defined not in the law but arbitrarily by the attorney general. The law was passed by Maurice Duplessis’s Union Nationale government in 1937 and ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1957. 12 Report dated 14 April 1942. 13 J.L. Granatstein, A Man of Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929–1968 (Ottawa: Deneau, 1981), 81–90. A. Grenke, “From Dreams of the Worker State to Fighting Hitler: The German-Canadian Left from the Depression to the End of World War II,” Labour / Le Travail 35 (Spring 1995): 65–105, points out (94) that Robertson’s advice overrode the RCMP’s intention to intern left-wing German Canadians on the basis of information that they were anti-Nazi and pro-war, despite the Hitler–­ Stalin pact. 14 See, for example, Michelle McBride, “From Internment to Indifference: An Examination of RCMP Response to Fascism and Nazism in Canada from 1934 to 1941,” MA thesis, Memorial University, 1997, 33; Angelo Principe, Luigi G. Pennancchio, Luigi Bruti-Liberati, and Enrico Carlson Cumbo, “Part One – Italian Canadians, Fascism, and Internment: Black Shirts or Sheep?” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 27–99. An account of “consular fascism” can be found in Martin Robin, Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920–1940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 207–32. 15 Wood to Robertson, 1 February 1938, with reference to initial letter from Robertson dated 27 April 1936. 16 See Luigi Bruti-Liberati, “The Internment of Italian Canadians.” 17 Michelle McBride, “Fascism, Secret Agents, and the RCMP Security Service, 1939–41: Preliminary Remarks on Three Secret Agents in the Italian-­ Canadian Community of Montreal,” paper presented to joint session of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Ottawa, 31 May 1998. 18 CSIS 87-A-130, V.A.M. Kemp, Superintendent O Division, to the Commissioner, 15 May 1940. 19 McBride, “From Internment to Indifference,” 170; Principe, Pennacchio, Bruti-Liberati, and Carlson Cumbo, “Part One – Italian Canadians,

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Fascism, and Internment: Black Shirts or Sheep?” Some informants, she writes, and as others have shown, were secret agents, others vindictive neighbours, while others were simply trying to be good Canadian citizens. 20 Quoted in McBride, “From Internment to Indifference,” 169. 21 Jonathan F. Wagner, Brothers beyond the Sea: National Socialism in Canada (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1981), 18–21. On German-Canadian Nazism, see also Robin, Shades of Right, 233–64. 22 CSIS 117–89–94. 23 McBride, “From Internment to Indifference,” 39–40. 24 CSIS 87-A-130, Norman Robertson, memorandum to O.D. Skelton, 17 April 1940, and Robertson to Bavin, 17 April 1940. 25 McBride, “From Internment to Indifference,” 200–1; Luigi G. Pennacchio, “Exporting Fascism to Canada: Toronto’s Little Italy,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 52–75; Luigi Bruti-Liberati, “The Internment of Italian Canadians.” 26 Wagner, Brothers, 131–2. 27 CSIS 117–89–94, 7 September 1939. 28 Keyserlingk, “‘Agents within the Gates.’” 29 C.W. Harvison, The Horsemen (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), 101; Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit in the Wilderness (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), 295. 30 Harvison, Horsemen, 144. 31 On homegrown fascists, see Lita-Rose Betcherman, The Swastika and the Maple Leaf: Fascist Movements in Canada in the Thirties (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1975); Robin, Shades of Right, 125–206. 32 CSIS 87-A-130. After his release from internment, Arcand sued unsuccessfully to regain possession of his papers. 33 Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins, The War Series, 1939–1941 (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1989); War Series, Part II, 1942–1945. 34 H.S. Ferns, Reading from Left to Right: One Man’s Political History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 182. 35 McBride, “From Internment to Indifference.” 36 NA, Norman Robertson Papers, vol. 12, f. 137, Rivett-Camac to Robertson, 24 January 1939 37 For the early history of these files, see Gregory S. Kealey, “The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the RCMP Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–26,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (1993) [Chapter 5 in this book].



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38 Commission of Inquiry Concerning Certain Activities of the RCMP, second report, vol. 1, Freedom and Security under the Law (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1981), 518. 39 On the Ukrainian Canadians and the Canadian wartime state, see Bohdan Kordan, “Disunity and Duality: Ukrainian Canadians and the Second World War,” MA thesis, Carleton University, 1981; Thomas M. Prymak, Maple Leaf and Trident: The Ukrainian Canadians during the Second World War (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1988); N.F. Dreisziger, “The Rise of a Bureaucracy for Multiculturalism: The Origins of the Nationalities Branch,” 1–30, William R. Young, “Chauvinism and Cana­ dianism: Canadian Ethnic Groups and the Failure of Wartime Information,” 31–52, and Bohdan Kordan and Lubomyr Luciuk, “A Prescription for Nationbuilding: Ukrainian Canadians and the Canadian State, 1939– 1945,” 85–100, all in Hillmer, Kordan, and Luciuk, eds., On Guard for Thee; Frances Swyripa, “The Politics of Redress: The Contemporary UkrainianCanadian Campaign,” in Franca Iacovetta, ed., Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 355–78. 40 For a critical account of RCMP failures in this regard, see John Stanton, “Government Internment Policy, 1939–1945,” Labour / Le Travail 31 (Spring 1993) and his My Past Is Now: Further Memoirs of a Labour Lawyer (St John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1994).

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PART III THE ARCHIVAL TRAIL

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8 Filing and Defiling: The Organization of the State Security Archives in the Inter-war Years

“George, you won,” said Guillam as they walked slowly towards the car. “Did I?” said Smiley. “Yes. Yes, well I suppose I did.” John le Carré, Smiley’s People (1979)

Le Carré, or rather his protagonist, George Smiley, won his Cold War a decade and a half before the actual demise of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but for both George and his creator, the former MI5 agent David Cornwell, the moral ambiguities of that victory, and especially of the methods by which it was achieved, were overwhelming. The Smiley novels and the subsequent works of le Carré are moral tales for our time. Le Carré’s fiction derives its power not only from rivetting plots with detailed depictions of trade craft but also from careful characterization. No character is more important than Smiley, and at his core is an ever-increasing ambivalence about the Cold War. Indeed his doubts appear all the more profound because they develop from his uncertainties about the West itself, not from any delusions about the nature of the Eastern bloc, a point made even more clearly in le Carré’s more recent novel Our Game (1995). In sharp contrast to le Carré’s focus on ambivalence and ambiguity, however, is the role played in the Smiley novels by the Central Registry, the immense national state security archives, which figures so centrally in the undeclared war fought by proxy by Western and Eastern intelligence services. Among the intriguing cast of characters that surrounds Smiley, none is more curious than the faithful Connie Sachs, “Mother Russia,” “the don woman from Oxford,” “a don’s daughter, a don’s sister, herself some sort of academic,” whose dismissal from the

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Service was as crucial to Soviet mole Bill Haydon’s survival as her return was to Smiley’s eventual “victory” over Karla, the Soviet spymaster. Connie Sachs’s character colourfully embodies the Registry itself – the sacred and secret files in which lay the tortured hints, the implicit truths, the deep secrets, that may reveal the mole’s burrow and hence the key to the maze that eventually will lead to Karla, and to “victory.” Archival research has seldom received such literary celebration as it does in the work of John le Carré. The purpose of this paper is rather more mundane than that of le Carré’s novels. Here I trace the contours of Canada’s secret service and examine its Central Registry and the files it contained. Unfortunately, I have found no Connie Sachs to open its secrets to me, and only the often frustrating, always tedious, and sometimes expensive use of the Access to Information Act (ATI) has allowed me some glimpses of the organizational structure of the Central Registry and its contents. Yet, it bears noting that the paper could not have been written without this “access” legislation, which allows all Canadians to request government information subject to certain exemptions. Cumbersome and expensive though it may be, the ATI of 1983, especially when combined with the National Archives Act of 1986, has helped to create a renewed interest in the study of Canada’s secret service.1 Nevertheless, researchers who wish to pursue such topics should be forewarned that they will have to battle the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) every step of the way to access materials even from the 1920s. I shall begin with an outline of the Registry, proceed to discuss some of its file series, and then briefly consider the makers of the files themselves. Without a clear understanding of the provenance of these files, which played such a central role in the activities of Canada’s secret political police, the historian would be in danger of grave misinterpretation. While this is true of all historical data, police reports and especially material compiled by agents and informants must be used with the greatest care. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Central Registry and Its Intelligence Section, 1920–1939 “The key to any successful intelligence system is its memory bank, its records, its filing system,” argue S.W. Horrall and Carl Betke in their until recently secret Canada’s Security Service.2 And their employer, the RCMP, followed that line from its inception in February 1920. From the outset, the Central Registry received considerable attention. The



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various Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) subversive files, carefully created by Commissioner A.B. Perry in 1919 at the height of the Canadian labour revolt, were transferred from Regina to the new Ottawa headquarters of the RCMP early the next year, although some had been centralized in Ottawa from their inception in 1919.3 Within weeks Perry issued instructions to all branches regarding the new Registry.4 From its inception the Registry had a separate Intelligence Section, initially headed by Constable John Hart and later by Corporal E.F.  Inglis, who also served as secretary to Liaison and Intelligence ­Officer C.F. Hamilton.5 A translator, generally a special constable (i.e., not a member of the RCMP), also served in the Intelligence Section of  the Registry. In 1926 this position was filled by Staff Constable ­Deighton, who was “prepared to make authoritative translations” in no fewer than eleven foreign languages, and after a brief vacancy he was ­replaced in 1927 by Miss M. Babuka.6 By 1930, when the Civil Service Commission prepared organizational charts for what it termed the “Bureau of Records,” the Intelligence Section still consisted of a principal clerk from the Force and a civilian translator. They were charged, in civil-service bureaucratese, with the “correlation and classification of intelligence material; supervision of cross-referencing and selection of excerpts; decision as to action re: completeness; allocation; conformity with requirements; custody of records.”7 The RCMP, however, continued to describe the file system as the Central Registry and did not want it confused with a normal departmental central registry, “for the difference and importance of the RCMP Central Registry lies in the fact that it prepares and presents material to the executive officers and other Branches at Headquarters ready for action; that it anticipates the needs and demands of executive action for further information, precedents, etc.; that it previews everything coming in and reviews everything going out and after action has been taken.”8 The Intelligence Section, one of seven components of the Registry by 1930, was responsible for “the Secret Service work of the Department,” namely “investigations into the ­activities of revolutionary organizations and individuals, and covers every imaginable phase of such activities.”9 The Intelligence Section head, in addition to the classification and review function of the other section heads, also “analyses, associates, compares, and tabulates in special records certain aspects of the information contained in the material he handles” before passing it on “in person” to the liaison and intelligence officer.10 The arrival of General J.H. MacBrien as the RCMP’s third commissioner in 1931 led to numerous changes in the Force. A senior translator

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was added to the Intelligence Section to provide English versions of “Russian, German, Polish, Czechoslovakian and Hungarian revolutionary and communistic propaganda.”11 A Mr Arnoni received the job, which went unadvertised because of its “very confidential” and “highly secret nature.”12 In 1934 Alexander Goodman, who had been in the Central Registry since its inception in 1920, succeeded V.J. LaChance as the head of the Registry.13 Two years later, under the direction of Commissioner MacBrien, Superintendent Vernon Kemp totally revamped the system of handling “secret” files. The precipitant of these significant changes remains unknown, but in general the new system heightened security provisions. The term “secret” was now “only to be applied to correspondence dealing with Revolutionary and Radical Activities.” The Intelligence Branch, “the Secret Service of Canada,” was to receive separate office space to enhance security, and access to “Red Files,” “Personal History Files,” and the “Weekly Summary of Radical Activities” (RCMP Security Bulletins) was to be far more restricted. Heightened security measures and ever-increasing intelligence and security activities contributed to a rapid expansion in the Registry, which had reached thirty-seven employees by early 1937, an increase of fifteen from 1930.14 The Intelligence Section had grown from two to five, with an assistant joining the section head, and the addition of a second translator and a stenographer. The new job description indicated that the Intelligence Section head continued to have the responsibility of “searching, classifying, and registering all correspondence, reports, cypher and code messages, and literature relating to the Intelligence and Security Service work of the RCMP.” In addition, he personally distributed such material to the few officials entitled to see it, insured its ­accuracy and completeness, prepared material for the liaison and intelligence officer “for immediate action,” and generally took physical charge of all “secret files and documents.” His assistant generally acted under his direction but had specific responsibility for the “Literature Ledgers.” “Translator No. 1” reviewed and provided summaries of imported literature in “some fifteen languages” for decisions concerning exclusion from Canada (i.e., censorship), provided translations of confidential police documents, and reviewed and summarized the Canadian radical press. “Translator No. 2” dealt with all French-language materials. A December 1939 organizational chart of the Registry shows an even greater expansion, no doubt owing to the outbreak of the Second World War. The Intelligence Section, now under Lieutenant-­ Colonel E.C. Bisson, had grown to four constables, three sub-constables, a stenographer, and an unknown number of translators.15



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The “Bolshevik” Files The files that filled the Intelligence Section of the Central Registry were of three primary types –175 Subversion, 175P Subversives, 177 Subversive Publications – and all originated in 1919 when the Force became the major bureaucratic beneficiary of Canada’s labour revolt.16 In the spring of 1918 the union government led by Robert Borden became increasingly concerned about the rising militancy of the Canadian working class. By the end of the year the RNWMP, which had declined in size to only about three hundred members, and had had, at best, an uncertain future, suddenly found itself with an expanded mandate to provide federal policing for the nation west of the Lakehead. In the following months leading up the Winnipeg General Strike, the RNWMP put in place an extensive network of under-cover detectives and secret agents. From the outset the major target was labour and the Left, and Commissioner Perry recognized that the Force’s new lease on life depended on its effectiveness in this area. The structures developed in the first months of 1919 for recruiting and handling secret agents and for collecting and organizing their intelligence reports were carried over into the new RCMP the following year. For our purposes, the crucial innovations were the creation of three file series focused on “Bolshevik subversion,” 175, 175P, and 177. The 175 series covers subject files dealing with so-called Bolshevism, 175P is the series of Personal History Files, and 177 is the series on “subversive publications.” Each block began in January 1919 and was continued into the 1930s. While the system was modified in that decade, these file blocks still constitute major groupings in the new National Archives of Canada (NAC) Record Group 146, the records of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). In early 1919 Commissioner A.B. Perry, Comptroller A.A. Maclean, and even the responsible minister Newton Rowell, a former Liberal, spent considerable time and energy setting up the Security Service side of the newly expanded RNWMP. On 6 January Perry circulated to his commanding officers two crucial memos that set the tone for the Force’s focus over its sixty-five years of responsibility for Canada’s secret police. Perry warned his men of “the pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism which are spreading over the world, traces of which are found in many parts of Canada.” In Western Canada, the area of the RNWMP’s jurisdiction in 1919, “the main centres from which the doctrine emanates are Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver,” Perry noted, but he also drew their attention to “the various foreign settlements ... which are very susceptible to Bolshevism [sic] teachings and propaganda.” As “the sole

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Federal Police Force in Western Canada ... it is therefore our duty to actively enquire into and take such steps as may be legally possible to prevent the efforts of misguided persons to subvert and undermine the settled Government of Canada.” After reiterating the list of banned organizations under PC 2384, the order-in-council of 27 November 1918, he mandated his officers “to take steps to select some good trustworthy men whom you consider could be employed effectively as Secret Agents.” Perry then drew their attention to the prohibited list of publications and the need to collect others that might fall foul of Criminal Code sections dealing with “treasonable and seditious offenses.” (Here, then, is the basis for the 177 file block.) Word of mouth did not escape his attention, however, and “very careful action is to be given to public speeches and addresses” and also to the “street speeches more or less prevalent in large centres.” Where such speeches were anticipated to be seditious, short-hand accounts should be recorded. All such investigations “must be conducted in such manner as not in any way to arouse suspicion or cause antagonism on the part of such associations or organizations.” Finally, Perry exhorted them “to be alert” to furnish the government with “any information” that would “keep it early advised of any developments towards social unrest” to prevent such “to develop into a menace to good order and public safety.”17 On the same day, Perry sent his commanding officers a second circular memo, providing more detail on their secret service work. Under the head “Detectives and Bolshevism” the commissioner explained that “Detectives and Secret Agents should make themselves fully acquainted with all labour and other organizations in their respective districts.” “Each” were to be “carefully investigated” to determine (A) The purpose and object of the Organization. (B) If the Organization is one which could possibly be influenced by Bolsheviki propaganda in order to gain its ends. (C) Has the Organization Bolsheviki tendencies at the present time. (D) Is it a Bolsheviki organization. Not surprisingly, (B), (C), and (D) “must receive careful and constant attention.” Such ongoing investigations would feed the 175 file block, but, in addition, Perry also demanded that “the officials and leaders of these organizations must be carefully investigated and as much as possible studied regarding their ways, habits, and antecedents.” Such study should be recorded in separate, confidential reports to the com-



Filing and Defiling  217

manding officers, who in turn were to keep “a file for each leader or ­official.” “By such means,” the commissioner explained, “a complete history of these men and their doings to date will be available at any time.” After this seeming nod to the historian, Perry explained his operational purpose: “It might be found that the officials of one organization take a minor part in the activities of some other organization. If this was carefully recorded on the man’s file, it might prove of value at a later date.” Thus, in embryo, the 175P file block.18 The actual 175P block was created at the end of February when Assistant Commissioner W.H. Routledge, the head of the RCMP’s Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), centralized in Ottawa the personal files earlier envisioned by Perry. In a CIB memo to all commanding officers regarding Personal History Files, Routledge explained, “For the purpose of having at Headquarters a comprehensive and detailed history of all principal agitators, it has been decided to gather all possible information with regard to these men at the various points where they have been known to have been active at any time during their resident [sic] in Canada.” To highlight the importance of these files, the commanding officers were to “give their personal supervision to their preparation.” Routledge made a series of modifications as the months passed regarding the data to be collected, but key points included date of arrival in  Canada, naturalization, police record, “degree of intelligence and education and all other possible information which would assist in compilling [sic] a complete record of the man.”19 Two weeks later, he added “influence and standing” in associations, “ability and influence as an agitator,” “intimate associations,” languages spoken, and “­habits” (smokes, drinks, gambles, etc.).20 While this data gathering may have appeared straightforward in ­Ottawa, it proved rather less so in the field. In mid-April, for example, Cortlandt Starnes, who was later to succeed Perry as commissioner, forwarded the complaints of his chief detective, Sergeant Albert Reames, to Perry. Reames explained that Secret Agent 32 could not get photographs for the Personal History Files without arousing undue suspicion “as on this game our customers are too wise.” Reames cautioned patience and care, while Starnes noted that “members of the SPC [­Socialist Party of Canada] are getting very suspicious of strangers and suspect almost everyone of them to be secret service agents of the Government.” Starnes also pointed out to Perry that “enquiries regarding the Personal History of any member of their party, immediately arouses suspicion and the difficulties encountered by our men in obtaining the

218  The Archival Trail

data required are considerably enhanced by their being strangers in the city.” As a result, Starnes instructed Secret Agent 32 to leave his biographical inquiries until he was “thoroughly initiated into the different Socialist Parties in the city.”21 Thus, from its origins the RNWMP targeted labour as its primary focus. As the Perry memo cited above suggests, the commissioner attached considerable importance to the development of Personal History Files. The National Archives of Canada holds the first register of these files, which consists of a file number, an individual’s name and place of residence, and an occasional additional comment. The files themselves are filled with all information gathered by the Force by any means concerning the individual. Many of the files themselves have recently been transferred to the Archives by CSIS and are present in RG146. The first register, covering the years 1919 to 1924, is in the Archives, and subsequent partial lists have been acquired by access requests to CSIS. These lists have been published recently.22 In those first six years 2,590 files were opened. These files concerned 2,525 individuals once duplicates were removed. A subsequent access request to CSIS for the later registers to the end of 1929 succeeded in gaining a heavily exempted list, which indicated that in the following five years another 2,216 individual files were opened. In other words, on average, 437 Canadians had files opened on them annually from 1919 to 1929.23 The lists lend themselves to relatively limited analysis, but Table 8.1 shows the geographical breakdown for the first 2590 files.24 As can be seen, British Columbia and Alberta are significantly over-represented, Saskatchewan and Manitoba somewhat, and the rest of the country badly under-represented. To some degree at least, this is a statistical artefact, because the RNWMP only had jurisdiction in Western Canada in 1919. For example, the first Toronto file is number 1225 and the first Montreal file 1254, which suggests that almost half of the total files were generated before 1 February 1920 when the new RCMP took over national jurisdiction. Other scattered information that can be gleaned from the list is the presence of sixty-eight women, one of whom, Alii Koivisto, is quaintly described as “an agitatress.” In addition, the list includes twenty-three clergy members (the Reverends William Ivens, William Irvine, A.E. Smith, J.S. Woodsworth, and S ­ alem Bland are the most prominent), fourteen doctors, six members of the military figures, and five elected officials (John Queen of Winnipeg and Mayor Joseph Clarke of Edmonton, for example). The unfortunately rather random marginalia also identify nine Industrial Workers



Filing and Defiling  219

of the World (IWW) and six One Big Union (OBU) members, as well as an array of less predictable entries such as “English harvester,” “Jewish lecturer,” “Esperanto teacher,” “Hindu wrestler,” and, perhaps most intriguing, “ex-RCMP.”25 The rapidity with which the files on radicalism and radicals grew created its own internal difficulties for the RNWMP. In late May Routledge wrote the commanding officers concerning the problem of the paperwork: “Considerable difficulty appears to be arising in having easily accessible files ... the present files and especially those dealing with Bolshevism etc., in many cases overlap one another making it necessary to hunt through three or four files before one can find the particular piece of information required. Files are also becoming bulky.” He advised, as partial solutions, supplying clearer and more concise headings, limiting reports to only one subject, and keeping separate personal files for each individual mentioned. The last point especially applied to Bolshevism files; Personal History Files were to be “submitted at the same time or as soon after the fact as possible.” To ensure standard responses he provided a sample form. (See illustration for an example of a completed report.) Finally, because of the explosion of files on the OBU (“it is very evident that this is going to be a very large subject in our work”) he attached a current list of OBU file numbers and names as a guide for further subject-file creation.26 The subject files do not lend themselves easily to quantitative analysis, especially because of the heavy exemptions that CSIS invoked when preparing the documents for release under the Access to Information legislation. Nevertheless, an examination of Table 8.2 shows a heavy concentration of file opening in the first few years of RNWMP / RCMP operation, as one would expect with a new file series. Thus, in its first four years of activity, the RCMP opened over seventy-six per cent of the files opened in the twelve-year period from 1919 to 1930. The number of new files opened fell dramatically after 1922, as, of course, did the combined fortunes of the Canadian Left and the RCMP. The Depression years would bring a new vigour to both. A perusal of the file register for the mid- and late 1920s also suggests a considerable narrowing of focus as the RCMP concentrated ever more specifically on the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), its foreign-­language affiliates, and its other related organizations. From its inception the CPC received massive RCMP attention. In early February 1921, Superintendent Albert Cawdron, former head of the Dominion Police and for a brief time RCMP director of criminal investigation, wrote to his commanding officers, “We are desirous of obtaining at the

220  The Archival Trail Table 8.1. “Agitators” by Location, 1919–24 Number on List

2590

Number Names (after adjustments)

2525

Number Places Listed

2287

A. Geographic Breakdown of Provinces No. of agitators

% agitators

% Canadian population, 1921

British Columbia

775

33.9

6.0

Alberta Saskatchewan Ontario Manitoba Quebec Nova Scotia Prince Edward Island Yukon New Brunswick USA Other Foreign Unknown

477 286 276 253 158 15 1 1 0 24 5 16

20.9 12.5 12.1 11.1 6.9 1.0 – – – 1.0 0.2 0.7

6.7 8.6 33.4 6.9 26.9 6.0 1.0 – 4.4

2287

100.3

B. Geographic Breakdown by City with 50+ agitators No. of agitators

% agitators

Vancouver

427

18.7

Winnipeg

194

8.5

Montreal

156

6.8

Edmonton

118

5.2

Toronto

80

3.5

Calgary

74

3.2

Regina

73

3.2

Ft. William

65

2.8

Saskatoon

53

2.4

1240

54.3

Source: RG18 v. 2448, Register of Bolsheviks. For list see G.S. Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929 (St John’s, 1994), 383–451.



Filing and Defiling  221

This document, dated 26 November 1920, is from the Personal History File of Florence Custance, an important leader of the Communist Party of Canada in the 1920s. It is a report on a One Big Union meeting in Toronto, written by an RCMP under-cover agent whose name (along with the names of other individuals) has been blacked out at the bottom by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

222  The Archival Trail Table 8.2. Number of Subject Files Opened, 1919–30 Year

No. of files

1919

3459

File numbers 1–3459

1920

300

1921

690

% of total

Cumulative %

50.4

50.4

3460–3759

4.4

54.8

3760–4449

10.1

64.9

1922

790

4450–5239

11.5

76.4

1923

434

5240–5673

6.3

82.7

1924

347

5674–6020

5.1

87.8

1925

269

6021–6289

3.9

91.7

1926

179

6290–6468

2.6

94.3

1927

90

6469–6558

1.3

95.6

1928

127

6559–6685

1.9

97.5

1929

82

6686–6767

1.2

98.7

1930

92

6768–6859

1.3

100.0

Total

6859

100.0

Source: This table is derived from the data In Kealey and Whitaker, eds., RCMP Security Bulletins. Please note that it substantially corrects Table 2 (p. 18) of that volume. The list is on pp. 452–651.

e­ arliest possible date a complete list of the names of those in your District who are active or in any way connected with the Communist Party of Canada.” All such individuals were to be added to the Ottawa data bank of Personal History Files. Such individuals might face “deportation for being connected with a party affiliated with and adopting the principals [sic] of the Third International which is opposed to all forms of Government with the exception of that of a Soviet.”27 The successful penetration of the CPC from its earliest days, especially by RCMP under-cover constable John Leopold (alias J.W. Esselwein) in Regina from 1919 to 1928, has historically been the one, highly promoted success story of the RCMP’s secret service. Certainly the CPC received extraordinary attention, as can easily be seen in the thousands of pages of CPC subject files I have received through use of the access legislation.28 The third file block was 177, the classification for subversive publications, or “Prohibited or Objectionable Literatures.” This list also originated in 1919, when press censorship was still in force under the War Measures Act, but the list continued throughout the decade. The list for the first three years was obtained from the holdings of the National



Filing and Defiling  223

Archives and thus is not exempted, but the subsequent list for the rest of the decade was obtained from CSIS and has been subjected to many exemptions under the access legislation. Table 8.3 shows the annual rate of file opening, which suggests a slowing in the mid- and late 1920s, with a significant increase in activity in 1929. An analysis of the first three years of activity, where the data remains unexempted, shows that of the 281 files opened 46.3 per cent concerned individuals in possession of such literature or geographic locations where such literature had been discovered. The next largest category of files was the 31 per cent concerning individual newspapers or magazines. Another 14.2 per cent concerned individual pamphlets or books, and 2.1 per cent related to bookshops, publishers, or libraries. A surprising 8.2 per cent of the files covered the publications and activities of the International Bible Students Association, an early version of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.29 While some additional material was suppressed because of its pacifist or anti-conscription message, the bulk of the banned literature was published by labour and socialist groups. The Makers of the Files In analysing the files, we must continually remind ourselves not only of the overt purposes of their compilation, a matter about which RCMP commissioners were quite forthcoming, but also about the file makers at each stage of the complex process. Files were made up of covert data gathered in the field by paid secret agents, under-cover RCMP detectives, and unpaid informants. Overt material, such as flyers, pamphlets, newspapers, and books, was also collected and submitted either to the officer in the district in charge of the Criminal Investigation Branch or to the commanding officer. He (as far as I am aware there were no women agents and certainly no women Mounties in these years) would then comment on the material and pass it on to the Registry in Ottawa. There it was read and sometimes analysed by the Intelligence Officer, who in turn often sent it to the commissioner. Occasionally such material would then be routed to other government departments for their use. Such raw data also provided the material for the Security Bulletins, which were distributed to cabinet and to top-ranking civil servants.30 The “makers” of the files came from rather different socio-economic places. Agents, to be effective, needed to blend into the Canadian working class, and hence were often drawn from Canada’s variegated ethnic mosaic. Similarly, RCMP under-cover detectives needed to

224  The Archival Trail

i­ mmerse themselves totally in the working class, especially those who stayed underground for long periods of time, such as the famous Sergeant Leopold who acted as an agent in the CPC for almost ten years before being exposed. While information on “human sources,” both agents and regular Mounties, is among the most difficult to gain from CSIS, a preliminary analysis of some thirty secret agents and fifteen RCMP under-cover operatives suggests the obvious, a heavy dependence on European immigrants with foreign-language skills. Among the Mounties this was true of Leopold and of Frank Zaneth, another prominent under-cover Mountie who testified in the Winnipeg trials of the G ­ eneral Strike leaders. Among the secret agents were Chmichlew­ ski, ­Daskaluk, Dourasoff, Eberhardt, Koburagi, Kuzyk, Reithdorf, and ­Veloskie.31 On the other hand, there were a few agents from AngloCeltic backgrounds, but they tended to have even more exotic backgrounds. For example, there were former Wobbly (IWW member) Robert Gosden, who was exposed as a police agent at the Calgary Western Labour Conference in 1919, and the Petrograd-born Mervyn Black, who had managed cotton mills in Russia and the Soviet Union before migrating to Saskatchewan, where he failed as a farmer and joined the RCMP.32 It was men, then, with foreign or exotic backgrounds who provided the Force with its “human sources.” The men to whom they reported, however, came from further up in the Canadian social order. The first four commissioners who led the RNWMP and the RCMP from 1900 until 1950 were all born in Canada and all had military backgrounds. A.B. Perry (1860–1956) was born in Napanee of United Empire Loyalist stock, graduated in the Royal Military College’s first class, and joined the RNWMP in 1883 after a brief military career in the Royal Engineers. He served in the North-West Rebellion and became commissioner of the RNWMP (1900–20) and of the new RCMP (1920–3). His successor, Cortlandt Starnes (1864–1934) was born in Montreal, also of Loyalist stock, served with the 65th Montreal Regiment in the NorthWest Rebellion, joined the RNWMP in 1886, and served as commissioner from 1923 to 1931. General J.H. MacBrien (1878–1938) hailed from Myrtle, Ontario, served briefly as a Mountie at the turn of the century, fought in the Boer War, served six years in the South African Constabulary, and then returned to Canada and the military. He rose to the rank of brigadier-general in the First World War, and served as chief of the general staff from 1920 to 1928, before heading the RCMP from 1931 until his death in 1938. The last commissioner of the first half of the twentieth century was S.T. Wood (1889–1961), whose father, ­Zachary,



Filing and Defiling  225

Table 8.3. RCMP Prohibited / Objectionable Literature Files, 1919–29 Year

No. of files

1919–20

194

File numbers 1–194

Per cent of total 31.8

1921

87

195–281

14.3

1922

56

282–337

9.2

1923

31

338–368

5.1

1924

33

369–401

5.4

1925

35

402–436

5.7

1926

48

437–484

7.9

1927

25

485–509

4.1

1928

35

510–544

5.7

1929

66

545–610

10.9

Total

610

100.1

Source: NAC, RG18, 2433 and CSIS, Access Request. For list see Kealey and Whitaker, eds., Early Years, 652–68.

had been assistant commissioner of the RNWMP. The Ottawa-born Wood graduated from Upper Canada College and Royal Military ­College, joined the RNWMP in 1912, and served as commissioner from 1938 until his retirement in 1950. To round out this picture, we can add the first intelligence officer, C.F. Hamilton (1869–1933), to the list. A journalist and military historian born in Roslin, Ontario, he covered the Boer War for the Globe, which made him famous for his scoop in the battle of Paardeburg. He was also very active in the militia and authored many volumes of military history. He joined the RNWMP in 1913, served as deputy chief press censor and director of cable censorship during the First World War, and joined the new RCMP in 1920 as secretary and became intelligence officer in 1922.33 Hamilton’s successors in intelligence, however, slightly changed the pattern. Arthur Patteson (1887–1934), who had been Hamilton’s assistant briefly, was an English immigrant who had been educated at Marlborough. He joined the Force in 1914 and worked his way up through the ranks until his appointment as Hamilton’s assistant in 1931. His immediate successors were also British immigrants. Robson Armitage, who also served for only one year, and Charles Rivett-Carnac (1935–9, 1944–5), who was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1901. His father was a police officer in India, where he grew up until returning to England for public school. He later worked in India for a brief period in the 1920s after serving in

226  The Archival Trail

France during the First World War as an ambulance driver. He immigrated to Canada and joined the Force in the early 1920s.34 The pattern then is clear: the “human sources” and their handlers came from different worlds. Largely immigrant Canadians reported to a ­central Canadian-born military elite with, starting in the 1930s, British immigrants of public-school backgrounds as go-betweens. Any precise understanding of this dynamic awaits further work, but it was a relationship fraught with tension. Leopold’s career after his exposure as a spy included a series of conflicts with his Anglo-Canadian superiors, and other agents’ personnel files contain poignant reminders that life underground was not easy. The physician of under-cover Mountie T.E. Ryan, for example, attributed Ryan’s ill health to “the many years as a plain clothes man with all the temptations that go when there is no uniform.”35 Conclusion As early as April 1922 J.S. Woodsworth, a Winnipeg General Strike defendant and later founding leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, reflected on the RCMP in the pages of The Worker, the major newspaper of the Communist Party of Canada: “It is strange, indeed, that we should have permitted a system of espionage to be developed here in Canada.”36 Some seventy-five years later the elaborate secret service system erected primarily to fight labour and the Left remains as much an enigma for us in its current post–Cold War CSIS guise as the RCMP secret service was for Woodsworth in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike. Perceptions of threats from the domestic Left have come and gone but our secret service survives, indeed even thrives, or, at least, did so until the most recent budget cuts. For the historian, u ­ sing these files is fraught with difficulties; indeed, the complexity of acquiring the material is, in and of itself, a major impediment to such research. Analysing the files can be difficult, a process not aided by the everpresent, annoying exemptions that all too often come at what are – not surprisingly – the key points in the documentary record. While this may appear to be only one historian’s whining, the point, of course, is that it is absolutely crucial in a liberal-democratic society that citizens have access to sufficient information to allow us to judge the behaviour and impact of our secret police. While some argument is possible about the necessity of limiting this access in the present, its successful implementation increases our necessity to have full and complete access to the secret police’s role in the past.



Filing and Defiling  227

My thanks to Fiona Capp, Writers Defiled: Security Surveillance of Australian Authors and Intellectuals, 1920–1960 (Ringwood, 1993), for the idea for the title of this article. NOTES 1 For a full discussion of these issues, see my article “In the Canadian Archives on Security and Intelligence,” Dalhousie Review 75 (1995): 26–38, and Reg Whitaker, “Access to Information and Research on Canadian Security and Intelligence,” in Peter Hanks and John D. McManus, eds., National Security: Surveillance and Accountability in a Democratic Society (Cowansville, QC, 1989), 183–95. 2 S.W. Horrall and Carl Betke, Canada’s Security Service: An Historical Outline, 1864–1966 (Ottawa, 1978), 387–8, released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in response to my ATI request 117–90–107, but with exemptions. For a discussion of this Historical Outline’s history, see Larry Hannant, “Access to the Inside: An Assessment of ‘Canada’s Security Service’: A History,” Intelligence and National Security, 8, no. 3 (1993): 149–59. 3 The RCMP was created in February 1920 by a merger of the Dominion Police and the Royal North-West Mounted Police. The Force largely owed its existence to the perceived need to combat labour radicalism and socialism. 4 Commissioner A. Bowen Perry to All Officers in Charge of Branches, Ottawa, 20 February 1920, in RCMP, C15–26, 91-ATIP-1015. 5 V.J. LaChance to S / Const. Deighton, Ottawa, 8 February 1926, in ibid. 6 V.J. LaChance, Memorandum, Ottawa, 3 May 1927, in ibid. 7 Civil Service Commission to Commissioner Cortlandt Starnes, 22 July 1930, in ibid. 8 RCMP, Central Registry Branch, 1930, in ibid., emphasis in original. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. This title was rendered interchangeably as LIO and ILO, and sometimes only as Intelligence Officer. C.F. Hamilton was replaced in 1933 by Arthur Patteson, his assistant since 1931. 11 J.H. MacBrien to Minister, 23 November 1932, in RCMP, G15–26, 91-ATIP1015 12 J.H. MacBrien to Secretary, Civil Service Commission, 20 January 1933, in ibid.

228  The Archival Trail 1 3 14 15 16

17 18

19 2 0 21 22 23

24

A. Goodman, “General Instructions,” 27 March 1934, in ibid. Insp. A. Goodman to Commissioner, 18 January 1938, ibid. Chart of Organization, Central Registry, RCMP, 7 December 1939, in ibid. For general background see my articles “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44; “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–21,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992):179–210 [Chapter 4 in this book]; and “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–1920: The Impact of World War I,” Canadian Historical Review 73, no. 3 (1992): 281–314 [Chapter 3 in this book]. See also S.W. Horrall, “The Royal North-West Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” Canadian Historical Review 61, no. 2 (1980): 169–90, and Horrall and Betke, Canada’s Security Service. Perry to Officer Commanding, Regina, 6 January 1919, Circular memo no. 807, RG13, v. 231, f. 113 / 19; also in RG18, v. 599, f. 1328. Perry to OC, Regina, 6 January 1919, Circular memo no. 807A, in RG13 and RG18 sources, n. 17. Interestingly, there is a circular memo no. 807B, which was sent by Perry almost one month later, on 5 February 1919. In it Perry, perhaps after receiving political criticism from his minister, Newton Rowell, or Minister of Labour Gideon Robertson (this is highly speculative), felt it necessary to modify his views to emphasize the existence of “responsible leaders of organized labour who are opposed to real Bolshevist propaganda and are battling against it wherever they find it in their own labour organizations.” These he contrasted with Bolshevik sympathizers and “a very small minority, and those principally of foreign birth, who have imbibed the real Bolshevist Doctrine of a class war, and they believe in revolution as a means to obtain their ends.” RG18, v. 599, f. 1328. Routledge to OC. Regina, 28 February 1919, CIB memo, no. 10, RG18, v. 2380. Ibid., 14 March 1919, CIB memo no. 10A. Reames to Starnes. Starnes to Perry. Winnipeg, 15 April 1919, RG18, v. 2170. f. 18–7 Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Bulletins: The Early Years, 1919–1929 (St John’s, 1994), 383–451. RG 18, v. 2448, Register of Bolsheviks, 1919–24. My access request to CS1S was 87-A-41. The rate in the two periods was almost identical, 432 versus 443; however, given that the opening of files should be heavier initially, this suggests some intensification over the period. The subsequent CSIS list had no geographical information for the fiftyfour individuals whose names had not been deleted or could be identified by cross-referencing with subject files.



Filing and Defiling  229

25 The IWW was originally an American syndicalist organization that grew out of the Western Federation of Miners before the First World War. It enjoyed considerable success among itinerant workers and in the resource sector. Its syndicalist politics made it the major target of American and Canadian state repression. The OBU was a Canadian labour organization founded in 1919 that stood for the organization of the entire working class. It was blamed by the Canadian state for the Winnipeg General Strike and for the generalized labour revolt of 1917 to 1920. It too suffered from extensive state repression. 26 W.H. Routledge to OC, 26 May 1919. CIB memo no. 50, Re: Files, Diary Dates, etc., RG18, v. 2380. 27 Cawdron to OC, Ottawa, 2 February 1921, CIB Circular memo no. 306, Re: Communist Party of Canada, RG13, v. 2381. On the political use of deportation, see Barbara Roberts, Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada, 1900–1935 (Ottawa, 1988), esp. chs. 5, 7. 28 Also, see my article “The RCMP, the Special Branch, and the Early Days of the Communist Party of Canada: A Documentary Article,” Labour / Le Travail 30 (1992): 169–204. 29 For the subsequent story, see William Kaplan, State and Salvation: The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Fight for Civil Rights (Toronto, 1989). 30 See Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., The RCMP Security Bulletins (St. John’s, 1989–97). To date eight volumes have appeared covering 1919–29,1933–4, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938–9, 1939–41, and 1942–5. 31 On Leopold, see Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945–1957 (Toronto 1995), ch. 8; Kealey. “The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the RCMP Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–1926,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (1993): 129–48 [Chapter 5 in this book], and his RCMP personnel file, obtained by me, 88HR-2533. On Zaneth, see James Dubro and Robin Rowland, Undercover: Cases of the RCMP’s Most Secretive Operative (Markham, 1991), and his RCMP personnel file, 88HR-2533. On other secret agents, see Kealey, “The Surveillance State.” 32 On Gosden see the unpublished paper by Mark Leier forthcoming in Labour / Le Travail. On Black see his RCMP personnel file, obtained by me, 91-ATIP-0459. 33 Biographies of Starnes, MacBrien, and Hamilton from W. Stewart Wallace, ed., Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1963); of Perry and Hamilton from Henry James Morgan, comp., Canadian Men and Women of Their Time (Toronto, 1912); and of Wood from Canadian Who’s Who. 34 Biographical details from Horrall and Betke, Canada’s Security Service.

230  The Archival Trail 35 Kealey, “The Early Years”; Leopold, RCMP personnel file; and Dr A.R. Landry to Commissioner MacBrien, Moncton, 26 January 1934, in T.E. Ryan, RCMP personnel file, 90-ATIP-158. 36 J.S. Woodsworth, “Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” The Worker (Toronto), 15 April 1922.

9 The RCMP, CSIS, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale

In September 1984, in response to a request made by me under the Access to Information Act, the then Public Archives of Canada (PAC) ­released to me copies of their correspondence and internal working papers related to the transfer of records by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). These materials were drawn from a number of current PAC registry files, namely 8130 Acquisition of Federal Government Records – General; 8134 Acquisition – Retention and Disposal; 8135 Acquisition – Accession Control; and 8707 – Acquisition – Access and Restrictions. A brief summary of the history of these RCMP materials and of my attempts to view them in their entirety follows. The story that unfolds tells us much about archives, security forces, Access to Information legislation, and the appeal process. While this particular story has a happy ending, I can assert from painful experience that it is the exception not the rule. Many other efforts to gain access to Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) records and appeals to the information commissioner against exemptions have proven futile. Our story begins in 1961 when the RCMP transferred some 663 linear feet of primarily Royal North-West Mounted Police records covering the years 1874–1920 to the PAC.1 In 1963 an additional twenty-six linear feet of Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) records and thirteen feet of policy and administration files were transferred to the PAC. The decision to make this deposit came from a 9 January 1963 meeting of the RCMP’s Committee on Disposal of RCMP Historical Records. The committee minutes note, “It is agreed that these files [CIB, 1902–2) be forwarded to the Archives. It was also agreed that CIB files in this category, from 1923–52, inclusive ... be forwarded to Tunney’s Pasture for ­storage.

232  The Archival Trail

Each year another year’s CIB files will be forwarded to Tunney’s Pasture. With this method, Archives can draw on another year’s CIB files from Tunney’s Pasture, or, in other words, will maintain a 40-year gap on the files in the Archives.”2 The PAC accepted this policy and on 5 February Dominion archivist Kaye Lamb wrote to RCMP Deputy Commissioner George McClellan to inform him. There was, however, one disagreement. The RCMP had indicated they wanted to destroy “Confidential Monthly Reports,” dating back to 1920. The Archives demurred and asked to review those reports before any were destroyed. McClellan responded on 6 February in the affirmative, while still arguing for their disposal. He added, “We would have no objection to handing over this material to you if you find it of interest. The same policy would apply to these files as applies to CIB files.” Interestingly, an archivist had been assigned to evaluate those CIB files. Ted Regehr, then a PAC archivist, reported on 13 February that these CIB files were valuable, noting that “matters relating to labour conditions and labour agitation are well documented.” He recommended that the files be retained. Accordingly, on 15 February Kaye Lamb asked McClellan to retain that material. McClellan responded, however, on 21 February in quite a different tone. He now noted, “As you are aware, our policy dictates that matters of subversive nature remain in our custody. As there are some items of this category in these reports, it is necessary that they be removed before these reports are transferred to the Archives.” Clearly, RCMP security concerns, which as we shall see play a major role in our story, were beginning to surface.3 Curiously, here the PAC records gained from my access request start to dry up, and the next item noted is that on 1 May 1963 (May Day no less!) the RCMP transferred twenty-six items of CIB material to the PAC. Kaye Lamb thanked McClellan formally on 11 June and provided a list of this material. From 1963 until 1971 these materials were used by Canadian historians on the basis of a 1961 Lamb–McClellan agreement. The restrictions agreed to in 1961 called for researchers to sign for the material, to submit their notes and any extracts from the files to the Public Record Section staff of the PAC, and to seek RCMP permission to print any extracts from the files. For “Sensitive” materials, either they were to be closed or the archivist was to consult the RCMP liaison branch. The memo argued somewhat ingenuously that “the intention is simply to prevent unfair criticism or embarrassment to the force, not to suppress a fair historical documentation.” “Sensitive” areas included internal disciplinary matters; material relating to  charges against C ­ ommissioner Herchmer; the relationship of the



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RCMP to Doukhobors, communists, “enemy aliens,” and labour disputes, especially the Winnipeg General Strike; and material which might injure a living person’s reputation. All requests to view RCMP material were to be vetted by the head of the Public Records Section, Jay Atherton, or the archivist in charge of military records, Barbara Wilson. If there were any other questions, they were to be addressed to RCMP Sergeant D. Roller. This cumbersome process was not very satisfactory to anyone concerned. Nevertheless, and this is the key point, a number of Canadian historians used these records in that nine-year period. In practice, it appears that the PAC resorted to little screening, but archivists did insist on RCMP permission and did not allow photocopies to be made.4 In late winter 1971 archivists Barbara Wilson and Jerry O’Brien met with RCMP officials, archivist Stan Horrall and Staff Sergeant Wilson, to discuss the records. Wilson described the meeting as “pointless.” The RCMP sought from the archives explanations of the restrictions on the records in question. While indicating that they and Chief Superintendent Allen “felt that restrictions re: Winnipeg General Strike, etc., should be lifted ... if only because such a long time had elapsed since 1919,” the RCMP continued to worry about access. Some weeks later Staff Sergeant Wilson phoned “to ask how [the RCMP] would control access to the records they [were] about to transfer.” Barbara Wilson commented sarcastically, “this transfer has been imminent since early last fall!” Both sides apparently had agreed at the earlier meeting that archivists should not have “to look over the shoulders of individual students using the RCMP records.” The RCMP did suggest, however, that the archivists might censor the students’ notes. All agreed, however, that such action “seemed rather senseless.” In April 1971, archivist Jay Atherton wrote an internal Archives memo to Bernard Weilbrenner enclosing Barbara Wilson’s notes on that meeting with the RCMP. Atherton’s memo hints that the meeting had been prompted by mounting RCMP concerns about access to their records. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mortimer had written seeking assurance that such records “should only be made available to responsible researchers who are pursuing serious purposes.” As Atherton noted, “virtually all persons requesting access to our holdings fit into that category.” Atherton argued further that his staff could not “be expected to assume responsibility for controlling access to especially sensitive documentation, such as police records.” “If the records are that sensitive,” he added, “they should be exempted and all requests for access directed to the RCMP.”

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In summer 1971, the RCMP suddenly acted on their fears. The events that ensued are not well documented in PAC material, but oral testimony relates a sorry tale of the arrival in the Archives of agents from the RCMP Security Service (SS) who proceeded to engage in the overt intimidation of a young researcher, A. Ross McCormack, now vicepresident academic of the University of Winnipeg, who was then using the records. Initially the Mounties demanded he turn over his notes to them, but they settled for assurances that he would use the material “responsibly.” In the aftermath of that encounter, a team of SS agents and officers, headed by Seargent D. Roller, arrived at the PAC on 21 July 1971 and began a “box by box, screening of the records.” This project “to isolate sensitive material” was completed in October, and “on 25 October the responsible officers removed ten feet of records, mostly dated from 1919, back to RCMP headquarters.” Archivist Jay Atherton’s memo of 27 October explained, “It is the contention of the force that, if they had screened the records sent here prior to their being despatched, these particular files and volumes would not have been sent.” He concluded, “The files removed ...will be retained in their entirety until such time as a decision might be taken to return them to the archives. No stripping will take place on the files.” In general, Atherton and the Archives seemed almost happy to be rid of the controversial material and especially pleased that the rest of the RCMP collection was now open with no clumsy restrictions to administer by PAC staff. In January 1972, however, this “arrangement” became something of a cause célèbre when the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) complained to Dominion archivist Wilfred Smith that “the RCMP is removing and destroying material from the Archives.” An internal Atherton memo of 27 January, composed to help prepare the Archives’ response to the CHA complaint, noted, “All requests for destruction of public records must be approved by the Dominion Archivist. Although I gather the force believes itself to be immune from such control ... It was my understanding that the records removed would remain at RCMP headquarters for an indefinite period. I had no indication of any intention to have them destroyed.” Smith then wrote to RCMP Commissioner W.L. Higgitt, enclosing the CHA letter, and mildly seeking Higgitt’s comments. Simultaneously, the Dominion archivist wrote to the CHA, paraphrasing Atherton’s account. He also assured the CHA that the records were not to be destroyed and informed the Association of his letter to Higgitt. He failed to draw attention to Atherton’s sceptical note about RCMP attitudes.



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Not surprisingly, on 7 February 1972 Higgitt wrote Smith assuring him that the “allegation” of destruction was “without foundation.” A week later, Smith sent the CHA a copy of that letter, and there the matter was allowed to rest. A situation that reflects badly on the CHA as well as on the other bodies involved. Almost ten years later, in April and May 1981, the removal of the files became a public issue again after a flurry of letters to the Globe and Mail. As a result of this specific controversy and because of the general findings of the McDonald Royal Commission on the RCMP Security Service, Dominion archivist Wilfred Smith wrote to RCMP Commissioner R.H. Simmonds seeking the return of the material and also requesting other RCMP SS materials. In spring 1982 the material was returned to the PAC. It should be noted, however, that the PAC had not even bothered in 1971 to keep track of what the RCMP removed. Only the RCMP had compiled a rough list. Thus, in 1982 archivists were not able to indicate with any certainty whether they had received everything back that had been removed in 1971. Indeed they believe they may have received some records that had not been in the archives previously but that others that had been removed were not returned. An April 1984 PAC memo by archivist Judith Roberts-Moore described the situation in detail: Unfortunately, the list gives file numbers, not titles, and volume numbers which have since been changed. Records removed included material from the Comptroller’s office series, from the Commissioner’s office series, crime reports and personnel files. Pages from letterbooks were also cut out and taken back to headquarters. A total of 22 volumes as well as some individual files went back to RCMP headquarters. No separate list of these files was prepared concurrently by Archives staff; therefore it is difficult to determine the accuracy of the list. In 1982 the RCMP transferred these records back to the custody of the PAC ... It appears that most of the material removed in 1971 was eventually returned in 1982. However, discrepancies do exist. For example, two files from the HQ series dated 1920 were not transferred back ... It is therefore difficult to determine whether all the records came back; indeed, it is also true that additional records have been included in some cases.

It should also be noted that the materials withdrawn in 1971 went far beyond the materials supposedly in dispute. They included not only CIB records deposited in 1963 but also material from the original 1961 deposit.

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To add insult to injury the RCMP in a letter of 8 October 1982 insisted “that certain files were still restricted.” The PAC’s objections were met with the rejoinder from C / Supt. W.B. Drew that “the material ‘could not be released without impunity’” [sic]. In summer 1983 in conjunction with my research on the Canadian labour revolt of 1919 I  began my quest to view this material and simultaneously to try to reconstruct this complicated history.5 By fall 1983 some of the material had been viewed, but other requests were denied because of the RCMP restrictions mentioned above. A series of informal access requests through the PAC Access Section, however, gained access to most of the restricted files. On 15 August 1984, however, I was informed that four reports had been subjected to deletions under various exemptions of the Access Act. Therefore in late August 1984 I appealed to the information commissioner after the PAC refused my formal request for complete divulgence of the documents still in dispute. My complaint concerned four 1919 RCMP reports, two from Vancouver and one each from Macleod, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Further prompting letters to the information commissioner in November and January led to various letters from her investigator which in January were initially optimistic but which eventually reported a complete impasse by April 1985. The fact that the records were already in the PAC meant that my complaint was actually against that institution, not against CSIS. Throughout this affair, the Archives made it clear that, although they had the legal authority to release the materials to me, they would not do so without CSIS agreement, for fear of endangering further relations with the service. Thus, CSIS prepared the legal submissions to the Commissioner, arguing against my right to view this material. I think it is reasonable to guess that the Dominion archivist, Jean-Pierre Wallot, and his staff were concerned as well with the potential precedentiary value of a Federal Court ruling on the questions involved in my case. In August 1985, only after my request to the information commissioner, CSIS agreed to let me see part of their substantial legal submission of 18 July 1985.6 The text they released was totally retyped, so I had no idea what was missing. The crux of their argument was that the documents were denied to me because they “might identify or tend to identify sources who had worked for the Royal Northwest Mounted Police during the years of 1919 and 1920.” Citing British cases from the 1790s (the height of the anti-Jacobin hysteria) and American cases from Reagan’s Supreme Court (CIA v. Sims, US Supreme Court, 1985), CSIS



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argued that, “As sources are promised at the recruitment stage that their identities will remain absolutely confidential and this promise is confirmed from time to time, it would appear that any breach of this promise, no matter how slight, would at least put a dent in and perhaps ultimately destroy the bonds of trust that presently exist between sources and their handlers.” The chilling implications of this argument were made only too clear later: An additional consequence of disclosing the identity of sources that would have long-term implications would be the destruction of the bonds of trust that presently exist between them and their handlers. Our present sources would undoubtedly derive little comfort from guidelines providing that source identity information cannot be released for a designated period of years. Sources would always suspect that the designated period could later be shortened on a whim. This is the very reason why we, along with all intelligence agencies around the world have always promised and continue to promise absolute and perpetual confidentiality to sources.

Warming to their argument, they turned to history: A period of 65 years, although it bridges three generations, is a brief span in the lifetime of an intelligence service and in the memory of subversive and terrorist groups. One cannot help remarking on the coincidence of the year 1919 which was not only the date of the documents sought by Professor Kealey but also mark the date of the alleged Turkish genocide of the Armenian people, which has already given rise to one of the most determined blood feuds of recent history.

It is impossible to resist noting that their “alleged” genocide of the Armenian people actually took place in 1915–16. So much for the “coincidence of the year 1919.” On the other hand, this argument remains the core CSIS position which continues to prevent the transferring of material to the Archives. Subsequently, I gained access to censored versions of a further CSIS submission to the information commissioner. On 29 August 1985, the then director of CSIS, Ted Finn, took issue with arguments being advanced by the commissioner to which I had no access. The issues raised revolved around the employment status of the special agents in 1919, the interpretation of the injury test in Section 16 (1) (c) of the Access Act, and the question of public testimony by agents. Finn gave no ground

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on any point. At this point CSIS also revealed to me that I had seen only fourteen of twenty-nine pages of their original argument. In a 29 August letter to Jean-Pierre Wallot, Finn also rehearsed a CSIS version of the history of the documents. Noting the early 1970s removal of the documents from the Archives and the 1981 return of “much of the material,” he opined that the “documents containing the names and numbers of Special Agents were mistakenly returned to Archives.” More menacingly, he sought Wallot’s permission yet again “to review the RG-18 files in order to identify sensitive documents, identifying the names of these Special Agents with a view to having then placed in a ‘RESTRICTED’ category.” On 4 September 1985, I received from the PAC part of one of the documents originally refused to me under Section 15(1) (d) (ii) of the Access Act. (See Appendix 1, Letter 2, Vancouver, 4 April 1919, paragraph re: Seattle.) CSIS apparently regarded its own case here as indefensible. One week later, I flew to Ottawa to appear before the information commissioner to present my arguments for the release of the remaining ­material. Accompanied by Vic Sim of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who had maintained a watching brief on my case and had provided me with legal advice, I met with the commissioner and three members of her staff for some two or three hours. On 7 February 1986, the information commissioner found in my favour and offered to proceed to Federal Court on my behalf. She ruled that CSIS’s claims “that disclosure of information about sources active in 1919 would hamper the ability of CSIS to attract or maintain confidential sources” were “not established” and thus were “not reasonable.” Therefore, she recommended to the minister of communication (then Marcel Masse) that he instruct Dominion archivist Jean-Pierre Wallot to release the material to me. On 21 March 1986, in anticipation of a refusal that both I and the information commissioner fully expected, I authorized her office to apply to the Federal Court of Canada for a review of the PAC refusal to disclose. With the deadline approaching, CSIS surprised us all and through the offices of Minister of Culture Marcel Masse informed the information commissioner at the eleventh hour that the release of the records in question had been ordered. In a letter of 26 March 1986 to Jean-Pierre Wallot, CSIS Director General of Information Management R.H. Bennett explained their sudden reversal: We have adopted this altered stance because it has been shown that the very information we were attempting to protect, has in fact been available



A Curious Tale  239 to the public for many years. To continue to refuse the release of this information and allow this matter to proceed to Federal Court, would probably be a waste of everyone’s time, based on the availability of the information and the possibility that the Court would only find against us.

While chastened, Bennett remained unrepentant: The accessibility of this type of information and our consent to release it in this instance, certainly adds to our apprehension over the effect that may result to our source development program. We are by no means backing down from our previous position, namely that we will continue to protect the identification of sources, no matter how much time has passed. The availability of the additional information surfaced by the Commissioner’s investigator, in this instance, caught us by surprise.

No matter how murky Bennett’s syntax, CSIS’s position is clear enough. Finally, in closing, Bennett thanked Wallot and his staff “for the backing that you have given CSIS in this matter” and expressed his regret that “our case was ultimately weakened after so much time and effort was expended by both of our Departments.” The crucial factor in this case then was that not only had various historians already viewed the material but also some of the agents involved had been used in public prosecutions in 1919–20 and had been identified in press reports as agents. From the CSIS perspective a loss in Federal Court might have established important precedents governing their future handling of historical materials, whereas the decision to provide me with this particular material on this occasion could be viewed as an exceptional case with no precedentiary value. Thus, on 4 April 1986, PAC sent me the rest of the material in question. (See Appendix 1.) And at the end of May 1986, Information Commissioner Hansen sent me a copy of her argument and letter to the minister of 7 February. (See Appendix 2.) A short postscript can be added to this curious tale. In January 1988, while conducting further research at the newly named National Archives, I requested certain RCMP materials that I had not viewed in my earlier research. My request for a number of files went to Access because the volumes were still restricted. The Access Section subjected them to similar exemptions to those used in 1983. My complaint that I had already been through this succeeded in freeing a document in which the agent named had been identified previously. In the other

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case, however, I was assured that a previously undisclosed agent was named and that the document was therefore still exempt. Needless to say I filed a formal access request and in a letter of 4 February the document was released to me on the grounds that “(a) the document in question is similar in content to RNWMP reports previously released; and (b) that Special Agent Eccles was mentioned in a previously released RNWMP report dated 13 March 1919.” (See Appendix 1, Letter 1.) This additional document appears here as Appendix 1, Letter 5.

My thanks to the following for their critical comments on this paper: Dan Moore, Judith Roberts-Moore, and Gerry O’Brien of the National Archives, my colleague Ralph Pastore, and also to the Access Section of the National Archives, who responded to my formal requests concerning these matters with diligence and dispatch.



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Appendix 1 Editor’s note: In the letters that follow the original pagination is indicated by numerals and breaks in the text and the information originally deleted is inserted in bold face. Letter 1 “E Division”

Vancouver, B.C. March 13, 1919

Secret & Confidential. The Commissioner, R. N. W. M. Police, Regina, SASK. Sir:

Re: Secret & Confidential Monthly Report.

In accordance with instructions contained in Circular Memo 809 of 10-2-19, I beg to report that on the work of Secret investigation which has been carried out. Regt. No.6020 is doing invaluable work investigating the Federated Labor Party, and I wish I had more like him. His assistant is attending to Bolsheviki & Russian Workers’ Union, etc. As their work had hardly developed in February a review of the reports will not be forwarded for February report. Of important matters the case of Joe Klodniski, alias Ruttka alias Kerchek, was reported on 18th ult. by wire and letter stating that he had left for Chapman, Alberta. Since receiving your letter of 8-3-19 no further information is to hand. On the 18th ult. Special Agent Spain was sent to Vancouver Island to investigate Joseph Naylor, report on which was forwarded on 7-319. Joseph Naylor is well known in these parts, and I am of the opinion that his removal at sometime would have a most beneficial effect, and 1 shall keep him well in mind. -2F.R. Blockberger has been looked after by Special Agent Jones, who sticks to his work, reports were forwarded on 7-2-19, 26-2-19, and since enumerating the family and persons connected with the Blockbergers. This household is being carefully attended to.

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Reports are received from Orton Hall which are forwarded on to you, setting forth the conditions at Coughlans Shipyards, but he does not seem to have the knack of getting the essential information. I regard the question of arms and ammunition of which reports have been forwarded as important, and it is a very difficult matter to delve into as any cause for question must necessarily reveal some carelessness on the part of some other department. The longshoremen are keeping pretty quiet, which fact in itself may be open to suspicion. The Attorney-General sanctioned the prosecution of the most prominent members of the Chinese National League. Information was laid by Immigration Inspector Malcolm R. J. Reid. Warrants were issued for the apprehension of six members who have since been arrested; they were released on $5000.00 bail, Case adjourned until 6th March. The G.W.V.A. of Vancouver is very well organized. At the present time they have 2500 members, and the number is increasing daily as the men arrive from Overseas. They have very comfortable quarters in the old Vancouver Club building on Hastings St. W. Meetings are held every Thursday night and are well attended. President, Capt. C.W. Whittaker, late 102nd Batt’n. Vice Presidents R.P. Foster late Lieut. H. E. Stafford late Sgt. 7th Batt’n Secretary - H. A. Lees, late Pte. 7th Batt’n. -3Special Agent Roth was responsible for the arrest of “Chekaluk,” a Russian belonging to a prohibited Society, as he was leaving the Country. This man is committed for trial and his case will be disposed of on March 17th in the Supreme Court. Roth has been working well lately, and I am more satisfied. Special Agent Devitt has a good knowledge of this District, and I find is better employed where this knowledge comes into use, than for investigating an important case needing definite information. Special Agent Davies promises to be a very valuable man, and is investigating the Loggers’ Union, an important society of which he is a member. Special Agent Eccles is going through the Camps between Prince George and the Alberta Boundary, and I hope will obtain useful information.



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Mrs. Dickson is doing the accounts, and helping with the M.S.A. work; getting information from the Dominion Police files, etc. She is a capable woman. Her husband is very ill. Miss Mansbridge, the stenographer, works hard, and is kept very busy; in fact there is too much work for one stenographer, and this will increase. As far as labor generally is concerned, there are grave possibilities, for there is no doubt that there are very active campaigns going on amongst working men of a disturbing nature, reports of which are being forwarded from time to time. Regular meetings are held in public halls on Sundays, addressed by such people as Kingsley, Woodsworth, etc., and the tone of these meetings is of the usual extreme kind against what is termed the “capitalist” -4class, and is not favorable to the Government. The speakers are very careful not to go too far, and a good deal of what they say has, I must admit, some truth in it, when you come to weigh the actual meaning of the words spoken. Most of the men who do the speaking are probably in it for mercenary reasons, but there are a few very determined men amongst them who mean business. I am of the opinion that the Police did not arrive here a day too soon, and from what I can glean from the unsettled state of labor, Bolsheviki movement and the various other organizations of a disturbing nature, all point out that we shall have a very busy and interesting time ahead of us. I might mention that during my 20 years police experience I have had some rather difficult cases to handle, and some situations which required delicate handling, but I am forced to admit that the situation here at present far outshadows in importance anything I have ever handled and calls for the united and best possible efforts of all ranks in handling the situation. The Government must at all cost keep the returned soldiers united as far as possible. This is most important, as you will see from various reports that the various Labor and other organizations are putting forth their united efforts to try and win as many returned men as possible to espouse their cause by using false propaganda and other means for prejudice them against the Government etc. As a number of the returned men have been unable to obtain employment, this has been taken advantage of by the agitators and are getting them some recruits. If we can only keep

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-5the returned soldiers with us I am of the opinion that in case of trouble there are enough good loyal people who will stand behind the troops to make the outcome certain. On the other hand, if the disturbing elements win over a large number of returned men then the situation will become very serious. As we could not figure exactly whether they may not teach the man now in Camp here, no doubt the authorities have been most careful in selecting men to be stationed in the different units here, as this is most important. There is no doubt that they are trying to organize an international strike some time in June or July to paralyse industry. Where are a lot of determined men in these organizations who would stop at nothing to gain their end. Kingsley is harmless compared to men of the type of Winch, Kavanagh, Midegeley, Rees, McVety and Lestor, etc. who are factors of the bad element in the Country. The radical element appear to have complete control of the Loggers’ Union and some of the other organizations. A large number of these organizations, I feel sure, are I.W.W., and are now attempting to carry on their propaganda under the cloak of these new organisations. The Loggers’ Union are now 2000 strong and gaining memberships very fast. Mr. Neil, the gentleman you met at lunch during your last visit here, informed me at lunch on Thursday that these organizations have started secret service unit called the “Holy of Holies,” they all take the most rigid oath, and are carefully selected to shadow the R.N.W.M.P., as they are bound to find out what we are doing here. They are supposed to have put up at the nest as well as the cheapest places in town and dress according to their surroundings. We have no-6ticed two or three around our building. I have instructed our men not to notice them at all. However, it is very pleasant to note how delighted and pleased the great majority of people in Vancouver and British Columbia are to have the Mounted Police in their midst, especially at this time. In conclusion I have the honor to suggest that, as a large number of the disturbing element are from foreign countries that some means should be taken to send them home as speedily as possible. This I feel will ease the situation here very much.



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I have put forth my best efforts, ably seconded by all members of my command, to gather information, and to keep you informed of the pulse of the situation at the present time. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, [F. Horrigan] Supt. Letter 2 “E” Division.

Vancouver, B.C. April 4th, 1919 The Commissioner, R. N. W. M. Police, REGINA, SASK.

Sir:

SECRET & CONFIDENTIAL MONTHLY REPORT

I have the honor to submit my confidential report for the month of March 1919. Numerous investigations of importance have been made and agents have been fully employed, and I am pleased to say have produced valuable information. Regt. No.6020 has been employing his activities on the B.C. Federation of Labor and other matters connected with it. His report on the subject of the “Labor Defence Police Force,” with the name of Kavanagh as chairman, rather goes to show the determination of these people, and suggests the possibility of something more than a force to guard their meetings. The Federation of Labor has not been quite so much to the fore in its own account, but the representatives as you are aware have been most busy in their support at Calgary and elsewhere of the “One Big Union” movement. The importance of this can be seen from the following schedule of the proposed Government of the O.B.U. Central Committee of Five – A. Pritchard, Vancouver, V. Midgley, Vancouver, T. Johns, ­Winnipeg, Joe Knight, Edmonton and Joe Naylor, Cumberland. Each of the four Western Provinces has a Provincial Committee of five, and next come Trades & Labor Councils and District Boards In City District In County Districts

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With an organisation of this nature, and a good deal of determination about its leaders we are faced with a very grave problem. The best and safest policy in dealing with this question seems to be an educational one of a very well organized and vigorous order and no time should be lost in my opinion. The danger of aggressive measures in almost sure to produce the atmosphere of martyrdom. The strongest lever to use in this sort of policy to my mind, would be the festering of dissention between the leaders of the various Unions and Labor Organisations; an example of this will be seen in the criticism of A. Winch’s remarks “That labor was at war with capital” which was taken exception to by Delegate Welsh of the Metal Trades Council, Pritchard, Crawford, Cassidy of -2the Boilermakers’ Union, and one or two others, before the Royal Commission investigating the Boilermakers’ dispute. The attached newspaper clippings give a very good illustration of this point. No. 24 has done some very useful work in reporting on these matters and keeping me informed, and his reports have been forwarded. Russian Workers Union: This organization chiefly composed of unnaturalized foreigners, is getting more active, and if the proposed combine with the I.W.W. takes place it will need very close watching. No.6 is in the confidence of Starikoff, who seems to be the leader, and he together with 6020 seems to have the organization well covered. No. 14, who is also working under 6020, cannot get inside information as he is known to have been employed by the Dominion Police, but has been very useful in gathering information from the outside. I consider this organization the most dangerous, which we have to deal with, and I am of the opinion, that if the members were deported as undesirable citizens it would greatly relieve the tension. Such action would, I believe, be welcomed by the G.W.V.A., and in fact by the Public generally. Here again I think if public attention could be drawn in some way to the undesirability of having these revolutionaries from a troubled country, still carrying on their propaganda here, they would be only too glad to see the last of them. No.24’s report of March 9th on the Formation of the Soldiers & Sailors Labor Club reveals the activity of Kingsley, Pritchard, Kavanagh and Midgeley on the returned soldier problem, and the value which they place on getting hold of them.



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B. C. Loggers’ & Camp Workers’ Union is an active organization, and its membership is increasing rapidly. There appear to be quite a number of I.W.W.’s joining its ranks and since the convention at Calgary every effort has been made to get members with a view to swamping the smaller organizations who are not favorable to the “One Big Union,” when the time comes to vote on this question No.24 is a member, and is rapidly gaining the confidence of the leaders. Mr. Jolliffe of the Canadian Immigration receives reports of their meetings which help considerably in keeping touch with their plans. At the present time difficulty is encountered in keeping track of the outside delegates appointed for propaganda work in the Camps, which will only be overcome when detachments are opened up throughout the ­Division. Chinese Nationalist League: In this connection Six men are charged under the War Emergencies Act, accused of being members of an unlawful organization, namely the Chinese Nationalist League, which is a prohibited Association. The case has been before Magistrate Shaw for sometime and evidence for the prosecution taken. Some technical difficulties have been experience owing to confliction in translation and interpretations. -3Chekaluk is still awaiting trial on charge of being in possession of a card or device showing him to be a member of an unlawful association. This man elected for a speedy trial and his comes up on April 3rd, 1919. Ruttka alias Klodnicki is in town as I notified you on the 31st March, an is being kept under surveillance. With regard to my visit to Seattle, this was made on account of information I received from No.6020, to the effect that literature belonging to the Russian Workers’ Union was in a cellar under a house occupied by Mrs. Olga Meinikoff at Seattle. This woman is the wife of Melnikoff who was recently arrested in the States in connection with the murder of Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Greenwood, and had sent up to the leader of the R.W.U. here (Starikoff) asking for instructions as to what to do with these papers, as she was then under the impression that her husband was under arrest and felt certain that the Police were liable to raid her premises, and I thought that some valuable information might be obtained in connection with the Union here. As I informed you in my letter of March 18th re R.W.U.

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these papers had already been seized before my arrival. I was, however, able to get in touch with some of the Secret Service Dept, of the Seattle Police, and I think my visit there will be very beneficial. The G.W.V.A. membership is increasing rapidly, as troops are arriving back, and are doing a lot to mold public opinion in the right direction. This organization is opposed to the “Comrades of the Great War,” which has not a very reliable reputation. During the month Special Agents Jones & Wilkie were struck off the strength; the former I did not place too much confidence in, and the latter at his own request. Orton Hall also ceased work as his health was failing and he has now returned to the prairie to farm. The remainder are all doing useful and satisfactory work. Since my last report Special Agents Wilkie and Lawrence have been engaged. In conclusion I would say that my opinion remains the same, and we are up against clever men with brains and with a certain smatterism of truth to give added weight to their teachings. I consider that only by action on the part of the Government to keep the various labor organizations from uniting, and if possible secure clever and capable men to lead the conservative element in the various labor organizations and start an educational campaign; and thus develop a strong opposition to the extreme element, and by eradicating the foreign element of the agitating type can the pressure be relieved. This line of action I feel sure would soon win many honest well-meaning laborers away from the extremists. Above all the returned soldiers must be provided with work, and be kept together as supporters of the Government. I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, [F. Horrigan] Supt. Letter 3 ROYAL NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE “D” Division. MACLEOD, ALTA. MACLEOD 28th FEB, 1919 The Commissioner R. N. W. M. Police Regina, Sask.



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Sir: – I have the honour to submit for your information my confidential report for the month of February 1919. During the month Inspt Junget, Regt No 4554 Sergt Grant, Regt No 6020 Corpl Wilson, Spl Agents, Evans, Kobus, Gosden, Kyzlick, and Dourasoff, have been investigating re Industrial disputes, Socialistic and revolutionary activities in the Crow’s Nest Pass district. The coal miners in this district are in a very unsettled state, particularly the foreign element, and noticeably the Russians. About the first of the month Spl Agent Dourasoff attended at a meeting of the Russian leaders held in “Kong Sings Cafe” at Hillcrest, revolutionary speeches were made, and the anticipated coming strike after the 31st March was discussed. The leaders of this element on this side of the Summit appear to be “Paul Baron or Barunuk of Coleman” and “Paul Simanoff of Hillcrest” these men are out and out Bolshevist. Spl Agent Dourasoff has taken great pains to cultivate his acquaintance with Simanoff, and in consequence has secured some valuable information, for instance Simanoff showed him a letter from Joe Kerechoff, one of the Vancouver leaders, in which the writer stated that very soon there would be a surprise in store for the Veterans and every one else, as the Bolsheviki Organization was very strong. At the same time there was a long talk in reference to forming an Organization at Hillcrest, our Agent offered his assistance in the work, but Simanoff stated that for the time being their chances are ruined as the police are watching him etc. -2Simanoff advised waiting until the first of April when the strike has commenced, and if the Bolsheviki element meet with success in Winnipeg and Vancouver, that would be the opportune time to commence operations in the Pass. We also have two other Spl Agents at Hillcrest, viz, Gosden and Kyzlick, their reports agree with the above an extract from Gosden’s report reads as follows:- As a result of my investigation at Hillcrest I find that what is know as the Bolsheviki element among the foreigners, is in a concrete form, represented by the Russian Social Democratic Party, with headquarters or nerve centre at Winnipeg, whilst on the other hand among the English speaking element is not composed of any one body or represented by any one, but rather the radical

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element of the various legitimate labor organizations, with the nerve centre at Vancouver. Gosden also reports there is no proper organization or plan of action at Hillcrest, but they are awaiting the results of the anticipated tie up at the end of March, when they are ready and prepared to throw in their lot with anything that might be proposed. Conditions at Bellevue are about the same as at Hillcrest, about 90% of the miners are Bolsheviki supporters, they are not organized. There are a large number of Ukrainians working in the mines all of whom are strong supporters of the movement, meetings are held every Sunday afternoon, and a number from Hillcrest also attend. From conversation overheard, I hear that their chief subject of discussion is Bolshevism, and the coming strike. The leaders are “Pete Roska” and “Nick Nikifour” the latter goes to Coleman every second Sunday to consult with Paul Beraniuk the district leader. As at Hillcrest they have no plan of action when the strike commences, but there is considerable talk of riots and bloodshed, both of which are possible, should the strike be prolonged. -3It is also reported that there are many supporters re the strike movement amongst the the English speaking people. Conditions at Coleman and other points on this side of the Summit are the same as reported concerning Hillcrest and Bellevue. The Bolshekiki and Revolutionary element are strong, but as far as we know they are not properly organized, and have no plan of action. It seems to be greatly a question of the anticipated strike in April. At Fernie Spl Agent Kobus reports a very strong Bolsheviki element, but they lack leaders and organization. The mines have not been working regularly of late, and a number of the Russians have left the camps. Another important point in connection with Fernie is, there appears to be lack of harmony amongst the officials of the Miners Union. The Revolutionary element in general aim to control the Miners Unions, and anything that is done will appear to be done by the Unions, for instance delegates to the various Conventions will be men of revolutionary tendencies. The present agreement as to scale of wages will expire on the 31st March next, it is expected that a six hour day and a prohibitive rate of wages will be demanded, and thus an excuse for a general strike. Joe Ruttka a well known agitator visited the Pass last fall, and no doubt advocated violence, no trace of this man can now be discov-



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ered. Information was received a short time ago that he might be at Trail B.C. Spl Agent Evans was sent there to investigate this, Ruttka was not there. He is probably in the United States. On the 15th Feb., two alleged Bolsheviki Organizers turned up at Hillcrest. They had conference with Paul Simenoff, the local Russian leader. George Polack the Slav leader, and Dick Marshall. Amongst other things the matter of finance was discussed, the organizers stated that a man in New York was obtaining money, and it would be delivered later. Marshall was instructed not to accept the position of delegate at the conference of the local unions of the four Western Provinces, to be held at Calgary on the 13th March. As he was required elsewhere. These men stated that 160 Russian Cossacks were being held at Trail B.C. to be ready and used against armed Force operating in the Crow’s Nest Pass when the trouble commences. These two men were on their way to Calgary for a secret conference to be held there. With reference to the report of 160 Cossacks at Trail B.C. Spl Agent Evans was there a short time ago, and does not believe they could be there without it coming to his knowledge. The conference between the operators and the coal miners of District 18 United Mine Workers of America which usually takes place about this time, has been postponed by mutual agreement until the delegates return from the policy committee of the International Union, which is being held at Indianapolis on March 18th. They will accordingly continue to work under the existing agreement. for the time being. The General condition regarding, labour unrest, Bolshevism, and Revolutionary activities are grave and serious, the outcome will depend largely upon the conference between the Mine owners and the Miners. If the miners should not get what they demand, there is almost sure to be a strike, and if the strike should be a prolonged one, trouble may reasonably be expected, all indications point that way. It is estimated that about 1500 miners would participate in it. I have the honour to be. Sir, Your obedient servant Inspt, for Supt, A.O.D.

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Letter 4 ROYAL NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE “D” Division. Secret & Confidential. The Commissioner, R. N. W. M. Police, Regina, SASK.

Winnipeg, Manitoba. January 10th, 1920.

Sir, Re: – Monthly Report – December 1919 I have the honor to submit the following report for the month of December,1919. ACTIVITIES OF STRIKE LEADERS:– During the month of December, the activities of the Strike Leaders & their sympathisers were almost entirely centred around the continued trial of R.B. RUSSELL. The actual trial of Russell commenced on November 26th, & was not completed until December 27th. In all, 134 witnesses were called or examined on behalf of the Crown, and 8 for the Defence. On the morning of December 24th, the jury returned a verdict of “Guilty” on all seven counts in the Indictment against the accused, and on December 27th, Mr Justice Metcalfe sentenced Russell to two year’s imprisonment on six of the seven counts, and one year on the seventh, the sentences to run concurrently. The verdict created considerable consternation amongst the Radical element, who had daily crowded the Court room during the trial. On sentence being pronounced, and after the Court had been closed, three cheers were given by the Reds for Russell, resulting in the cheer leader being arrested for creating a disturbance in a Public place. This man is awaiting trial on this charge before Magistrate Sir Hugh John McDonald. On Russell being sentenced, Mr Cassidy, K.C, on behalf of the accused, gave notice of Appeal in the case, and this will be heard before the Court of Appeals at the Law Courts, Winnipeg, commencing on January 8th, 1920.



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Every assistance was rendered Counsel for the Crown by us during the trial, and daily reports on the progress thereof was sent to Regina. One point that may be worthy of mention in this connection, was that ex-Secret Agent, No. 21, Harry Daskaluk, who was originally Subpoenaed as a Crown Witness, was considered to be immaterial, and was later arrested on a Bench Warrant asked for by Counsel for the Defence, and called by them as a witness. It was apparently the intention of the Defending Counsel to endeavor to show by this witness that he had been either coerced or bribed to give evidence at the preliminary hearing of the strike leaders last fall, and to show that the evidence of the other Government officials was of an unreliable nature. This matter was reported upon fully at the time. The trials of the remaining seven strike leaders have been set to commence on January 20th next. Messrs F.J. Dixon, & J.S. Woodsworth, who are charged with seditious libel, and whose cases are being handled by the Provincial Authorities, also come up for trial on the 29th together with J. Farnell, charged with sedition. LABOR ACTIVITIES: – No action of an important nature has been taken during the month, as all parties & affiliations connected with the Labor movement are awaiting the result of the Appeal in the case against Russell. -2ONE BIG UNION The One Big Union Officials and Agitators are still centering their activities on the task of endeavoring to seduce the members of the Internationals from that Organisation and join up with the O.B.U. The Street Railway men’s Union are the latest to sever their connection with the Internationals, and at the time of writing, it is not yet decided whether they will affiliate with the O.B.U. or create a new Organisation independent of either. This Union has about 1,000 members, and 800 of them voted to leave the Internationals, 200 voting to remain with them. The One Big Union have now secured offices in the Bulman Block, 530, Main Street Winnipeg, and call themselves the Central Labor Council. It is noteworthy that R.E.BRAY, one of the men awaiting trial, has been nominated as Vice President of the said Council. With men of Bray’s calibre holding executive positions in this organisation, it is in-conceivable that much success can ­attend their activities. Reports from Constable Hall at Fort Frances, Ont, show that the O.B.U. are very active in that district organising the lumber workers,

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and are meeting with considerable success. The I.W.W., are also very active in the U.S.A. in the International Falls district, across the line from Fort Francis. The situation at that point is being closely watched by the American Federal Authorities. During the early part of the month, a number of members of the I.W.W. attempted to cross into Canada at Fort Frances, but were promptly dealt with by the Immigration authorities there. PROHIBITED LITERATURE: There were no prosecutions entered in this Division during the month under the above heading. A large quantity of radical literature is still being distributed at Labor Church meetings, etc., but little of same appears on the prohibited list. SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA. Local No 3 of this Party have started to organise Economic Classes in various parts of Winnipeg under the direction of George Armstrong, one of the men awaiting trial. It is intended to extend their activities in this direction as funds permit. At the present time, they are short of good instructors in this connection. EX-SOLDIER’S & SAILOR’S LABOR PARTY This party is working together with the other Radical Organisations, and occasionally supply speakers for the Labor Church Services on Sunday evenings. They also favor political action. However, this organisation has been somewhat quiescent during the month, as they are awaiting the result of the appeal in the case of Russell. ALIEN ENEMIES:– The work of registration of Alien Enemies was continued by us during the month. The total number of cases handled by us during that period were as follows:– -3WINNIPEG:– 10805 – An increase of 26 over November. FORT WILLIAM; 1758–A decrease of 93 over November. FORT FRANCES: 207. A decrease of 48. BRANDON: 731. About 70 convictions have been obtained in this district ­during the month under Orders in Council in connection with Alien enemies.



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APPLICATIONS FOR NATURALISATION: A considerable number of Applications for Naturalisation for investigation were received during the month, and reported upon on completion of investigation. OTHER DEPARTMENTS Assistance has been rendered to the Inland Revenue Department in investigating & making seizures of Illicit Stills. One conviction was obtained in the Emerson district, and investigations carried out in the Tashota (Ontario) district in conjunction with an officer of the Inland Revenue Department. Several cases of smuggling have been investigated in the Boissevain & Fort Frances district, two convictions being obtained in the latter district. Three convictions have also been registered in connection with selling intoxicants to Indians & infractions of the Indian Act in the Lake Winnipeg district. I regret to report that no further progress has been made in connection with the Post Office Robbery at Portage La Prairie. Successful results in this matter depend on what action is taken in this connection at Indianapolis, U.S.A. where the suspected culprit is at present located. GENERAL REMARKS:– As previously stated the activities of the Labor element are chiefly centred on the Russell case. Until the result of the Appeal in this case is known, very little action will be taken by any of the labor organisations. The Annual Convention of the O.B.U. is set to take place in Winnipeg on January 26th, and a special meeting of delegates of all unions in the city, both International & O.B.U. has been arranged for at the Strand Theatre on Sunday, January 18th, at 10 a.m. to discuss possible action in connection with the trials of the strike leaders. It is reported that the Defence Fund Committee are very disappointed at the results of the appeal for funds by the issuance of Workers’ Liberty Bonds, and that very little cash is on hand at present. The situation is being closely watched for possible trouble when the remaining accused are tried this month. The Labor Church movement is rapidly spreading in this city, no less than nine separate meetings being held every Sunday. As has been reported many times previously, these so-called “Church services” are nothing but Socialist & Radical propagandist meetings held under the

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guise of “Church” meetings. Each of these meetings are covered by our men & reports forwarded thereon. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, [Cortland Starnes] Ass’t Commissioner, Commanding Manitoba District. Letter 5 Vancouver, B.C. Feb. 24th, 1919. Confidential The Commissioner, R. N. W. M. Police, REGINA, SASK. Sir:

Re: SECRET AGENTS

Replying to your letter of the 20th instant re Secret Agents, I quite agree with you −1 could easily employ from twenty-five to fifty men with advantage. As you know, this is a very big Province to cover, and you are quite right in saying that there is a very extended propaganda of a revolutionary character or bordering on same being carried on all over the West. As far as this Province is concerned I have no doubt about it. The reason I have not extended the employment of Secret Agents to various points in the Province is that you instructed me to retain or employ temporarily such limited staff as was absolutely necessary to carry on. You also informed me that you expected our men back about the 7th March, hence I did not feel quite justified in employing a large staff, and then in the course of a month or two have to dismiss them when our men arrived back. I am glad to know that you are sending an officer to Prince ­Rupert, as I felt the want of this for some time, but I was also aware that you were short of officers and I knew that you were over-worked organizing the different Provinces, and I did not care to worry you



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-2as I felt that you would send an officer as soon as circumstances would permit. As per your letter, I shall employ Secret Agents as soon as I am able to secure competent men, and send them to Victoria, Nanaimo, Fernie, Nelson, Kamloops and White Rock on the Boundary to work along the Canadian Northern Route. I shall also tell these men that I cannot guarantee the work for any limited time, but if they prove to be extra bright and efficient in the work that you probably might employ them for some time. I am dispatching Secret Agent Eccles, who reported for duty on the 15th instant, tonight to investigate regarding any propaganda that may be going on in the Prince George, B.C. District. Also to work through the Camps between the Prince George and the Boundary of Alberta, with special instructions re Lucerne. I feel that he is just the man for the work, as he has worked in various Lumber Camps and strikes me as a very bright and clever man for this work. He will work at some of the Camps and at others sell Saw-Sharpeners and other small articles as may appear best to him as he goes along from Camp to Camp. 1 shall await his report with a good deal of interest, as I feel it will be very thorough. I have the honor to be, Your obedient servant, [F. Horrigan] Supt. FJH / GM

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Appendix 2 Information Commissaire Commissioner à l’information of Canada du Canada Ottawa, Canada K1A 1H3 Our File: 84-195 February 7, 1986 The Honourable Marcel Masse, P.C., M.P. Minister of Communications 300 Slater Street 20th Floor Ottawa, Ontario K1A0C8

BY HAND

Dear Mr. Minister: The purpose of this letter is to provide you with a report of an investigation conducted by me as a result of a complaint under the Access to Information Act. In accordance with subsection 37(l)(a) of the Act, such a report is provided to the Minister who presides over the institution that controls the record involved in a complaint. The records in question were originally placed in the Public Archives by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”) but they are of the kind that are now the responsibility of Canadian Security Intelligence Services (“CSIS”). The complainant, Professor Greg S. Kealey, a historian, requested access to four Royal Northwest Mounted Police (“RNWP”) reports dated 28 February, 13 March and 4 April, 1919 and 10 January, 1920. Professor Kealey received access to the documents, subject to certain exemptions originally claimed with reference to sub- paragraphs 15(l) (d)(ii), 16(l)©(ii) and section 17. The investigation led to the abandonment of the use of section 17 and the release of a portion of a page which had been exempted under sub-paragraph 15(l)(d)(ii). The use of sub-paragraph 16(1)(c)(ii) was maintained. Subsection 35(2) requires me to afford a reasonable opportunity to make representations to parties affected by any finding or ­recommendation that I may make and that opportunity has been extended to Public Archives, CSIS and Professor Kealey.



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Subparagraph 16(l)(c)(ii) provides that “the head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the enforcement of any law ... or the conduct of lawful investigations, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, any such information ... that would reveal the identity of a confidential source of information ...” Our investigation of the complaint has satisfied me that the information which has been withheld might identify or tend to identify persons who had worked for the RNWP during the years of 1919 and 1920. However, in accordance with the Act, it is also incumbent on the party who seeks to withhold information to meet the other tests of the exempting provision. In other words, it must be determined that release could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the enforcement of any law of Canada or a province or the conduct of lawful investigations and it must be established that the source was confidential. Since your officials will no doubt wish to brief you on their positions, I will only summarize the issues as they appear to me. Professor Kealey, who has no knowledge of the exempted information, has submitted, inter alia, in support of his claim to access that this type of information is important in order to understand and evaluate the early history of the labour movement in Canada and the RNWP. He suggests that at some point in time the injury that might flow from release disappears. CSIS has informed me that they and their predecessor organizations have never knowingly released the names of any confidential source and maintain that the specific injury that would occur if the exempted information in this case were released “is the destruction of the entire source program on which we are dependent for purposes of gathering intelligence related to the security of Canada.” However, our investigation has also disclosed that the requested records had been placed with other records in the Public Archives in the 1960’s by the RCMP and made accessible to the public. Concern was raised about the sensitivity of some documents in the collection in 1971, and after review by the RCMP, numerous documents, including the ones in question, were returned to Public Archives by RCMP Headquarters in October of that year. In 1982, after another review by the RCMP, the material was again turned over to Public Archives. Some of the documents were restricted from access, including the reports dated 13 March 1919 and 4 April 1919. The reports dated 28 February 1919 and

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10 January 1920 together with other records identifying special agents were made accessible to the public again until 1984 when the names of the special agents were exempted on the four reports in response to an access request. All other records remained publicly accessible until 1985, when CSIS requested restriction of additional records identifying special agents. Our investigation discloses that a number of records bearing special agents’ names are still open to public access, and the others described above were repeatedly accessed by members of the public at various times since 1964. In addition, our investigation has revealed that some of the identities in question were revealed through testimony in court with attendant publicity in the press. No specific evidence of any damage to the CSIS source program as a result of the availability of those identities, some of which are the same or similar to those withheld from Professor Kealey, was placed before me. The point of CSlS’s argument as I understand it is that any acknowledgement of the identity of any confidential source will damage their ability to retain current informants or recruit prospective sources in the future. While I am mindful of the need for an intelligence service to protect the identity of confidential sources from disclosure, that right to anonymity, in time, should be balanced against the public right to know as established by freedom of information principles. Also, bearing in mind that in this particular case the exempted information was in the public domain at the material time and for many years in the Public Archives, it is hard to find justification for preventing access to it now. I would also refer you to the preliminary hearing of charges against the Toronto Sun and Peter Worthington of having published a document Contrary to the Officials Secrets Act, where the Judge concluded that documents could lose their quality of being secret by earlier disclosure. I suggest that this has happened to the documents that have been withheld from Professor Kealey. To accept that the names of sources who were active over 65 years ago are still to be protected from disclosure is tantamount to accepting that sources must invariably be protected forever. Had Parliament intended that there should never be disclosure of confidential sources, the exemptive section could have been expressed as mandatory without any injury test. In accordance with section 37 of the Act, I must, where I conclude that a complaint is well-founded, provide the head of the government institution that has control of the record with a report containing the



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findings of the investigation and any recommendations that I consider appropriate. Paragraph 37(1)(b) of the Act provides as an alternative that I may request that notice be given to me of any action taken or proposed to be taken to implement any recommendations or reasons why no such action has been or is proposed to be taken. If I select the alternative, I am not entitled to report to the complainant until the time limit set for reply has expired. My understanding based on the submissions by the agencies involved is that if I were to recommend to you that release of the information should be made, their advice to you would be that the issue ought to be decided by a review in the Federal Court, in other words that you should not accept my recommendation. As this complaint has been under investigation for 18 months, I see no point in postponing the complainant’s right to seek such a court review. He has also indicated his intention to do so if I dismiss his complaint. I have therefore reported to Professor Kealey today and enclose a copy of my report to him for your files. Pursuant to paragraph 37(1 Kb) of the Access to Information Act, my finding in respect to Professor Kealey’s complaint is that it is not reasonable to expect that injury to law enforcement or the conduct of lawful investigations would flow from the disclosure of the identities of sources contained in these particular records where the information had already been available in the public domain. I conclude that the complaint is well-founded and would recommend that the exempted information be released. During the course of our investigation, doubt arose as to whether the identified individuals qualified as confidential sources in the sense of that term today. It is possible that they were employees whose identities might be releasable under the combined effect of the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act or in accordance with common practice in courts of identifying police officers. In that context, CSIS officials indicated that it would require two months for a historian to conduct an exhaustive search for records which may bear on the issue of employment status. I did not consider it appropriate in light of my above conclusions to request that this issue be dealt with in the agency’s final representations to me. However, in the event that my recommendation is not accepted by you and the question of the denial of access is placed before the Federal Court for review, I reserve the right for Professor

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Kealey or the Information Commissioner to raise that issue or any other issue that counsel may advise. You may wish to advise your colleague, the Honourable Perrin Beatty, Minister responsible for CSIS, of this report, as I am precluded from providing him with a copy under the Access to Information Act. I have, however, taken the liberty of sending a copy to your Deputy since, notwithstanding the 45 day time limit specified in the Act, it is open to Professor Kealey to ask us to proceed without delay to launch proceedings in the Federal Court. ­Sincerely yours, Inger Hansen, Q.C. Information Commissioner Encl. NOTES 1 The RCMP was created in fall 1919 to replace the RNWMP and the Dominion Police. For background, see S.W. Horrall, “The Royal NorthWest Mounted Police and Labour Unrest in Western Canada, 1919,” Canadian Historical Review 61 (1980): 169–90. 2 Tunney’s Pasture is the location of the Public Archives Record Centre (PARC), which houses inactive federal government department files. 3 Exactly which reports these were is not clear. They may have been monthly reports from each division; some of these for 1919–20 are in RG 18. On the other hand this might be a reference to the summaries that were circulated to cabinet. These reports, which began in fall 1919 and were still being compiled in the 1950s, have a fascinating history of their own. A full rendering of that story would distract from this tale but will be told in the forthcoming publication of what remains of these reports. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service recently has granted permission to the Committee on Canadian Labour History to publish these reports. These volumes, which will begin to appear in spring 1988, will be edited by myself and Reg Whitaker. CSIS has been able to find reports number 711 (20 June 1934) to 907 (15 December 1938), War Series number 1 (23 October 1939) to 49 (24 December 1941), and the reports from December 1942 on. In addition I have found reports from 1920 and 1926 in various PAC manuscript collections. What happened to the other reports remains unclear. An investigation by the information commissioner’s office confirms that they are minimally “lost.” 4 Some historians, whose work suggests that they used these files, include Donald Avery, David Bercuson, W.J.C. Cherwinski, A.R.M. McCormack, David Millar, and Norman Penner.



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5 See my “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour / Le Travail 13 (1984): 11–44. 6 Ironically, this decision involved the Canadians who had been victimized by a CIA-funded brainwashing experiment conducted by Dr Ewen Cameron at McGill University. Attempts by the victims to gain legal recompense for the horrors inflicted upon them are still before the courts in the United States of America.

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1. Gregory Kealey, “Presidential Address: The Empire Strikes Back: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Canadian Secret Service,” Journal of the CHA, N.S. 10, no. 1 (1999): 3–18. Reprinted with the permission of the Canadian Historical Association. 2. Andrew Parnaby and Gregory S. Kealey with Kirk Niergarth, “‘HighHanded, Impolite, and Empire-Breaking Actions’: Radicalism, AntiImperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860–1914,” from Canadian State Trials, Volume III, Political Trials and Security Measures, 1840–1914, edited by Barry Wright and Susan Binnie, 483–515. Published for The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by the University of Toronto Press. © Osgoode Society for Legal History 2009. Reprinted with the permission of the Osgoode Society for Legal History. 3. Gregory S. Kealey, “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914–20: The Impact of the First World War,” Canadian Historical Review 73, no. 3 (1992): 281–314. Reprinted with permission from University of Toronto Press (www.utpjournals.com). © University of Toronto Press. http://dx.doi .org/10.3138 / CHR-073-03-01 4. Gregory S. Kealey, “The Surveillance State: The Origins of Domestic Intelligence and Counter-Subversion in Canada, 1914–21,” Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 3 (1992): 179–210. Reprinted by permission of the publisher: www.tandfonline.com 5. Gregory S. Kealey, “The Early Years of State Surveillance of Labour and the Left in Canada: The Institutional Framework of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security and Intelligence Apparatus, 1918–26,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 (1993): 129–48. Reprinted by permission of the publisher: www.tandfonline.com

266 Permissions 6. Gregory S. Kealey, “Spymasters, Spies, and Their Subjects: The RCMP and Canadian State Repression, 1914–39,” from Whose National Security? Canadian State Surveillance and the Creation of Enemies, edited by Gary Kinsman, Dieter K. Buse, and Mercedes Steedman, 18–33. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2000. © Gary Kinsman, Dieter K. Buse, and Mercedes Steedman, 2000. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 7. Reg Whitaker and Gregory S. Kealey, “A War on Ethnicity? The RCMP and Second World War Internment” from Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad, edited by Franca Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, and Angelo Principe, 128–47. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. © University of Toronto Press 2000. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 8. Gregory S. Kealey, “Filing and Defiling: The Organization of the State Security Archives in the Inter-war Years,” from On the Case: Explorations in Social History, edited by Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinson, 88–105. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. © University of Toronto Press 1998. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. 9. Gregory S. Kealey, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Public Archives of Canada, and Access to Information: A Curious Tale,” Labour / Le Travail, 21 (Spring 1988): 199–226. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Index

Note: Page numbers in boldface indicate a table, illustration, or photograph. academic associations, marxist: surveillance of, 18, 19–20 Access to Information legislation, 4, 6–7, 9, 20, 106, 167, 171, 180, 182, 185n23, 212, 231, 258, 261, 262 “agitators” by location (1919–24), 126, 220 Ahlqvist, J.W., 82 Almazov, Moses, 80 Anderson, Robert, 27 Andrew, Christopher, 20, 21 Andrews, A.J., 152, 176 Arcand, Adrien, 198 Archibald, Adams George, 40 Archibald, Edward Mortimer, 38 Armitage, Robson, 174, 225 Atherton, Jay, 233 Beach, Thomas. See Le Caron, Henri Beeby, Dean, 20 Bennett government, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 158, 170 Bennett, R.H., 238–9 Blask, Harry. See Zaneth, Frank

“Bolshevik” files, 214, 215–26 “Bolshevik Propaganda,” 85, 85, 113, 123, 131, 132. See also “Prohibited or Objectionable Literatures”; propaganda, revolutionary Bolshevism, in Canada, 78, 83, 84, 112, 113, 123, 158, 169, 215–23 Borden government: and class conflict, 71–2; and conscription, 91–3, 107; and emergency powers, 73–8; and labour, 77, 215; orders-incouncil, 74, 76, 78, 79–83, 82, 83–7, 84, 86, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 131, 182, 216; and police unionism, 119; and War Measures Act, 73–4. See also Cahan, C.H. British Nationality, Naturalization, and Aliens Act, 73 Bryson, Scott, 6 Cahan, C.H.: background, 138n23; list of agitators, 131, 181; and Public Safety Branch, 82, 114–16, 119–20, 144, 145, 169; reports on left-wing activities, 87, 112–14,

268 Index 182; resignation of, 118–19, 122, 141n61; and secret agents, 118; and Social Democratic Party, 116–17 Campbell, Dan, 93 Canada India Supply and Trust Company, 50, 51 Canadan Uutiset, 80, 81, 82 Canadian Committee on Labour History (CCLH), 19, 20 Canadian Historical Association (CHA), 5, 19, 234 Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS): creation of, 4, 8, 167; powers of, 8; records, inaccessible, 106, 142n73, 212, 218, 221, 224, 226, 231, 236–9, 259; records of, 182, 215, 218, 223; role of, 226. See also RCMP Security Service Cartier, Georges-Étienne, 22 Cawdron, A.J., 88, 110, 116, 144, 148, 151, 168, 218–22 CCLH (Canadian Committee on Labour History), 19, 20 censorship: and “enemy languages,” 79, 81, 100n35, 114, 182; and First World War/post–First World War, 75–6, 79–83; rationale for, 102n64; and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 94–5; and translation, 76, 81; and veterans, 87 CHA (Canadian Historical Association), 5, 19, 234 Chambers, Ernest J., and censorship, 75–6, 79, 80, 81, 94, 136n6 Civil War (Soviet Union), Canadian intervention in, 80, 100n38 Clarke, Charles, 26 Coats, Robert, 79 Coldwell, M.J., 180

Communications Security Establishment (CSE), 8, 11n20, 182 Communist Party of Canada (CPC), 94, 95, 152, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 191, 200, 219–22, 220 confidential reports, 127–8, 146, 216–17, 232, 241–57 Connaught, Duke of, 52 conscription, 76, 78, 91–3, 107, 109, 223 Consolidated Orders Respecting Censorship Act, 76 constabularies, development of, 22, 24, 28, 29, 31, 35, 37, 40 “continuous journey,” 43, 44, 49, 63n28. See also immigration policy Cornwell, David, 27, 211–12. See also Le Carré, John Cory, W.W., 46, 50 Coursol, Charles Joseph, 26, 28 CPC. See Communist Party of Canada (CPC) Crerar, Thomas, 117 Crothers, T.W., 90 CSE (Communications Security Establishment), 8, 11n20, 182 CSIS. See Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Custance, Florence, 221 Das, Taraknath, 45, 48 Dayal, Lala Har, 51 DCC (Defence Committee of Canada), 152–7 DCC Sub-Committee on Intelligence, 148, 155–6, 157 Defence Committee of Canada (DCC), 152–7

Defence of Canada Regulations (DOCR), 189, 190, 192, 200 Department of Militia, 144, 155, 156 Department of National Defence (DND), 143, 155, 157, 174 DND. See Department of National Defence DOCR (Defence of Canada Regulations), 189, 190, 192, 200 Dominion Police: and C.H. Cahan, 112; creation of, 28; and Irish nationalists, 30; mandate, 40, 107; murder of Albert Goodwin, 93; and national security, 76–7; philosophical approach, 131; proposed reorganization, 115–16, 118, 132–3; role of, 121–2, 131, 144, 168, 169; and Royal North-West Mounted Police, 76–7, 88, 108–11, 120–1, 132, 151; and state repression, 84, 86, 87–8 emergency powers, use of, 54, 72, 200 “enemy aliens,” 74–5, 88, 108, 113, 190, 194, 202, 204n7, 233, 254. See also “foreign aliens” “enemy languages,” 79, 81, 100n35, 182 Ermatinger, William, 22, 24, 25, 26, 37 Esselwein, Jack. See Leopold, John. ethnic chauvinism, 72, 96n4 ethnicity, and political policing, 167, 182, 191–2, 193–8, 201–2 Federal Association of Letter Carriers, 90 Fenians, the: and habeas corpus, 54–5; invasions of Canada, 22, 23, 24, 25,

Index 269 26, 38, 40; and D’Arcy McGee, 27– 8, 40, 168; and Gilbert McMicken, 36–42; and Métis, 41; origins of, 22–3, 36, 167–8; parliamentary reaction to, 39; surveillance of, 24–30, 35, 36–8 Finn, Ted, 237–8 Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC), 82, 95 Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada (FSOC), 81–2, 83 First World War: and censorship, 75– 6; and economy, 75, 77; “enemy aliens,” 74–5, 108, 113, 202; and “foreign aliens,” 74; and internment, 74–5, 77; Military Service Act, 91–3, 109, 144; and national security, 76–7, 144; orders-incouncil, 74, 76, 78, 82, 83–7, 86, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119–20, 121, 131, 182, 216; recruitment, 77–8, 91–3, 99n25; and state repression, 71–2 FOC (Finnish Organization of Canada), 82, 95 “foreign aliens,” 74, 77, 78–9. See also “enemy aliens” Forest, Mrs. E, 30 Free Hindusthan, 45, 48 freedom of association, assembly, and speech: arrests due to ban, 84–7, 85; banned, 83–4, 101n55, 102n56, 114, 116–17, 132, 190, 216 FSOC (Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada), 81–2, 83 German-Canadian League, 196 Ghadar Party, 53 Globe and Mail, 235 Gomery, John, 6 Goodwin, Albert “Ginger,” 93

270 Index Gosden, Robert, 129–30, 175, 180–1, 224 Granatstein, J.L., 193 Great Mutiny, the, 44 Greer, Allan, 21, 22 Grey (Lord), 46 Gugy, Augustus, 22 habeas corpus, suspension of, 26, 31, 39, 54–5, 92, 189 Hamilton, C.F., 75, 136n6, 147–8, 155, 156–7, 170, 173, 185n31, 213, 225 Hannant, Larry, 20 Hansen, Inger, 258–62 Harkin, J.B., 45–6 Harper government: and CSIS, 8–9; “Terror” Act, C-51, 8–9 Hart, John, 147, 213 Harvison, C.W., 106, 146, 150, 197 head tax, 43, 62n26. See also immigration policy Help the Strikers Conference, 89 Hemans, H.W., 38 Hewitt, Steve, 18, 20 Hibernian Benevolent Society, 36, 38 Higgitt, W.L., 234–5 “Hindoo crisis,” 42–54 Hindustani Association, 50 Hopkinson, William Charles, 168–9; background, 44–6, 47, 64n31, 64n33; death of, 53–4; dual role of, 49, 53; in immigration department, 48–9, 50; and India Office, 51–2; and organized labour, 50–1 Horrall, S.W., 107–8, 129, 233 ideology, and political policing, 191–2, 198, 200, 201–2 immigrants: and ethnic chauvinism, 72, 96n4; repression of, 86–7, 94;

surveillance of, 111, 113, 181–2; as threat, 112, 113, 182 Immigration Act, 44, 50, 67n47 immigration policy: automatic deportation, 94; and judicial scrutiny, 67n47; and naturalization, 73, 94; relocation plan, 45–7; and South Asians, 5, 42–4, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52–3, 55, 61n26, 62n27, 63n28, 63n29, 63n30, 168–9. See also “enemy aliens”; “foreign aliens” Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 47, 50, 51, 83, 102n64, 110–12, 131, 175, 218–19, 229n25 Inglis, E.F., 147, 213 intelligence, domestic: agencies involved in, 77, 94, 108, 110, 133, 144–5, 169; and Prime Minister Borden, 111; coordination of, 155–7; and Royal North-West Mounted Police, 110, 116 intelligence, military, 77, 133, 142n86, 156 internment: of communists, 191–2, 198; during First World War, 74–5, 77; First World War vs. Second World War, 198; of Germans, 190, 196; ideology vs. ethnicity as grounds for, 190; of Italians, 190; of Japanese, 190, 191, 198, 201; post–First World War, 78–9; of pro-fascist group members, 200; of refugees, 198; and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 189–90, 198, 199–203; and Royal North-West Mounted Police, 108; during Second World War, 189–203; of Leon Trotsky, 100n30 invasions of Canada, Fenian, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28–9, 38, 40, 167

Irish Canadian, 28, 36 Irish Republican Brotherhood, 23, 36. See also Fenians, the IWW. See Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Kaplan, William, 20, 190 Keable Commission, 8, 167 Kealey, Gregory: struggle to access police archives, 4, 6, 142n73, 231–41, 258–62; surveillance of, 18–19 Kemp, Vernon, 151, 214 Keyserlingk, Robert H., 196–7 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 43, 44, 61n26, 63n28, 63n29, 199 Kinsman, Gary, 20 Kirkconnell, Watson, 202 Komagata Maru affair, 52–3, 68n57, 168–9 Kumar, Guran Ditta, 48–9 labour: in confidential reports, 243–4, 245–8, 252–4, 255; and First World War recruitment, 78, 91–3; and police, 107, 124, 144, 168, 169, 218; police unionism, 90, 119; as political threat, 110–11; public sector, 89–91; public support for, 91; spread of trade unionism, 89; strikes, 72, 73, 77, 79, 80, 87, 88–90, 93, 119–20, 128–9. See also Winnipeg General Strike Labour History Group, 18 Laforest, Gerard, 6 Laine, Edward, 83 Lamb, Kay, 232 Laplante, James. See Zaneth, Frank Laurier, Wilfrid, 61n26, 66n41 Lawes, A.L., 170–1

Index 271 Le Caron, Henri: background of, 27, 39–40; and Fenians, 27–9, 40; and Gilbert McMicken, 25, 27–8, 30, 168; name, 60n20 Le Carré, John, 5, 7, 27, 211–12 Learned Societies, the, 17–18, 19, 20 Leopold, John, 129, 134, 146, 161n14, 176–80, 181, 224, 226 “List of the Chief Agitators in Canada, A,” 131, 135 MacBrien, J.H., 148, 152, 158, 172–3, 180, 213–14, 224 Macdonald, John A.: and constabulary development, 22, 26–7; and the Fenians, 25–30, 36–7; and Henri Le Caron, 27, 39–40; and Gilbert McMicken, 3, 37, 41, 59n8; and secret service, 29–30, 42, 167 Macdonald Papers, 3–4 Manitoba Act, 41 Matthews, H.H., 155, 156 McBride, Michelle, 199 McClellan, George, 232 McCormack, Ross, A., 234 McDermott, “Big Jim,” 30 McDonald Commission, 8, 106, 167, 171, 235 McGee, D’Arcy, 27–8, 40, 168 McMichael, William, 26, 27 McMicken, Gilbert, 168; background of, 37, 58n7, 59n9; and constabulary development, 22, 24–5, 28; and the Fenians, 36–42; as government agent, 55; and Henri Le Caron, 30; and John A. Macdonald, 3, 37, 41, 59n8 Meighen, Arthur, 90, 120 Métis, Manitoba, 41, 61n22

272 Index Military Service Act, 91–3, 109, 120, 144 Murphy, Michael, 24, 25–6, 36, 38 Mustonen, J.A., 80–1 National Archives Act, 20, 106, 212 National Archives of Canada, 4, 20, 124, 125, 171, 182, 215, 218 “national insecurity state,” 158 National Service Board (NSB), 78 Niergarth, Kirk, 5 Nolan, Patrick, 24–5, 38 NSB (National Service Board), 78 O’Donoghue, William Bernard, 41 Official Secrets Act, 260–1 O’Mahony, John, 23 One Big Union, 145, 146, 178, 220, 229n25, 245, 253–4 O’Neill, John, 27, 28–9 orders-in-council, wartime, 74, 76, 78, 114, 115, 116, 118, 121, 131, 182, 190, 254; geographic distribution of violations, 86, 133; PC 2213, 119; PC 2381, 79–83, 84; PC 2384, 82, 83–7, 216; PC 2525, 89, 119–20 Origins of the Vigilant State, 20–1 O’Sullivan, Cornelius. See Clarke, Charles Otter, William, 74, 88 PAC (Public Archives of Canada), 231–41, 259 Padlock Law, 192, 194, 205n11 Parnaby, Andrew, 3, 5 Patteson, Arthur, 148, 173 PEN (Political Economy Network), 18, 19, 20 Perry, A.B., 86, 107, 108, 109, 120–1, 122–5, 130–1, 131–2, 145, 157,

160n8, 169, 172, 181, 213, 215–17, 224 Personal History Files, 124–6, 126, 129, 171, 181, 182, 214, 215, 217, 221, 222 Philipps, Tracey, 202 Political Economy Network (PEN), 18, 19, 20 political police: and C.H. Cahan, 118; early records, 171–2; and empire, 20–1, 31, 34n31, 35–6; and ethnicity, 167, 182, 191–2, 193–8, 201–2; and Fenians, 22; and ideology, 191–2, 198, 200, 201–2; and John A. Macdonald, 30; and national character, 54–6, 68n61; origins of, 20–2, 30–1, 35–6, 55n1; and psychological warfare, 130; raids, 84–6, 117; records, and citizens’ access, 7, 226; vs. regular police, 25; and Royal North-West Mounted Police, 123–4; and secret agents, 108–9, 115, 118, 121–4, 128–31, 134, 145–6, 169; targets of, 168, 169, 170–1; and wartime powers, 200. See also constabularies, development of; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP); secret service; spies; spymasters Porter, Arthur, 8, 11n21 Porter, Bernard, 20–1, 34n31 “Prohibited or Objectionable Literatures,” 222–3, 225, 254. See also “Bolshevik Propaganda”; propaganda, revolutionary propaganda, revolutionary, 113–14, 116–17, 118, 131, 214. See also “Bolshevik Propaganda”;

“Prohibited or Objectionable Literatures” PSB (Public Safety Branch). See Public Safety Branch (PSB) Public Archives of Canada (PAC), 231–41, 259 Public Safety Branch (PSB), 114–16, 118–19, 120, 144, 145, 169 racism, 5, 43, 44, 47, 53. See also ­immigration policy Rahim, Hussain, 49–51, 53 Raj, the, 43, 44 RCMP Quarterly, 170, 173 RCMP Security Service: ancient history, 8; development of, 94, 169–70, 184n13; ethos of, 182; inaccessibility of records, 106, 234; and Learneds, 17–18, 19, 20; as political police, 167; records of, 4, 171–2, 185n23; and Cortlandt Starnes, 170; surveillance of academics, 19–20; targets of, 168, 181–2. See also Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Red Scare, 5, 78, 89 Regehr, Ted, 232 Reid, Malcolm J., 53, 122, 169, 242 Riel, Louis, 41 Rivett-Carnac, Charles, 158, 171, 174, 180, 197, 199, 225–6 RNWMP. See Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) Roberts, William, 23 Roberts-Moore, Judith, 235 Robertson, Gideon, 89, 93–4, 110 Robertson, Norman, 193 Rogers, Joseph, 84

Index 273 Routledge, W.H., 145–6, 217 Rowell, Newton, 116–17, 121, 144, 145, 215 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP): and 1921 “threatened disturbances,” 153–5, 164n47, 164n52; attitude towards ethnicity, 167, 191, 201–2; attitude towards ideology, 191–2, 200, 201–2; and Bennett government, 158, 170; and “Bolshevik” files, 214, 215–26; and censorship, 94–5; Central Registry, 6, 146–7, 148, 212–14; and communism, 168, 170–1, 181–2, 191–2, 199, 200, 201, 202; confidential reports, 127–8, 146, 216–17, 232, 241–57; creation of, 29, 88, 107, 143, 227n3; Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), 145–6, 148, 170, 179–80, 223; and data collection, 148–9; and Defence Committee of Canada, 152–7; and Department of National Defence, 143, 157, 174; ethos of, 182; external relations, 151–2; financial difficulties of, 149, 158; Intelligence Section, 169, 180, 184n13, 212–14, 215; and internments, 189–90; and labour, 107, 168, 169; liaison and intelligence officer, 147–8; marital restrictions, 150, 174; Personal History Files, 215, 217, 221, 222; “Prohibited and Objectionable Literatures,” 171, 222–3, 225, 254; records of, 4, 142n73, 181, 231–40; responsibilities of, 108; role of, 103n72, 149–50, 169; security files, 201; structure of, 148; and subject files, 222, 222; and Ukrainian community, 94–5, 111, 112, 113, 182,

274 Index 191, 201–2, 204n9, 250; understaffing of, 149. See also RCMP Security Service; Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) Royal Commission on Industrial Relations, 93 Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP): assumes national role, 88; and Bolshevism, 215–16; confidential reports, 127–8, 146, 232, 241–57; creation of, 132; and Dominion Police, 76–7, 108–11; files, 88, 103n71; and labour, 124, 144, 218; and national security,­ 145; and Personal History Files, 124–6, 171, 181, 182, 218; philosophical approach, 131; and political policing, 123–4; records of, 171–2, 180, 231–40; role of, 108, 116, 120, 121–2, 144, 215; and secret service, 121–2; and state repression, 86; and subject files, 127, 171, 213. See also Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Ryan, T.E., 177, 226 Scott, W.D., 45 SDP (Social Democratic Party), 83, 88, 111, 113, 116–17 Second World War: and Canadian fascists, 191, 193–4, 198–9; and Canadian Nazis, 191, 195, 196–7, 198; and Defence of Canada Regulations, 189, 192, 200; “enemy aliens,” 190, 194, 204n7; “fifth column,” 191, 197–8, 204n7; order-in-council, 190; and policy on ethnicity, 202; and surveillance, 190 secret police. See political police

secret service: attitude towards, 29–30, 31; and Dominion Police, 28, 87–8, 121–2; early days of, 20–1, 26, 28, 29–31, 39–40, 41–2, 167–9; English, 20; funding of, 26, 30; and psychological warfare, 130; and Royal North-West Mounted Police, 121–2 security, national, 76–7, 144–5 Senior, Elinor, 21 Sherwood, Percy, 74, 84, 110, 111–12, 116, 120, 144, 168, 172 Singh, Bela, 53 Singh, Gurdit, 52–3 Singh, Hagar, 45 Singh, Mewa, 53, 168 Singh, Sham, 45 Singh, Teja, 46, 47, 48–9, 65n36 SLP (Socialist Labour Party), 83 Smith, Stewart, 192 Smith, Wilfred, 234–5 Social Democratic Party (SDP), 83, 88, 111, 113, 116–17 Socialist Labour Party (SLP), 83 Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), 47, 48, 50, 83, 175, 181, 217, 254 Socialist Party of North America (SPNA), 83 SPC (Socialist Party of Canada), 47, 48, 50, 83, 175, 181, 217, 254 spies: background of, 180, 181, 223–4, 226; Mervyn Black, 181, 224; in confidential reports, 241–2, 248, 249–51, 253, 256–7, 259–60; Alexander Durasoff, 181; Robert Gosden, 129–30, 175, 180–1, 224; Henri Le Caron, 25, 27–9, 30, 39– 40, 60n20, 168; John Leopold, 129, 134, 146, 161n14, 176–80, 181, 194, 224, 226; and Macdonald Papers,

3–4; Barney Roth, 181; T.E. Ryan, 177, 181, 226; Percy Sherwood, 172; Frank Zaneth, 129, 134, 146, 175–6, 180, 181, 182, 194, 224. See also political police; spymasters SPNA (Socialist Party of North America), 83 spying, corporate, 88 spymasters: A.B. Allard as, 177, 178; Robson Armitage as, 174, 225; background of, 174, 224, 226; C.F. Hamilton as, 173, 179, 185n31, 225; and history, 9; J.H. MacBrien as, 172–3, 180, 224; Arthur Patteson as, 173; A.B. Perry as, 172, 177, 178, 181, 224; Charles Rivett-Carnac as, 174, 180, 225–6; Gilbert Salt as, 177–8; Cortlandt Starnes as, 172, 178–9, 224; S.T. Wood as, 173, 224– 5. See also political police; spies Starnes, Cortlandt, 151, 157, 169–70, 172, 178–9, 217, 224 Stephens, James, 23 subject files, on radicalism, 127, 127, 171, 222, 222 surveillance: of academic associations, 18, 19–20; by agents, 124, 128–31, 223–4; and “Bolshevik” files, 214, 215–26; of Communist Party of Canada, 149, 152, 162n26, 201; of communists, 191–2, 215–23; and confidential reports, 127–8, 146; in confidential reports, 216–17, 241–57; and Defence of Canada Regulations, 190; and ethnicity, 167, 182; of Fenians, 24–30, 35, 36–7; of German community, 194–8, 200–1; of immigrants, 111, 181–2; of Industrial Workers of the World, 110–12, 175, 218–19;

Index 275 of Italian community, 193–4, 200–1; of Japanese community, 193; of Gregory Kealey, 18–19; of Learneds, 17–18; and Personal History Files, 124–6, 171, 181, 182, 214, 215, 217, 222; of pro-Nazis/ pro-fascists, 193, 195–9, 200–1; and security files, 201; of South Asian community, 48, 51–2; and subject files, 127, 171, 222, 222; of Ukrainian community, 111, 112, 113, 182, 191, 202, 204n9, 250. See also political police; spies; spymasters Swadesh Sewak (Servant of the Country), 48 Swayne, E.J., 46–7, 66n41, 66n43 TLC (Trades and Labour Council). See Trades and Labour Council (TLC) Tommy Douglas records case, 7 trade unionism, spread of, 89 Trades and Labour Council (TLC), 78, 91–2, 94; Edmonton, 89; Regina, 178; Vancouver, 93; Winnipeg, 83, 89 treason legislation, 26 Trotsky, Leon, 100n30 Ukrainian-Canadian Committee, 202 Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), 82–3, 95, 191, 204n9 Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (USDP), 82, 111 ULFTA (Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association), 82–3, 95, 191, 204n9 USDP (Ukrainian Social Democratic Party), 82, 111

276 Index Vancouver General Sympathetic Strike, 128–9 Vapaus, 80, 81–2, 83, 94 Varma, Chagan Kairaj. See Rahim, Hussain Wagner, Jonathan F., 195 Wallinger, J.A., 52 Wallot, Jean-Pierre, 236, 238, 239 War Measures Act, 73–4, 114, 121, 222 Wark, Wesley, 20, 158 Watkins, John, 106 Waugh, S.R., 175, 176 Western Frontier Constabulary, 22, 37, 168

Whitaker, Reg, 3, 4, 6, 9, 20 Whitley Council schemes, 93–4 Wilson (Staff Sergeant), 233 Wilson, Barbara, 233 Winnipeg General Strike, 79, 80, 83, 87, 89, 93, 94, 129, 169, 175, 226, 229n25, 233. See also labour Wood, S.T., 173, 224–5 Woodsworth, J.S., 157–8, 226 Worker, The, 226 Young, Brian, 21, 22 Zaneth, Frank, 129, 134, 146, 175–6, 180, 181, 182, 224 Zanetti, Franco. See Zaneth, Frank