State Repression and Political Deportation in Canada, 1919-1936. by Dennis Molinaro A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Dennis Molinaro 2015 State Repression and Political Deportation in Canada, 1919-1936, Doctor of Philosophy 2015, Dennis Molinaro, Graduate Department of History, University of Toronto. ABSTRACT Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada was in force from1919 to 1936. The dissertation traces the way in which Canada incorporated emergency law, created during the First World War under the War Measures Act, into the Criminal Code as Section 98 after the war to combat political radicalism from 1919 to 1936. In contrast to existing scholarship, this work not only explains how a liberal democracy like Canada can legally use emergency legislation outside of a state of emergency through a process of ‘normalization’ but it also examines the effects of such laws on their human targets through case studies of criminal trials and deportation hearings. Targets included political activists, immigrants and women. It makes contributions to Canada’s legal, immigration, labour and intelligence history. The study also examines the international influences on Canadian policy makers in creating such laws and the complex international identities of the transnational activists at whom these laws were often directed. The work examines how culture played a crucial role in underpinning the intelligence cycle that led to the prosecution of leading Communist Party of Canada (CPC) members. It also complicates our understanding of the CPC during Moscow’s ‘Third Period.’ It was a party that both marginalized and welcomed immigrant workers. The dissertation provides an in-depth examination of the trial of Rex v. Buck et al and the ways in which political ideology was interpreted by the court as a criminal act. It examines cases of deportation that resulted from the trial, such as the case of the ‘Halifax Ten,’ and traces what happened to the deportees after their deportation making use of Finnish, Polish, Croatian, and German primary sources. In addition, this work demonstrates how the communist led organization, the Canadian Labour Defense League (CLDL) initiated ii Canada’s civil rights movement by joining with moderate leftists during the ‘Third Period,’ and before the Communist International’s shift to the ‘United Front’ policy, to repeal Section 98. It demonstrates how the normalization of emergency law continued after Section 98’s repeal when its core elements were retained and folded into Canada’s sedition laws where it remains today. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people that deserve acknowledgements. I am grateful and thankful for the support of my supervisor Ian Radforth whose direction and expertise has been invaluable. My sincerest thanks to my committee members: Franca Iacovetta, Jim Phillips, and Sean Mills. This work would not be what it is now without your advice, support and always helpful suggestions. My thanks to Craig Heron, John McQuarrie, Mathieu Brûlé, Ester Reiter and everyone in our Labour Studies group. Thank you to Barry Wright, Susan Binnie, and Eric Tucker whose comments on a different project indirectly helped me on this one. Many thanks to Robert Wright for the great advice, support, and encouragement he provided over the years. Thank you to Jason Radman, Ana Radman, Alex Zlatanovic, Ben Bryce, Samira Samirano, Eugienio, Rudolpho, and Sophie Badurina for their aid in translations. This dissertation was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Ontario government and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program and the History Department at the University of Toronto. Thank you to all of them for their generous support. Many thanks to all my family and friends for believing in what I was doing. Thank you to Leo for giving me inspiration to keep going and to Hailey for patiently listening to all my ideas. I owe much more than thanks to my partner in life Nichole Molinaro. She has been unwavering in her love, support, patience and dedication. None of what I have done would have been possible without her believing in me and I am forever grateful. I am thankful for everything both of my parents, Krystyna and Gino Molinaro, have given to me over the years. As immigrants in a new land, they struggled and fought tenaciously in spite of the adversity they faced. Whether they know it or not, they imparted that spirit to me. This work is for them. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 1 Chapter 1 _____________________________________________________________ 15 Chapter 2 _____________________________________________________________ 61 Chapter 3 _____________________________________________________________ 96 Chapter 4 ____________________________________________________________ 146 Chapter 5 ____________________________________________________________ 178 Chapter 6 ____________________________________________________________ 228 Conclusion __________________________________________________________ 274 Appendix_____________________________________________________________287 Notes and Bibliography ________________________________________________ 288 v LIST OF APPENDACIES Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada vi INTRODUCTION Political violence and state repression have a long history in Canada. From the rebellions of the 1830s to the Riel resistance movements and the Winnipeg General Strike, Canada’s violent history of suppressing revolt and political activism runs deep. The interwar period was one of Canada’s most turbulent times; the nation’s temporary reprieve from international wars was plagued by another war, domestic in its locale, and focused on internal enemies. The violence and militancy of the labour revolt (1917-1925) culminated in the Winnipeg Strike of 1919. While the 1920s were relatively calm, there were still strikes and heated conflicts, notably in mining and steel-making communities in Nova Scotia. In Toronto, during the late 1920s, communists and their supporters fought for free speech, while police attempted to quell the unrest. The arrival of the Great Depression, which ushered in a new wave of unrest and violence, came upon Canadians quickly and ferociously. Within two years of the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment in Canada had surged to nearly 30 per cent. As the relief lines continued into the mid-1930s, labour militancy increased and so did the state’s attempts to crush it. The Canadian state outlawed the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), deported immigrants in unprecedented numbers, and made mass arrests of workers engaged in protests and strikes throughout the country. Police violence was at its height—most famously in places such as Estevan and Noranda. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachments were being called- in by civil authorities to quell violent marches of thousands of unemployed workers. Then there was the On-to-Ottawa Trek, where thousands of young, unemployed men marched toward the capital before they were met with police violence and gunfire, resulting in the Regina Riot. 1 Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister, Richard Bedford Bennett, ordered armoured cars and armed RCMP detachments to patrol Parliament. A present-day observer would scarcely recognize the Canada of the 1930s. Senator Gideon Robertson summed up the reasons for labour militancy when he told Bennett that workers ‘can hardly be expected to starve quietly.’1 Within the many pages that historians have written about these events, there has always been mention of the ‘infamous,’ ‘notorious’ or ‘legal sledgehammer’ that was Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Labelled as Canada’s ‘most repressive law,’ it is significantly understudied and misunderstood, as authors have referred to it as being ‘invoked’ or ‘revived’ to outlaw the CPC in 1931.2 Historians have regarded it as an emergency power resurrected for repressive purposes, but it was only a section in Canada’s Criminal Code and not part of the WMA. This work aims to answer lingering questions about Section 98 such as: Why was Section 98 created in 1919? Was it another sedition law? Why was it scarcely used? What role did it play in the state repression of the interwar period? Why was it repealed, if indeed it really was repealed? How was the law interpreted by those that opposed it and what effect did it or its removal have on Canadians? How could such a law be possible in a liberal-democratic state? Section 98 originated as an emergency law. It was a copy of Canadian wartime legislation that suppressed left-wing activism, namely Privy Council (P.C.) 2384, created in September 1918. It shared many similarities with Section 41 of the Immigration Act of 1910, which was based on U.S. immigration law. 3 What makes Section 98 profoundly fascinating and significant is that it enabled the authorities to engage in what Whitaker, Kealey and Parnaby have called ‘political policing’ during a time of peace. I argue that the creation of Section 98 marked a watershed in Canadian history whereby the government began the process of normalizing emergency measures to combat unacceptable political views. The broader ramifications of this 2 policy enabled the state to regulate the political ideology of citizens and immigrants by way of the Criminal Code. It served as a means of nation-building by excluding the undesirable. Section 98 enabled authorities to