How an angry speech paved the way to Canada's Communist labour purges of the 1950s

Justice Minister Louis St. Laurent, destined to be Canada’s prime minister, made no secret of his dislike for Communists. In mid-March 1948, he officially announced that “Canada is cracking down on labour-union communists fleeing from the anti-communist Taft-Hartley labor law of the U.S.”[1]Both the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) and the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL), predecessors of today’s Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), sanctioned the federal government ban on reds and refused a request from Mine-Mill, an embattled CCL affiliate, to come to its aid.[2]That paved the way for the deportation of Mine-Mill international leader Reid Robinson who had been identified by the authorities as a subversive “labour union official.”[3] It also gave labour officials the excuse they needed to accelerate ongoing efforts to purge Communist unions from their federations.

[1] “Reds Will Find It Hard To Enter Canadian Labor,” Trail Daily Times (TDT), 12 March 1948, 1.

[2] “Labor Congress Will Not Interfere With Government’s Ban on U.S. Union Organizers,” TDT, 11 March 1948, 1.

[3] “Canada Will Bar All Communists,” TDT, 4 March 1948, 1.

The Underpants Speech

Tags: communism, History, labour, unions

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