'This is our country, these are our rights': Minorities and the origins of Ontario's human rights campaigns

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 82, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 1-35

  Patrias, Carmela ^a   Frager, Ruth A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33645334299     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/CHR.82.1.1     Document Type: Review

References (144)

1. R. Brian Howe, 'The Evolution of Human Rights Policy in Ontario,' Canadian Journal of Political Science 24, 4 (1991): 783-802
2. James W. St. G. Walker, 'Race,' Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies (Waterloo: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1997). In an unpublished dissertation, Herbert Sohn examined some aspects of the coalitions behind anti-discrimination legislation, focusing mainly on the Jewish Public Relations Committee's role in the campaigns.
3. See Herbert A. Sohn, 'Human Rights Legislation in Ontario: A Study of Social Action' (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto 1975). More recently, Ross Lambertson's dissertation examines the roles of certain minority groups in various parts of Canada in the campaigns for civil liberties and human rights.
4. See Ross Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights: The Struggle for Human Rights in Canada, 1945-1960' (PhD dissertation, University of Victoria 1998).
5. On the broad explanations offered, see Robert Brian Howe, 'Human Rights Policy in Ontario: The Tension between Positive and Negative State Values' (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto 1989);
6. John Charles Bagnall, 'The Ontario Conservatives and the Development of Anti-Discrimination Policy: 1944-1962' (PhD dissertation, Queen's University 1984);
7. and William Kaplan, State and Salvation: The Jehovah's Witnesses and Their Fight for Civil Rights (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1989).
8. Proceedings of the Third Session of the Twenty-Third Legislature, Province of Ontario, vol.29, 13 March 1951
9. Interview with Kalmen Kaplansky, Ottawa, 30 June 1995
10. This article is part of a larger work in which we plan to examine the struggles to incorporate concerns about sex discrimination into the human rights campaigns that focused on racist, ethnic, and religious forms of discrimination. For an analysis of the early fight for equal pay for women doing the same work as men in Ontario, see Shirley Tillotson, 'Human Rights Law as Prism: Women's Organizations, Unions, and Ontario's Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act, 1951,' Canadian Historical Review 72, 4 (1991): 532-57.
11. See also Julie Guard, 'Fair Play or Fair Pay? Gender Relations, Class Consciousness, and Union Solidarity in the Canadian UE,' Labour/Le Travail 7 (spring 1996): 149-177
12. Alan Davies and Marilyn Felcher Nefsky, 'The United Church and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era, 1933-1945,' Canadian Jewish Historical Society Journal 8, 2 (1984): 63. In his capacity as director of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, Silcox wrote to Premier Drew to urge him to protect the civil rights of Jews against the discrimination they faced in resorts.
13. See Archives of Ontario (AO), G.A. Drew Papers, RG 3-17, General Correspondence, box 434, file 73G: Discrimination Bill, petitions re, C.E. Silcox to Hon. George Drew, 10 Nov. 1943.
14. 'Statements by Rev. Dr. C.E. Silcox to Accompany Special Report on Immigration,' The Bulletin, Council for Social Service, Church of England in Canada, 15 Oct. 1941, 10-24
15. The Bulletin, Ibid., 15
16. 'Special Report on Immigration,' The Bulletin, 15 Oct. 1941, 6-7.
17. On Judd's fight against anti-Semitism and on behalf of Jewish refugees, see Alan Davies and Marilyn F. Nefsky, 'The Church of England in Canada and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era 1933-1945,' Canadian Jewish Historical Society Journal 10, 1 (1988): 1-19.
18. United Church of Canada Archives (UCCA), Records of the Board of Evangelism and Social Service, Annual Reports, 1950, 28
19. UCCA, Records of the Board of Evangelism and Social Service, Correspondence Files of Secretary, box 47, file 89: Correspondence between W.J. Sisler and J.R. Mutchmor, November and December 1943
20. See, for example, UCCA, Records of the Women's Missionary Society, box 163, Toronto East Presbyterial, Annual Reports, 1949; box 176, Hamilton Conference Branch, Niagara Presbyterial, Minutes, 2 May 1944, 30 and 31 Jan. 1946.
21. Ibid., Dominion Board Annual Meetings, Minutes, 2 June 1952
22. The quotations are from The Senate of Canada: Proceedings of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour, No. 8, 25 July 1946 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier 1946), 222 and 224.
23. See also Ontario Jewish Archives (OJA), Records of the Joint Public Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai B'rith (JPRC), MG 8S, File: JPRC notices, agendas, minutes; File: Report JPRC, 30 Sept. 1946; File: National JPRC minutes, nd, Résumé of Reports Submitted and Resolutions Adopted at National JPRC Meeting on subject of co-operation with the Jewish Labour Committee, 6 May 1947.
24. National Archives of Canada (NA), Jewish Labour Committee (JLC), MG 28 V75, vol.43, file 24: 'Correspondence. Windsor Joint Labour Committee for Human Rights, January-June 1955,' and 'Report for the month of May, 1955.' Agnes Calliste, 'Sleeping Car Porters in Canada: An Ethnically Submerged Split Labour Market,' in Laurel Sefton McDowell and Ian Radforth, eds., Canadian Working Class History (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press 1992), 684
25. NA, Kalmen Kaplansky Records (KK), MG 30 A53, Notes on reports of activities for improved human relations 1946-1947, vol.20, file 3, 210
26. NA, JLC, vol.41, file 17, Sid Blum to Kalmen Kaplansky, 2 Aug. 1954; Globe and Mail, 10 and 12 July 1954;
27. KK, vol.21, file 2: 1954, 69-72
28. NA, Records of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and New Democratic Party, MG 28 IV 1, vol.165, file: Japanese-Canadians, 1943-1949, 'A Vote for the CCF is a Vote for the Jap' (11 June 1945)
29. NA, CCF records, vol.174, File: Oriental-Canadians, George Grube to Lloyd Fell, 6 Oct. 1943.
30. For a discussion of the political left's response to the persecution of Japanese Canadians, see Werner Cohn, 'The Persecution of Japanese Canadians and the Political Left in British Columbia, December 1941-March 1943,' BC Studies 68 (winter 1985-6): 3-22.
31. Why the presence of Professor Angus, who had been a champion of full rights for Japanese Canadians, had little impact on the policies devised by the committee has not been considered in studies of the branch.
32. John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic: The Making of a Northern Nation (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1938)
33. See Howard Palmer, Multiculturalism as State Policy (Ottawa: Canadian Consultative Council of Multiculturalism, Department of Canadian Heritage 1976).
34. Watson Kirkconnell, Canada, Europe and Hitler (Toronto: Oxford University Press 1939), 203
35. Robert England, Living, Learning, Remembering: Memoirs of Robert England (Vancouver: Centre for Continuing Education, University of British Columbia 1980), 140
36. John Herd Thompson, Ethnic Minorities during Two World Wars (Canada's Ethnic Groups, Booklet 19) (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association 1991), 15;
37. William R. Young, 'Chauvinism and Canadianism: Canadian Ethnic Groups and the Failure of Wartime Information,' in Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War, On Guard for Thee: War, Ethnicity, and the Canadian State, 1939-1945 (Np 1988), 45
38. See, for example, Watson Kirkconnell, Our Ukrainian Loyalists (Winnipeg: Ukrainian Canadian Committee 1943), 8;
39. NA, RG 36, Boards, Offices, Commissions, vol.13, file 8-9-2, 'Ethnic Groups Canada,' Report by Mr Tracy Phillips to the Committee on Cooperation in Canadian Citizenship, 25 Nov. 1943.
40. AO, Records of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, RG 76-3-0-113, 'The Chinese Community'
41. See, for example, Equal Opportunity (Bulletin published by Race Relations Committee of the Fellowship of Reconciliation);
42. Tribune, 20 Dec. 1948.
43. AO, Frost Papers, General Correspondence, RG 3-23, box 28, file Cao-Cof, Premier Leslie Frost to Bishop John C. Cody, 19 March 1954;
44. Commissions and Committees, RG 18 D-I-53, Select Committee on Civil Liberties and the Rights of Indians in Ontario
45. Harvey McCue, 'The Modern Age, 1945-1980,' in Edward S. Rogers and Donald B. Smith, eds., Aboriginal Ontario: Historical Perspectives on the First Nations (Toronto: Dundurn Press 1994), 377-417
46. This observation is based on an analysis of Hungarian-and Ukrainian-language newspapers from the 1940s to the 1960s. For the analysis of Ukrainian-language newspapers, the authors would like to thank Dennis Soltys.
47. Ukrains'ke zhyttia (Ukrainian Life), 2 March 1950, 5
48. Full explanation requires further study. For an example of Roman Catholic suspicion of the Civil Liberties Association of Toronto because of its defence of arrested Communists, see Catholic Register, 25 July 1945. (During the period under consideration, the Catholic Register was sometimes known as the Canadian Register.)
49. Catholic Register, 25 July 1942 and 23 March 1946
50. See, for example, OJA, Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), Chronological Correspondence Files, RG 290, 1947-1948, file FEPC 1947-1948, Ben Kayfetz to Sol Grand, 21 June 1948.
51. Archdiocesan Archives of Toronto, McGuigan Papers, MG Su27.35d, Archbishop McGuigan to John Frank, 12 April 1944
52. See, for example, the concern about Communist and atheist teachers in the Catholic Register, 23 March 1946 (editorial), and 20 Jan. and 14 April 1951. Our observations about Catholic attitudes towards interdenominational collaboration and secular humanism are necessarily preliminary, since this subject, which has been studied in the United States, has not yet attracted the attention of Canadian scholars.
53. On the United States, see, for example, Philip Gleason, Speaking of Diversity: Language and Ethnicity in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1992).
54. See 'Mortalium Animos. Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Religious Unity, January 6, 1928,' in The Papal Encyclicals, 1903-1939.
55. Catholic Register, 20 Jan. 1951
56. Catholic Register, Ibid., 17 Aug. 1957.
57. See also 'Philippine Bishops Warn Catholics May Not Join YMCA,' 28 Aug. 1954,
58. and 'Has Anyone Thought of the Rights of God?' 14 April 1951.
59. Catholic Register, 18 Feb. 1950
60. AO, Alvin D. McCurdy Collection, Records of the Amherstburg Community Club, 1934-1944, Alvin D. McCurdy, president, to Murray Clark, MP, undated (c. 1943)
61. The Dawn of Tomorrow, 4 March 1944
62. AO, Alvin D. McCurdy Collection, letter (unsigned) to Gaster B. Currens, executive secretary of the NAACP in Detroit, Michigan, June 1943;
63. Robin Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1971), chap. 14
64. On Toronto, see Globe and Mail, 30 Oct. 1943.
65. For a discussion of developments in Dresden, see Walker, 'Race,' Rights and the Law, 173, 176.
66. See Charles H. Young and Helen R.Y. Reid, The Japanese Canadians (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1939), 167.
67. NA, Records of the Japanese Canadian Citizens Association, MG 28, vol.13, file 3, Provincial Conference Reports, 1949;
68. Records of the Japanese Canadian Citizens Association, vol.7, file 35, Report of the Western Ontario Regional Conference, 10 and 11 May 1947, 2;
69. Records of the Japanese Canadian Citizens Association, vol.7, file 23, George Tanaka to Fred Enta, Ruthven, Ont., 23 Dec. 1948;
70. Chatham Daily News, 9 May 1949;
71. New Canadian, 4 Sept. 1943
72. Norah Fujita, 'Tomorrow Will Be Too Late,' New Canadian, 15 Nov. 1947
73. 'Racialism Is a Disease,' New Canadian, 26 Jan. 1946
74. OJA, JPRC, box 72, Fair Employment Practices Anti-Discrimination Legislation, 1943-1963, file: Pre-1943, 'Review of Congress Activities'
75. NA, JLC, vol.41, file 4: Provisional Labour Committee to Combat Racial Intolerance, 'Press statement on the background of the Labour Committee to Combat Racial Intolerance'
76. NA, KK, vol.20, file 2, Notes on Reports of Activities, 1946-1947, 47, 120-122, and 129
77. KK,Ibid., Notes, vol.20, file 2: 1946-1947, 60
78. KK,Ibid., Notes and Reports, 1946-7, vol.20, file 2, 120-122
79. OJA, National JPRC, reel 2, file 3 'The Dream';
80. file 1948-1949: Toward Better Group Relations. A summary of the intercultural activities conducted by the JPRC, nd;
81. CJC, Central Region, reel 7, file: The Dream Series (1948)
82. Archives of the Jewish Labor Committee, New York, Report of Activities for Improved Human Relations of the Jewish Labor Committee of Canada, presented to the National Conference of the Jewish Labor Committee, Toronto, Ont., December 1-3, 1950, and Report of Activities for Improved Human Relations of the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada for the Year Ending July 31, 1947
83. See, for example, OJA, JPRC, box 72, Fair Employment Practices, Anti-Discrimination Legislation, 1943-6, Publicity, October 23, 1947, requests for material from the Student Christian Movement, the United Church, and the Presbyterian Church.
84. See Ron Faris, The Passionate Educators: Voluntary Associations and the Struggle for Control of Adult Educational Broadcasting in Canada, 1919-1952 (Toronto: P. Martin Associates 1975), chap. 6.
85. OJA, CJC, Chronological Correspondence Files 1949, box 1, file 33: Canadian Association for Adult Education (CAAE), Ben Kayfetz to Dr E.A. Corbett, director, CAAE, 10 Nov. 1949.
86. See also AO, Records of the CAAE, Minutes of the Joint Planning Commission, 10 Feb. 1950, Programme Report of the Committee on Group Relations.
87. OJA, CJC, Chronological Correspondence Files, 1947-9, Reports of Activities against Discrimination, 1946-7;
88. JPRC, file 1948-9: Minutes of Legal Sub-Committee, 14 March 1949;
89. 'On the Record,' Food for Thought, 1949, 23-24
90. NA, Records of the Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, MG 28 I173, vol.3, file: Correspondence General, Vivien Mahood to R.A. McEachern, editor, Financial Post, 11 Aug. 1949
91. OJA, CJC, reel 3, file: General Wingate Branch of Legion 256; JPRC, reel 1, file: Canadian Legion, Resolutions adopted at the Biennial Convention of the Ontario Command, Canadian Legion, Sept. 21-4, 1947; D. Lou Harris to Paul Hayes, 21 April 1947; W.W. Solkin to D. Lou Harris, 28 April 1947; box 3, file 1947 Minutes, 13 Aug. 1947; box 3, file 1950; Globe and Mail, 30 Sept. 1947
92. UCCA, Silcox Papers, Second Report of the Director of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, 29 Dec. 1941; OJA, JPRC 1946-7, Minutes, JPRC, 9 July 1947; box 4, file 6: 1951, Brotherhood Week; CJC, reel 3, file: R.D. Jones, Canadian Council of Christians and Jews
93. NA, KK, vol.20, file 2, pp. 30-1;
94. Archives of the Jewish Labor Committee, New York, box 30, folder 15, Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, Holy Blossom Temple, 'A Reevaluation of the Good Will Movement,' paper delivered at Central Conference of American Rabbis, in Convention, Montreal, 25 June 1947; OJA , JPRC, 1946-7, file: National JPRC, nd, Minutes, 29 April and 9 July 1947.
95. See also Food for Thought, 1949, 22.
96. 'Citizenship Instruction,' Report of the Minister of Education, Province of Ontario in the Year 1946 (Toronto 1948), 12
97. OJA, JPRC, reel 1, file 1: JPRC notices, agendas, and minutes; file: National JPRC, nd, Minutes 29 April 1946; file 70: Civil Liberties Association, 1942-6; JPRC, box 72, file 1945-6, Minutes, 31 Oct. 1945; Abraham L. Feinberg, Storm the Gates of Jericho (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1964), 299
98. There is almost no mention of this experiment in the records of the Ministry of Education. See Annual Reports. A curriculum can be found in the local history collection of the Welland Public Library.
99. See also Food for Thought, 1949, 20-21
100. OJA, CJC, Chronological Correspondence Files, 1947-9, reel 2, file 22: CAAE, Ben Kayfetz to Robey Kidd, 13 Aug. 1948
101. OJA, CJC, reel 7, file 64: FEPC (1947-1948), Report of FEPC meeting, 1 March 1948; JPRC, reel 2, file 9: FEP, Ben Kayfetz to Rabbi A. Feinberg, 29 Oct. 1947
102. OJA, JPRC, box 72, 'Fair Employment Practices Anti Discrimination Legislation, 1943-63,' file: 1943, 'Supplement to Report on Selective Service Board Order'; JPRC, reel 1, file: Discrimination in Employment
103. AO, Drew Papers, RG 3-17, box 436, file: 87-G Fair Employment Practices Act, Evidence of Unequal Opportunities;
104. OJA, JPRC, box 72, Fair Employment Practices, Anti-Discrimination Legislation, 1943-1963, file 1943, CJC, 9 Feb. 1943, Unified Financial Policy for Congress Agencies Reached at Toronto Meeting
105. OJA, JPRC, box 72, FEP, Anti-Discrimination Legislation, 1943-1963, file 1945-6, minutes, 17 June 1945; NA, JLC, vol.19, file 4: Facts, 19
106. OJA, JPRC, file: Miscellaneous D, Charles Daley, minister of labour, to Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, 29 Dec. 1947
107. Hansard, 4 March 1948
108. Globe and Mail, 25 Jan. 1950
109. OJA, JPRC, box 72, FEP, file 1946-7, JPRC, Minutes of meeting, 23 Oct. 1947
110. Ibid., box 3, file 1: 1947, JPRC, 27 May 1947, activities report
111. Ibid., reel 2, file 9: Fair Employment Practices, Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, chairman, JPRC, to officers of Ontario organizations, 18 Sept. 1947
112. OJA, CJC, reel 7, file 64 FEPC (1947-1948): Report of FEPC meeting, 1 March 1948; JPRC, reel 2, file FEP: Ben Kayfetz to Abraham Feinberg, 29 Oct. 1947
113. OJA, JPRC, file: FEP, Report for National JPRC, 29 Oct. 1947
114. NA, JLC, vol.19, file 6: Correspondence with CAAE, Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee on Group Relations in Canada, 18 Dec. 1949
115. NA, JLC, vol.41, file 4: Report on activities of the Toronto Joint Labour Committee to Combat Racial Intolerance in the field of improved human relations in the labour movement, for the period January 1st to December 31st, 1951;
116. KK, Notes, vol.20, file 11, 1-4
117. Toronto Daily Star, 12 March 1949
118. NA, KK, vol.20, File 5, 1948, 46
119. See, for example, NA, Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights records, vol. 9, file 2: Association for Civil Liberties, 1950-1, Minutes of the Committee on Group Relations of the Civil Liberties Association, 29 Sept. 1950.
120. Sohn, 'Human Rights Legislation,' 125
121. Ben Kayfetz, 'On Community Relations in Ontario in the 1940s,' Canadian Jewish Studies 2 (1994): 57-65; interview with Ben Kayfetz, 29 April 1997, Toronto
122. For an excellent discussion of the Intergroup Relations Movement in the United States, see Stuart Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (New York: Columbia University Press 1997).
123. See also Gleason, Speaking of Diversity.
124. Stanley G. Grizzle with John Cooper, My Name's Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada (Toronto: Umbrella Press 1998), 52-53
125. NA, Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, vol.3, file 8, Correspondence General, Vivien Mahood to Robert Maddeaux [nd]; KK, vol.20, file 2, 1946-1947, 23, 78;
126. KK, vol.20, Report on Activities for Improved Human Relations for the Year Ending 31 July 1947
127. NA, KK, vol.20, file 2: Notes on reports of activities, 1946-1947, 17
128. KK,Ibid., vol.20, file 2: 1946-1947, 23-25
129. See also NA, Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, vol.3, file 9, Correspondence General: 1948, Minutes of the meeting of the Committee on Education of the CCL, 26 July 1948.
130. KK, vol.20, file 2, 18-19, 84-6, 152-153
131. United Auto Worker - Canadian Edition, June 1949 and Jan. 1950;
132. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Papers of the UAW Toronto Sub-Regional Office, box 7, file: 'MacLean, Thomas, Correspondence, 1948-49,' Thomas MacLean to all Canadian locals, 31 May 1949;
133. Papers of the UAW Region 7, box 89, file: 'Local 222, Oshawa, 1949,' A.G. Shultz to George Burt, 28 Dec. 1949;
134. Papers of the UAW Region 7, box 97, file: 'Local 458, Brantford 1949,' news sheet commemorating the new UAW hall in Brantford [Dec. 1949];
135. Papers of UAW Local 199, box 23, file: Executive Minutes, 1950-1, Report of Anti-Discrimination Committee [1950 or 1951];
136. KK, vol.20, file 9: 1950, 3
137. NA, Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, vol.3, file 14, Correspondence General, July-Dec. 1950, William C. Macdonald, education director, UAW, to Gordon Milling, 13 Sept. 1950
138. NA, JLC, vol.43, file 21: Correspondence Windsor Joint Committee for Human Rights, June-Dec. 1953, Report for the month of October 1953
139. Reuther Library, UAW - Fair Employment Practices Collection, box 13, file 41: FEPC Canada, 1949-1958
140. NA, JLC, vol.13, file 7: Correspondence: United Steel Workers of America, 1947-1950, Eamon Park to Kalmen Kaplansky, 23 March 1950. See also Canadian Tribune, 23 Jan. 1950.
141. See, for example, NA, JLC, vol.3, General Correspondence, file 9, Vivien Mahood to W. List, Globe and Mail, 4 March 1949;
142. NA, Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights, vol.3, file 3, 'A Survey of Group Relations in Canada,' an address by Kalmen Kaplansky, director of the Jewish Labor Committee of Canada, to be presented on May 1st, 1954, at the Third Annual Fair Employment Practices Conference of the Ontario Federation of Labor.
143. OJA, JPRC, Memorandum to Members of the National Executive Committee of the CJC from Saul Hayes, 20 Jan. 1946
144. Alvin D. McCurdy Collection, Alvin D. McCurdy, president of the Amherstburg Community Club, to Murray Clark, MP, 24 April 1943