Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Activists, 1930-1960 (review)

The recent passage of Rosa Parks, a legend of the American civil rights movement, elicited significant attention on this side of the border. Canadians mourned the loss of the 'mother of the civil rights movement' as if she were our own. Certainly the attention was deserved, but it calls to mind the clear lack of awareness of our own civil and human rights activists on this side of the forty-ninth parallel. Historians have only begun to highlight the Canadian human and civil rights movement that emerged in the period immediately following the Second World War. While much work still remains to be done, Ross Lambertson's book marks a significant contribution to the literature on rights in Canada. Specifically, his analysis of civil and human rights activists and groups between the 1930s and 1960s represents the first such published volume of its kind.

Well written, assiduously researched, and finely detailed, Repression and Resistance is sure to become an authoritative text for scholars in the fields of human rights, political science, minority studies, and sociology. It is based on government documents, newspaper articles, organization minutes, and most importantly, twenty-four personal interviews with various rights activists. Lambertson has published widely in the field of Canadian human rights history, and this work builds upon his doctoral dissertation.

In his eight chapters, Lambertson demonstrates how Canadians, and indeed, Canadian legislation, moved from the political turmoil of the Great Depression when some of Canada's first civil liberties groups were formed, to the passage of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights in 1960. Following an introduction that neatly and clearly defines some key concepts and terms at use in his book, such as 'human rights,' 'individual and collective rights,' and 'libertarian and egalitarian rights,' Lambertson's first chapter is devoted to the state of the early civil liberties groups and their unsuccessful campaigns waged against Quebec's Padlock Law. Chapter 2 focuses on violations of civil liberties during the Second World War and how civil liberties groups, although alarmed at curtailments on such basic freedoms as speech, association, and due process were nevertheless fractured over the issue of communism and possible communist infiltrators in their organizations. Chapter 3 introduces the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians, the first major human rights coalition of the postwar period, and its campaign to reverse the federal government's attempt to expatriate Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. The fourth chapter highlights the Gouzenko and Shugar cases, while the fifth chapter explores the role of the Canadian Jewish Congress in the campaign for the legal prohibition of certain forms of discrimination, and in particular the use of restrictive property covenants. Chapter 6 provides a caveat to some of the victories detailed in previous chapters by describing how cold war politics and regionalism hampered the creation of a truly national civil liberties organization. Chapter 7 returns to the issue of egalitarian rights by examining the role of the Jewish Labour Committee, Kalmen Kaplansky, Ben Kayfetz, and trade union activists in applying the emerging discourse of human rights in campaigns to end racial and religious discrimination. The persistence of Jim Crow in Dresden, ON, is used as this chapter's case study. Chapter 8 is devoted to the 'half a loaf' 1960 Bill of Rights, the role of Diefenbaker in its passage, and the impact of the previous campaigns in warming Canadians to the idea of a national human rights document.

Lambertson is particularly effective in presenting the machinations among rights organizations, individuals, and various levels of government that complicated the development of anti-discrimination legislation. He demonstrates that while some groups transcended their own self-interest to include broader values of freedom and equality, still others such as the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians would end their campaign once its general mandate – justice for Japanese Canadians – was mainly achieved. This is no blindly celebratory work; Lambertson presents both the strengths and the limitations of the actors and activists...