Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920-1940 (review)

Book Reviews 129 Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920-1940, by Martin Robin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. 372 pp. $60.00 (c); $16.95 (P). By excoriating nativist and "fascist" extremism during the interwar years, liberal scholars long delegitimized what they perceived as "unAmerican " bigotry. Liberal-pluralists like Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, and Talcott Parsons, among others, argued that such politics had more in common with the totalitarian regimes ofAdolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini than the Republican Party of the United States. In recent years, however, historians Leo P. Ribuffo, Alan Brinkley, and Alan Dawley have challenged this view, exhibiting empathy with such mass leaders as Father Coughlin and Huey Long, and locating "extremist" politics as much within the marrow of American politics as on the fringes. Sadly, the history of the last fifty years teaches that a prime determinant within nativism and fascism-as well as within the everyday lives of most citizens-remains antisemitism. Hatred of, and discrimination against, Jews may have declined in intensity within the United States and Canada since the Second World War, but there can be no doubt that antisemitism lurks ever beneath that thin veneer we term civilization. In Canada, as in the United States, the Great Depression shattered the faith of many citizens in the ability of representative politics to cope with unprecedented economic and social dislocation. Professor Martin Robin, who teaches political science at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, provides an interesting overview of the genesis and evolution of the right-wing in Canada during the 1920s and 1930s. Shades ofRight reflects solid grounding in Canadian secondary and primary sourcesalthough the use of German documents would have helped clarify the connections between Hitler's Reich and the Canadian fascists. Robin's work is primarily descriptive. Building on such studies as LitaRose Betcherman's The Swastika and the Maple Leaf(1975), David Rome's Clouds in the Thirties (1977), Howard Palmer's Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta (1982), and Julian Sher's White Hoods (1983), as well as a number of unpublished Ph.D. dissertations, Robin breaks new ground in seeing the continuum between the 1920s and the 1930s, and in seeking to provide an overview of extremist politics in a diverse, sprawling country. Among other topics, he explores the "toxic American transplant" of the Ku Klux Klan-which, his evidence suggests, overlapped significantly with Orange Lodges in Ontario, and similarly adapted itself to the historical culture of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Though Robin fails to make the connection (in fact, he seems 130 SHOFAR Fall 1993 Vol. 12, No. 1 in his one mention of Henry Ford to make him a klansman [po 8]), antisemitic themes Ford popularized during the 1920s in his notorious Dearborn Independent enjoyed great prominence in Canadian venues, in both Klan and nativist/fascist propaganda, as they did in Nazi Germany itself. If the Klan provided the gaudiest show within Canadian nativism (suggesting that for some persons, especially in agrarian regions, the depression arrived well before 1930), other movements of more restricted geographical area emerged soon thereafter. Robin assess the Christian national socialists in Quebec who took the name of Goglus-or skunk blackbird (bobolink), unfair to that admittedly obnoxious bird, but productive of Canada's number-one fascist of the 1930s, Adrien Arcand. Where many pro-fascist leaders and groups enjoyed little success and less longevity, Arcand retained a constant presence until war came in 1939. Robin tells his story well. He assesses the impact various shirted groups exerted, especially upon Canadian urban enclaves of German and Italian immigrants. Assessments of developments in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal are particularly strong. He also traces the impact of nativist extremists on the established political order on local and provincial levels, as well as their interaction with German consular offices across the country. One point that becomes clear during the book is that antisemitism was no monopoly of the political fringe-that prejudice and concomitant discrimination permeated Canadian society. Yet despite strengths, the book is ultimately disappointing. The index is bare bones, a mere afterthought lacking in imagination and key entries. The author lowers his (and his...