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CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS
s’appuiera sur une source primaire majeure, les archives d’un grand quotidien
montréalais, The Gazette dont le propriétaire et les membres du comité de
rédaction étaient conservateurs, mais qui ont fait preuve d’une passivité inté¬
ressante à l'égard de l'élection d’un communiste au Parlement. Les événements
entourant cette élection partielle montrent que les événements historiques
majeurs ont fait d’etranges alliances politiques à l'époque, comme c’est encore
le cas aujourd’hui.
Mots-clés: politique canadienne, Québec, Seconde Guerre mondiale, élec¬
tion partielle du 9 août 1943
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is often quoted in politics and diploma¬
cy.’ One can cite many examples in history where people, countries, etc. were
regarded as enemies only to be later feted as allies and friends, particularly when
a more feared and hated rival appeared. One of the best examples of this in his¬
tory was the alliance of the Western allies with the Soviet Union after the latter
was attacked and invaded by Nazi Germany and its Axis allies on June 22, 1941.
The Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, had an iron grip on the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union by the mid-1930s and was unquestionably praised and followed by
loyal Communists worldwide, while being feared and hated by capitalists, anti¬
Communists, anti-Stalinist socialists, etc. In Canada the Soviet Union, which
had been regarded as an international pariah since 1918, suddenly became a
heroic ally of Canada and Great Britain in their war with Germany.
The sudden switch in Canadian attitudes towards the Soviet Union forms
only one part in the rise of Fred Rose. Rose was a Polish-born communist who
arrived in Montreal in 1920, then joined and steadily rose in the Communist
Party of Canada, and helped working class employees in sweatshops form trade
unions in Depression-era Montreal in the 1930s. Montreal is where Rose entered
both federal and provincial politics in the riding of Cartier, finally winning a
surprising byelection victory there in August 1943, thus becoming the only
Communist ever elected Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.
This paper will focus on the reasons why Fred Rose was able to win the
Cartier byelection. The voter makeup of Cartier in the early 1940s and Rose’s
political activism will be described, along with the party programs of his three
major opponents from the Liberal, CCF and Bloc Populaire parties, especially
in relation to the issue of ‘conscription.’ It will be shown that not only did
Mackenzie King’s Government fine-tune their previous antipathy towards the
See Forrest Wickman’s article “Fact Checking Spock: Was the ‘Enemy of My Enemy’ Guy Really
Killed my His ‘Friend’?” for a discussion of the origins of this proverb in Slate, 16 May 2013,
at https://slate.com/culture/2013/05/star-trek-into-darkness-fact-checked-was-the-enemy-of¬
my-enemy-guy-really-killed-by-his-friend.html
? The Conservatives were held in such low esteem in Cartier that they did not bother to field a
candidate.
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