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THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: THE MAKING OF FRED ROSE, M.P. Communists were blocking a CCF alliance with unions. David saw support from labour as the key to power. But to get it, Communist opposition in unions had to be removed” (Smith 242). The stage was set for a confrontation between Lewis and Rose. In addition to Rose and Lewis, there were two other major candidates in the running. Montreal-born Lazarus Phillips, a prominent member of the Montreal Jewish community, represented the Liberals. A solicitor in a Montreal law firm by profession, Phillips was also the national treasurer of the United Jewish and War Relief agencies. Paul Massé, the Bloc Populaire candidate, was a French Canadian born in Montreal, who actually lived in Cartier for some years. He was a practicing lawyer by profession and a member of the St. Jean Baptiste Society. Massé’s base were those voters who were strongly against conscription. A periodical critically commented that Massé’s party represented “the latest political expression of the more extreme French-Canadian nationalism” (The Canadian Forum, September 1943, 126). There was also an independent candidate running, Moses Miller, who was Jewish and a member of the B’nai B’rith, and not expected to win more than a few votes (The Gazette, August 9, 1943, 13). The campaign in the Cartier byelection is a long topic, so it is important to focus on two key points: first, why the Liberals were routed; and secondly, why the LPP won in the end. As for why the Liberals were badly defeated: King had already predicted such a result before the votes were counted (see footnote 10); but even arguments about conscription and Liberal labour policies cannot fully explain why the Liberals went from 88.54% of the Cartier vote in 1940 to 21.97% in the August 1943 byelection. King himself complained the Liberals had “above all, no organization” in the riding (Pickersgill 570). Moreover, byelections are traditionally a safe way to punish a governing party for their ills, and by August 1943 there were enough scandals and issues to defeat the Liberals. A scandal that damaged them in Cartier was the electoral lists scandal uncovered by reporters of The Gazette and put on the front page of their Saturday, July 24" edition. The headline read in bold: “GAZETTE REPORTER BARE FLAGRANT IRREGULARITIES IN CARTIER VOTERS’ LISTS” and reported that 102 non-residents at the Hotel Dieu hospital were placed on the electoral lists along with dozens of other cases including the names of children and dead people (The Gazette, July 24, 1943, +1). The Gazette reported that Phillips’s nephew, Lazarus Bavitch, was the chief returning officer in the riding, so the Liberals had the embarrassment of the RCMP coming to the riding to investigate things (The Gazette, July 27, 1943, 1). Another blow to the Liberals happened when B The Gazette ran a large front-page photo and story showing three children of the Cote family on the voters’ list: Gizelle, 14, holding her 18-month-old sister, Raymonde, and standing next to her brother, Yvon, 4, who “did not know he was listed as a factory worker; Gizelle as a housekeeper; and that the infant was an ammunition worker.” + 169 »
