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CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS
20,000 aircraft workers in Montreal went out on strike on August 3". The
striking workers demanded "a retroactive cost-of-living bonus," which the
National War Labour Board did not have the power to grant (The Gazette,
August 4, 1943. 1). The problem was that the cost of living in Montreal went
up 20.6% in July 1943, which made living there more difficult (The Gazette,
July 27, 1943, 6). Since many striking workers lived in Cartier, Liberal chances
of winning evaporated by the final days of the campaign, despite a political
endorsement by The Gazette (The Gazette, August 4, 1943, 6).
In contrast to the Liberals, the Bloc Populaire had a better chance at winning
Cartier. Massé could count on a majority of the French-Canadian vote to make
up for likely not winning any Jewish votes in the riding. However, the fact that
Rose was already well known and respected by many French-Canadian work¬
ers meant this was not going to be easy. Moreover, many Jews and Anglo-Que¬
becers in Montreal feared a Bloc Populaire victory. The Bloc Populaire had no
shades of gray when it came to the conscription issue — they were vehemently
against it! For Anglo-Quebecers and Jews alike, who backed the war effort,
this was abhorrent. Furthermore, many members of the Bloc Populaire were
strongly anti-Semitic. While their provincial leader, André Laurendeau, was
not really anti-Semitic, he did not denounce Adrien Arcand, the director of
the fascist National Unity Party of Canada, who was then interned by the King
Government, and the antics of his followers.’ Watson writes that “Sadly, many
Québécois were still quietly sympathetic to Arcand’s Fascists,” and on August
9! election day many French Canadian thugs attacked “drivers taking Rose’s
constituents to the polls” (Watson 557).
As for the CCF, David Lewis had a very good résumé for many, but it was
anathema to others. The fact that Lewis was Jewish was too much for those
French Canadians, Hungarians, Slovaks, etc. in the riding who were anti-Se¬
mitic. Moreover, the name ‘Lewis’ was not necessarily Jewish, which the LPP
jumped upon. Lewis himself accused Rose and the Communists years later for
playing on racial prejudice during the campaign. He wrote, “Several of our
canvassers were almost in tears as... Communist workers had persuaded Jew¬
ish voter who didn’t know me that, in view of my name, I must be English or
Welsh, not Jewish...[and] to non-Jewish voters that, despite my name, I was
Jewish and why should they vote for a Jew?” (Lewis 231-232).
The LPP had an advantage over the CCF in organization and money too.
Lewis in his memoirs wrote, “The LPP machine was every bit as strong and as
ruthless as the Liberals” (Lewis 231). The LPP had been well-funded due to the
number of “Victory” clubs in Canada organized by Communists and their
4 Patrick Watson wrote Andre Laurendeau was “a fair-minded and rigorous journalist — long
the editor of Le Devoir — [whose] time in the Bloc would inevitably trouble him with that
Party’s taint of racism” (Watson, 556).
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