Oldal 172 [172]
OCR
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 workers meant this was not going to be easy. Moreover, many Jews and Anglo-Quebecers 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-Semitic. 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 Jewish 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). ¢ 170 +
