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The Un-Canadians

Sher, Len
Publisher:  Lester Publishing, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1992  
Pages:  272pp   Price:  $18.95   ISBN:  1-8955555-18-3
Library of Congress Number:  FC610.S34 1992   Dewey:  971.063'3
Resource Type:  Book

Details the blacklisting which took place in Canada during the Cold War years.


Abstract:  Len Scher's The Un-Canadians: True Stories of the Blacklist Era depicts the effects of blacklisting in Canada during the cold war years and demonstrates that Canada was not immune from the McCarthyism that was prevalent in the United States at the time.

One of the formative events in this era was the Gouzenko spy case, although Scher does not focus much on it. Instead, he interviews sixty-nine blacklisted individuals who offer their personal accounts in an attempt to complement official histories.

The book features a cross section of well-respected people from politicians and labour leaders to writers and musicians, although some of those who continue to fear the repercussions recount their experiences under a pseudonym. The accounts reflect the effects of the RCMP's extension of power, which gave them the authority to step up security, gather intelligence and eventually trace domestic dissidents and activists and screen civil servants and private sector workers. Those suspected of being communists and communist sympathizers found themselves on the blacklist and turned back at the Canada-US border, discharged from their jobs without explanations and arrested without cause. In Quebec, the Montreal and provincial police forces would work together to raid homes and offices in search of subversive material.

Scher sets the tone of the book in the introduction in which he recounts his father's experience of being on the blacklist and elaborates on the historical context. The book is divided into six parts and is comprehensive in its coverage of the cold war years in Canada through the retelling of personal experiences in revealing interviews.

[abstract by Subha Arulvarathan]

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