Into the Hurricane: Attacking Socialism and the CCF

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom, Chile and the Nazis, and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of
Korea.

John Boyko wonders why the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF),
the predecessor of today’s New Democratic Party, failed to be more
successful. The Depression had demonstrated that Liberal and
Conservative governments could fall short of what was tolerable, and the
CCF did manage to become Ontario’s official opposition in 1943 and
Saskatchewan’s government in 1944. Then it lost ground.

One explanation is that the insurance industry, the insurance
industry’s powerful media allies, powerful media on their own, and
Chambers of Commerce successfully manipulated public opinion. Using
half-truths and outright falsehoods, they painted a dreadful image of
what life would be like if the CCF were to win an election. One
Reader’s Digest summary of a book titled The Road to Serfdom (1944)
received very wide circulation. Companies threatened workers with
dismissal if the CCF were to win, or if the workers were found to be
working for the CCF.

Progressive Conservatives on the right and Labour Progressives
(Communists) on the left attacked the CCF. There is evidence that when
he was premier of Ontario (1943–1948), George Drew used the Ontario
Provincial Police to spy on the CCF. Gladstone Murray, an anti-CCF
activist with corporate backing, impressed John Diefenbaker with
information that Radio Moscow had mentioned the CCF. To Murray, this
confirmed a link between Moscow and the CCF.

Despite the fact that two of the CCF’s founders, J.S. Woodsworth and
Tommy Douglas, were Protestant ministers, a smear campaign promoted the
idea that the CCF was Communist-dominated. Boyko names Protestant and
Roman Catholic clergy who said as much. Boyko attributes anti-CCF
rhetoric among prominent Roman Catholics to encyclicals from Popes Leo
XIII (1978–1903) and Pius X (1903–1915).

Boyle hurts his case with some serious factual errors. He erroneously
identifies Pope Pius X as Pius XII. A chart indicates that the CCF won
only two seats in the 1957 federal election when it actually won 25, two
more than in 1953. These may be typographical errors, but they are
sufficiently important that someone should have caught them.