The economic and social upheavals in Canada between the World Wars provided an ideal environment for radical political ideas to take shape. While fears were primarily stoked against the far left, especially those with anything vaguely resembling Communist sympathies, far-right movements emerged at the fringes. Fascism, as practiced in Italy and Germany, gained a tiny foothold during the 1930s, primarily in Quebec, under Adrien Arcand, a man who saw himself as a potential “Canadian Führer.” Over the first half of 1938, Arcand spearheaded efforts to unite fascist groups across the country but met resistance when he tried to use two Ontario cities as the National Unity Party’s launchpad.
A journalist by trade, Arcand was a loyal monarchist, devoutly Catholic, extremely antisemitic, and generally delusional. Though he began his career in the mainstream Montreal press, by the 1930s, he was editing a string of short-lived papers that grew increasingly racist. Inspired by the rise of fascism in Europe, he formed the Parti National Social Chrétien (PNSC, translated as the National Social Christian Party) in Montreal in 1934. It adopted a swastika logo, and members dressed in blue shirts that it guaranteed had been produced by gentiles. He ran the party while, from 1936 onwards, maintaining a day job as the editor of the Montreal daily tabloid L’Illustration Nouvelle, which was the voice of the right-wing Union Nationale provincial government.
Adrien Arcand began his career in the mainstream Montreal press. (Wikipedia)
“He was an effortless speaker who enjoyed the spotlight and was in love with the sound of his own voice,” Arcand biographer Jean-François Nadeau observed. “When he was sounding off, his eyes rolled in their sockets, becoming as round as marbles, with a fury bordering on distraction, almost hypnotic. His words rumbled on. At every moment, he insulted Jews. He was after their skins. He fulminated in a rising tone. His hatred quickly took on an all-embracing character. He spoke in this way until he ran out of breath, often furious almost to the point of madness, before leaving the stage with the blast his own words trailing behind him.”
Exactly how many people were swayed by his message is unclear. While Arcand bragged that the PNSC had as many as 100,000 members, it’s likely the number was closer to the 1,500-1,800 range. Fascists groups in other provinces also lacked numbers, but there was potential. In Ontario, antisemitism had spurred the formation of “Swastika Clubs” in places like Balmy Beach, in Toronto. Among those active in these organizations was Joseph C. Farr, an immigrant from Northern Ireland who took pride in harassing Jews trying to enjoy a day at the beach.
Over the first half of 1938, Arcand drew plenty of press attention, earning interviews and profiles across North America. In them, he stressed that fascists would, once elected, replace democracy with a corporate state of experts in different fields advising a grand council chosen by the state leader. He even claimed he already had a cabinet in waiting. Occasionally, Arcand threatened to lead a march of blueshirts on Ottawa if he felt constitutional government had failed for good before the next federal election.
He was also busy arranging a merger of the PNSC with the Canadian Nationalist Party and Canadian Union of Fascists to form a national party. When the alliance was announced in March 1938, Arcand indicated the new party would hold its founding convention in Kingston, halfway between Montreal and Toronto.
In a March 4 editorial, the Kingston Whig-Standard expressed doubt that the fascists would find support in the city. “But they will be able to count upon a courteous welcome,” the paper observed. “There is no ban on fascism in Canada, so long as it keeps within the laws. Fascists are free to voice their views and preach their gospel. Those who come here will not meet with any interference.”
Kingston city officials disagreed with that last point. Mayor Harry A. Stewart and city council unanimously denied them used of any public buildings and parks and most private banquet halls. The police commission denied permission to march along city streets. Local labour organizations and veterans groups, such as the Canadian Legion, supported council’s decisions.
Denied these permissions, the fascists looked to Toronto to hold activities in conjunction with meetings in Kingston. Arcand claimed that Massey Hall had been booked for the main convention rally, which alarmed Mayor Ralph Day. He urged his fellow Massey Hall board members to deny bookings to any revolutionary organizations, but it had been secured for July 4.
To build interest, more meetings were held in Toronto, usually in Jewish areas, for shock value. One held on June 6 angered the public when it was reported that up to six members of the Royal Canadian Artillery had attended in full military uniform. Police dispersed anti-fascist protestors before the meeting could be disrupted. A colonel told the Toronto Daily Star that he suspected they probably hadn’t had time to change after fulfilling their duties for the day. While pressure was placed on the federal government to begin investigating fascist groups, Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe told the House of Commons on June 28 that they posed little danger to national security and that implementing laws banning their activity would only give them more attention than they deserved.
As July 1 approached, law enforcement and the press tried to figure out what the fascists might do in Kingston. Apart from one unfinished request, no halls or hotels appeared to be booked. Downtown was postered with anti-fascist messages, to the displeasure of some storekeepers, who hadn’t asked for them. Arcand issued a statement that they were preparing for the Massey Hall rally but meeting in secret to avoid causing public confrontations. Farr claimed that they had not asked for a marching permit and that “within a year they will be welcoming us with open arms.” The Whig-Standard compared their methods to the Ku Klux Klan and expressed suspicion they were hiding something; “responsible, liberty-loving Canadians find no appeal in movements that are conducted underground, behind closed doors and in the dark,” it wrote.
Photo from the July 5, 1938, issue of the Kingston Whig-Standard.
Around 30 people met on July 1 and 2 in a private hall located a block from the main police station, where they formulated policies for the new NUP and unanimously named Arcand its leader. Before heading to Toronto, they sent a telegram to the Governor-General stating their loyalty to the Crown. They also sent a passive-aggressive telegram to Stewart expressing their gratitude for his “courtesy and welcome” and vowed to come back. Asked about the note, Stewart indicated he would be glad to extend the same courtesy as he had during this visit.
The NUP hoped that July 1 would be eternally celebrated as its birthday. “On each anniversary of that day,” Arcand declared, “the members of the party throughout Canada will be asked to decorate, celebrate, and rejoice, and, in the evening, march with the torch of the eternal youth, faith, ideals, and hopes of Canada and Canadians.”
When attendees arrived at Massey Hall on July 4, they saw a stage decorated with banners reading “God Save the King” and “Canada for Canadians.” The speakers’ table was draped with a Union Jack. To build anticipation, Farr and others delivered a series of antisemitic, anti-democratic speeches as blue-shirted stormtroopers roamed the aisles. Arcand was then escorted to the stage amid cheering; he then delivered a restrained version of his Hitler-style rant that was nevertheless still filled with a steady stream of hatemongering.
The party’s program called for the creation of a distinct Canadian citizenship that would still exist with the British Empire: Canadian citizens could have English or French backgrounds or be “Aryan” enough to join either of those groups. Immigration would be banned unless the country needed people, and they would have to be of “Aryan” extraction. The educational system would be controlled by Christian religious institutions, producing a population obedient to God and the state. Non-Christians would be tolerated if they stayed out of the way and didn’t interfere with the NUP’s interpretation of the common good.
The most commonly reported head count was 1,500, though estimates for attendees ranged as high as 2,500 (which may have been based on the number of tickets distributed). The Daily Star reported that, as the speeches went on and on, the crowd dwindled to around 800. Blueshirts carefully screened who entered and ejected six people at the front door. But a few agitators got through. During Farr’s speech, stormtroopers ejected one women who began screaming. Another man, who declared himself a war veteran, was also tossed out.
Blueshirts carry a heckler out of Massey Hall in this photo from the July 18, 1938, edition of Life magazine.
A group of between 600 and 900 angry anti-fascist demonstrators gathered nearby on Yonge Street. Police prevented the gathering from storming the hall, making four arrests. A female protestor was struck from behind, while a reporter who went to help her was knocked down by a police horse. When they were denied access to the hall, they moved on to the Labour Temple on Church Street, where speakers declared the police had violated the mayor’s orders not to interfere with anti-fascist rallies.
A few blocks away, between 10,000 and 12,000 attended an anti-fascist rally at Maple Leaf Gardens. It was organized by the League of Peace and Democracy, a group that, though believed to have been infiltrated by the Communist Party (event organizer A.A. MacLeod would serve as a Communist MPP and politically influence his nephew, actor Warren Beatty), held meetings attended by a cross-section of the public who supported the fight against threats to democracy.
The main speaker was former American ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd, who urged co-operation among democratic nations to stop the rising tide of fascism before it was too late. Also on the bill was civil liberties lawyer R.L. Calder, who had blunt words about those gathered at Massey Hall. “With authoritarian and non-parliamentary government as their objective,” Calder warned, “there are men not far from here tonight who, whatever they say, have violence in their hearts. They are trying to captivate the army and bring about civil war.” The audience passed a resolution calling on the federal government to investigate alleged Nazi espionage and attempts to spread fascist propaganda among the military. At Massey Hall, Farr made reference to the gathering, referring to attendees as “so-called Canadians.”
A smaller anti-fascist gathering occurred on the lawn on the Ontario legislature. Organized by the CCF (the predecessor of the NDP), the meeting was chaired by future Toronto mayor William Dennison. He believed this meeting, which drew around 500 people, would keep those concerned about the fascists away from confrontations. He told the audience that an intelligence agent who had grabbed papers from fascist groups had told him that they were armed and that the German consulate was pressuring German Canadians to undertake subversive activities
The evening got the NUP the publicity it desired. Neither the Globe and Mail nor the Daily Star cast the anti-fascist protestors on Yonge Street in a favourable light. Although it stated that they were despicable, a Daily Star editorial defended the fascists’ right to free speech and said that police protection of Massey Hall was justified on that basis. It criticized those on Yonge Street who’d urged people to violently “finish this now.” As the editorial summed it up, those who attempted to interfere with free speech “merit no sympathy whatsoever.” Life magazine published a three-page spread about the party and rally, including a picture of a heckler being removed by blueshirt goons. Still, it gained only a fraction of the attention of another political party gathering that occurred that week: the federal Conservative leadership convention to replace former Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, whom Arcand had campaigned for during the 1930 federal election.
The Blue Shirts - Adrien Arcand and Fascist Anti-Semitism in Canada (Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa Press)
The fascists failed to build upon their base. Those Canadians not put off by their anti-democratic stance and antisemitic ravings nevertheless became concerned by the growing aggression of Nazi Germany via its annexation of Austria and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. People sensed that the homegrown fascists were delusional and that they were little more than bullies with power fantasies. Arcand continued to predict that the NUP would sweep the 1940 federal election and wipe away democracy, a.k.a “that Jewish system of disunion,” as Canadians would realize it was a failed system.
The Windsor Star accurately predicted that, by 1940, Arcand would be “just as obscure as he is now, probably more so.” Along with other party officials, he was arrested in May 1940 and interned for the rest of the Second World War. The NUP was among 16 political organizations banned from operating. After the war, Arcand unsuccessfully ran as the lone NUP candidate in the 1949 federal election. Until his death in 1967, he continued to spew his hateful beliefs, mentoring the likes of Ernst Zundel in the ugly art of Holocaust denial.
While the NUP failed to return to Kingston in triumph a year after its formation, the Kingston Whig-Standard did not neglect to mark the anniversary: “It is not likely that a great and thriving party would forget about its first anniversary or forget that its leader had made a definite date with Kingston for that occasion.”
Sources: The Blue Shirts: Adrien Arcand and Fascist Anti-Semitism in Canada by Hugues Théorêt (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2017); The Canadian Führer: The Life of Adrien Arcand by Jean-François Nadeau (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2011); The Swastika and the Maple Leaf by Lita-Rose Betcherman (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1975); the July 2, 1938, July 4, 1938, and July 5, 1938, editions of the Globe and Mail; the March 4, 1938, June 30, 1938, July 2, 1938, July 4, 1938, July 5, 1938, July 8, 1939, and November 18, 1980 editions of the Kingston Whig-Standard; the August 18, 1938, edition of the Ottawa Citizen; the February 10, 1938, June 7, 1938, and July 5, 1938, editions of the Toronto Daily Star; and the August 24, 1938, edition of the Windsor Star.