The Padlock

Is smashed

HE defeat of the Padlock

Law by the Supreme Court
was like a load off the shoul-
ders of a great many people
in the province of Quebec.
After 20 years it had become
like second nature, a part of
our lives. It -cemed as though
it would go on forever.

Suddenly exhilarating
news!

I phoned many people after
hearing from the lawyers.
“Have you heard the news?
It was 8-1.” They wouldn’t be-
lieve me at first. Then the
outburst, the congratulations.

It was certainly no individ-
ual’s victory — everyone had
a share in it.

Many could tell from their
own life what* the Padlock
Law had brought. Some had
been raided, their personal li-

the

braries, letters seized, their
children frightened. Others

had constantly felt the threat
of the same happening to them
— had become almost inured
to it, accepted it as one of the
evils of life that had to be
fought and therefore as one
of the risks of struggle.

Many had been § arrested,
without warrant, while peti-
tioning for peace, had their
names taken, petitions stolen
and were then released with-
out charge—because there. is
no law against petitioning for

Did I say no law? In Que-
bec there was the illegal Pad-
lock Law, on the basis of
which you could be picked up
and stopped in this humiliating
way, treated as a criminal
without any of the rights of a
criminal — to know the
charge, to defend yourself, and
to be able to take recourse for
false arrest.

There were many there who
had taken their place in the
Vigil for the Rosenbergs in
front of the American Em-
bassy in Ottawa. They could
not do so on_ tanley Street in
Montreal because of the terror
of the Padlock Law.

Could not do so? Some did,
on that day when about 50 wo-
men suddenly appeared with
placards denouncing the frame-
up before the consulate. But at
the price of being hustled and
humiliated, charged with “‘dis-
turbing the peace.” They were
all acquitted later — but who
can wipe out the humiliation,
the insult, and effect of terror
in people’s minds?

How can one describe the
courage of the Jewish or Uk-
rainian - Canadian worker,
member of a progressive or-
ganization, who sat through
a meeting his hall under
the threatening eye of some
“Red Squad” goon? Or the
voter of Cartier constituency,
long the heart of Montreal’s
progressive movement, sitting
in a public school attending an
LPP election rally, risking the
gauntlet of the “Red Squad”
on his way out?

*

One man in particular was

By JOHN SWITZMAN

minds when the
newspapers hit the street with
reports of the Supreme Court’s

in people’s

decision.

He was a 60-year-old Com-
munist sheet. metal worker,
Francois-Xavier Lessard who
broke the padlock put on his
home in Quebec City 20 years
ago and publicly: defied Pre-
mier Duplessis’ law. ‘That
challenge cost Lessard two

years in jail, but over the years
his protest became multiplied
by thousands of protests across
the country.

fitting

It was that it was

eS —>——_ >

a French-Canadian who was
the first to tear the padlock
from his door because the real
victims of this infamous “law”
were the~ French - Canadian
working people. Their wages,
their health, their limited edu-
cation are the daily proof of
It.

The miners of Asbestos, Que.,
who faced 200 of Duplessis’
provincial police felt the op-
pression of the Padlock Law
when they struck to demand
a little more for-their labor
from the Duplessis protected
Johns-Manville trust.

Through the-Padlock Law
Duplessis created the force
for his own destruction. His
cry of “communism” levelled
against opposition embraced a
wider and wider circle, creat-
ed the basis for opposition.

Duplessis did not distinguish
between LPP, CCF, Liberal,
or nationalist-minded French-
Canadian. He did not dis-
tinguish between Independent-
led, CIO, AFL or Catholic Syn-
dicate striker. He branded
them alk as “Communist,”
when they opposed his police,
including the priests who en-
couraged devout Catholic
French-Canadian strikers.

The defeat of the Padlock
Law presages the defeat of
its ill-begotten offspring, the
provincial anti-labor Bills 19
and:20. And in the not too
distant future, Duplessis him-
self.

"GOOD WORK
MAURICE // DONT
FORGEY THE
TRADE UNIONS 7,
AND THE JEWS...

For 2@ years the Pacific Tribune and its forerunners have

been fighting the Padlock Law.

This is one of the many

cartoons that have appeared in our pages.

cay

What they said
Mr. Justice Abbott

pose to a parliamentary democracy such as
Canada’s is the exercise cf the right of free expression
of opinion, Mr. Justice Douglas Abbott wrote in the his
toric 8-1 decision of the Supreme Court on March 8 out-
lawing Quebec’s 20-year-old Padlock Law as unconstitu-

tional.

Here are Mr. Justice Abbott's words:

= right to free expression of
opinion and of criticism,
upon matters of public policy
and public administration and
the right to discuss and debate
such matters, whether they be
social, economic or political,
are essential to the working
of a parliamentary democracy
such as ours. Moreover, it is
not necessary to prohibit the
discussion of such matters in
order to protect the personal
reputation or the private rights
of the citizen.”

In a far-reaching opinion,
the former minister of finance
went_a step beyond his col-
leagues in deelaring that not
even the federal parliament
had the power to abrogate the
right of discussion and debate.

The Canada Elections Act,
the ‘requirements for ‘annual
sessions of parliament and gen-
eral elections every five years,
he said, meant that candidates
for office and citizens general-
ly had the right “to explain,
criticize, debate and discuss in
the freest possble manner such
matters as the qualifications,
the policies and the political,
economic and social principles

advocated by such candidates
or by the political parties or
groups of which they may. be
members.

‘This right, cannot be abro-
gated by a provincial legisla-
ture and the power of such
legislature to limit it is res-
tricted to what may be neces-
ary to protect purely private
rights, such as, for example,
provincial laws of defamation.
It is obvious that the impugned.
statue does not fall within that
category.

“Jt does not in substance deal
with matters of property and
civil rights or private matters
within the province and in my
opinion is clearly ultra vires.

“Although it is not neces-
sary, of course, to determine
this question for the purposes
of the present appeal, the Can-
adian constitution being de-
clared to be similar in princi-
pals to that of the United
Kingdom, I am also of the
opinion that, as our constitu-
tional act now stands, parlia-
ment itself could not abrogate
this right of discussion and. de-
bate.”

Mr, Justice Rand

NOTHER far-reaching point of view was expressed
by Mr. Justice Rand, supported by Mr. Justice Kel-
lock. Mr. Justice Rand declared:

aes object of the legislation.
here, expressed by the title
of the act, is admittedly to pre-
vent the propagaton of com-

munism and bolshevism but it

could just as properly have
been the suppression of any
other political economic or so-
cial doctrine or theory.”

He said it had been argued
before the court that the law’s
limitation of free discussion
was in the same category as li-
bel and slander. “But the ana-

logy is not a true one,” he
commented. “The ban is direct-
ed against the freedom or civil
liberty of the actor; no civil
right of anyone is affected nor
is any civil remedy created.
“The aim of the statute is,
by means of penalties, to pre-

vent what is considered a poi-

soning of men’s minds, to
shield the individual from ex-
posure to dangerous ideas, to
protect him, in short, from his
own thinking propensities.
“There is nothing of civil
rights in this; it is to curtail or

proscribe those freedoms
which the majority so far con-
sider to be the condition of
social cohesion and its_ ulti-
mate stabilizing force.”

The federal government was
in substance the will of the ma-
jority expressed directly or in-
directly through popular as-
semblies, he continued, adding:

“This means ultimately go-
vernment by the free public
opinion of an. open society, the
effectiveness of which as
events have not infrequently
demonstrated is undoubted.”

OVALTINE&

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251 EAST HASTINGS
Vancouver, B.C.
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105 E. Hastings St.

For the Finest in Good
Eating

MARCH 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 10