Tidying Up the Niceties
Over the last three years or so I’ve become interested in the people whose lives were shaped by the Communist Party of Canada (CPC). (Three shelves of books dealing with Edwardian Antarctic endeavours testify to my attraction to somewhat obscure bits of history).
Doug Smith’s Zuken: Citizen and Socialist lacks of notes and bibliography but it filled in a few gaps in my understanding of Winnipeg history and the lives of a few people involved in the mid-20th century CPC.
Joe Zuken, a lawyer and CPC member, was a long-time Winnipeg school board and city council member. What’s stuck with me the most is Zuken’s work in defending the people arrested in 1940 under the Defence of Canada Act Regulations. Passed in September 1939 (and subsequently revised to limit some of its draconian measures), the Act permitted the arrest and indefinite detention of people perceived to be a threat to national security. The state swung the net wide and caught up members of political, religious, and ethnic groups. Many of those detained did not go through any formal court process (most notably Japanese Canadians).
Those that did go through the court system found the process lacking in a few niceties. Those passing through R.B. Graham’s court in Winnipeg discovered that the judge had a habit of sentencing people in public court to jail time and then when the paperwork was being drawn up adding an additional qualification of hard labour. Tom McEwen was one of those sentenced in November 1940 to this combination of jail time and hard labour.
Joe Zuken in 1940
Graham’s hard labour additions led to legal challenges, not the least of which was that the Defence of Canada Act didn’t have provisions for hard labour. Graham’s sentencing practices were curtailed but Joe Zuken, acting as McEwen’s lawyer, did some diligent legwork and discovered that Graham and jail officials had tried to tidy up after themselves by crossing out the phrase “hard labour” in one or more copies of the warrants that sent McEwen to jail. Worse the warrants would sometimes be re-typed to remove the offensive, extra-legal sentence of hard labour.
Zuken’s persistence led to the September 1941 filing of a writ of habeas corpus for McEwen. After a period of judical review, McEwen was released in October 1941. He was free the length of time it took to walk out the door of the Headingley Jail.
The RCMP immediately detained him and interned him first in Petawawa and then in the Hull Jail before the shifts the war led to a release of most of the Canadians interned for being Communists.
