January 28, 2000
Statement of
the Central Executive Committee,
Communist Party of Canada
The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada has released the following statement in response to recently-released documents which show that the Canadian government and its RCMP security police had planned to arrest and intern Communists in the event of a third world war. The Canadian Press news report which brought these sinister plans to light is also appended below.
Central Office, Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada has condemned the existence of secret plans of the Canadian government to have the RCMP imprison Communists and their children in designated "internment camps" in the event of a third world war. This plan, which had been drawn up in the late 1940s, was only "officially abandoned" in 1983.
Although this 'internment plan' specifically targeted Communists and their families, it represented a flagrant disregard for the civil and human rights of Canadians as a whole. That is why the these revelations should concern all democratic-minded Canadians.
This chilling plan, the details of which are only now coming to light, was entirely consistent with the prevailing anti-communist policies of the Canadian State, which for decades has sought to isolate and weaken the CPC.
Ever since its formation in 1921, the Communist Party has faced continued harassment from police and security forces. Tim Buck, our Party's long-time general secretary, and seven other Party leaders were arrested and imprisoned during the 1930s under the notorious Section 98 of the Criminal Code which outlawed so-called "subversive organizations." An attempt was later made to assassinate Tim Buck while in prison.
Many Communists were also interned during the Second World War; party offices and meeting halls were closed; its printing presses and other assets seized; and its press and publications banned. Following WWII, the Party and its activists suffered state-organized persecution for several decades during the "Cold War" period.
These state-sponsored attacks on our Party were part of a broader assault on the trade union movement, as well as on activists in the peace, native and other progressive movements and organizations. The wrongful and illegal activities of the RCMP were documented and exposed by the MacDonald Royal Commission back in the early 1980s. 'Dirty tricks' included unlawful spying and wiretapping, theft of documents, destruction of property, the use of 'agent-provocateurs,' etc. In the late 1970's, bugging devises were uncovered throughout the CPC headquarters in Toronto. When this sinister and illegal spying on the CPC – a registered political party in Canada – was exposed, the RCMP arrogantly responded by demanding that their "property" be returned!
The findings of the MacDonald Commission forced the government to transfer security and intelligence operations from the RCMP to the newly-formed Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). However, CSIS has continued to employ surveillance practices and other assorted 'dirty tricks' against the CPC and other lawful organizations and individuals ever since.
This specific plan to intern Communist leaders in the event of a third world war reflects the long-standing but patently false presumption that Canadian Communists were somehow 'agents of a foreign power' – namely, the Soviet Union – and therefore constituted a 'threat to national security.'
Canadians have every reason to be angered and dismayed that successive Canadian governments had contemplated such draconian and illegal measures up until as recently as 1983, especially in light of the "official" repudiation of the racist internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.
Particularly horrendous was the intention to round up and intern the children of Party activists. This shows that the deep-seated paranoia and hatred of Communists by the Canadian government knew no bounds.
The Communist Party calls upon the Canadian Government to make public all documents relating to this sordid affair, including the actual lists of individuals whose civil and human rights were to be violated in the name of "national security."
Furthermore, the CPC demands that the Canadian government publicly renounce the decision of prior governments to consider such anti-democratic action, and officially apologize to the CPC and to the families of all those individual Communists who were targeted under this plan. The civil and human rights of all Canadians are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadians must demand that these fundamental rights must be strictly respected and obeyed, especially by governments and their police and security services.
• • • • • • •
RCMP's secret internment plan
By Dean Beeby – Canadian Press January 24, 2000
The Mounties planned to round up more than 1,000 "subversives" – including young children – at the outbreak of a third world war and place them in internment camps, newly disclosed documents show.
The Cold War-era plan, abandoned only in 1983, targeted leading Communists who were to be locked inside three federal prisons in Ontario and Alberta.
"The present number of persons who would be arrested as subversives in the event of a national emergency are 588 males and 174 females," says a 1970 memo from the RCMP.
"The type of person involved is not likely to be violent, dangerous or inclined toward escaping.
"The documents, obtained under the Access to Information Act, show that the war internment plan was first drawn up in the late 1940s but was revived and expanded from 1969 to 1971.
The RCMP had 762 people on their to-be-interned list in 1970, including 13 children under the age of 11 and 23 between the ages of 12 and 16.
Most were from the Toronto area, though no names are included in the released material. The group was primarily made up of people deemed "prominent Communist functionaries" by an RCMP Security Service program known as Profunc.
Those under 17 were likely the children of the target internees, and were referred to disparagingly by the Mounties as "red diaper babies".
The plan was to round up these so-called subversives quickly and place them in temporary custody while three federal prisons were emptied of their inmates.
A prison in Drumheller, Alta., was to be used for the west, and another in Warkworth, Ont., for the rest of the country. Women, however, were to be placed in the Joyceville, Ont., penitentiary, near Kingston.
"Mothers with babies at breast will be accommodated in the Joyceville Institution hospital area and… their children must in the first instance be placed with relatives or with Children's Aid Societies," says one 1969 document.
The existing prison population across the country would be thinned out by freeing non-violent inmates with less than a year left in their sentences. By shuffling the remaining prisoners, the three Alberta and Ontario prisons could be vacated within 10 days to become internment camps.
The Mounties had approval to lock up 762 people in 1970 but argued they would likely add more after cabinet invoked its extraordinary powers under the War Measures Act.
"There are approximately another 300, although not approved at present, they would no doubt be approved in time of war."
Rules for the camps were detailed in an RCMP manual that outlined procedures for everything from mail censorship to punishment.
"Punishment Diet Number One shall consist of water as required and one pound of bread per day," says an edition of the manual from the 1960s.
"Punishment Diet Number Two shall consist of water as required and, for each day, eight ounces of bread for breakfast… four ounces of oatmeal, eight ounces of potatoes and salt, for dinner and eight ounces of bread for supper."
The internment plan was abandoned at the order of the justice minister in 1983, the documents show. The reasons are not specified, though it may have been linked to the creation in 1984 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which took over many RCMP Security Service functions.
The revival of the Communist internment plan in the late 1960s may have been the Mounties' response to student protests, black power and Quebec separatist agitation, says a historian.
"There's this mindset going into the 1960s where Communism is a top threat," said Steve Hewitt, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who is writing a book on the RCMP and subversion.
"And the RCMP Security Service is like an elephant charging in one direction… It's very difficult for it to change its mindset, to get away from this red-and-white world and realize there are these other threats."
A retired Security Service officer said Canada faced a genuine threat from Communist subversives, but not so serious as to require an elaborate internment plan.
"It was a serious case of the RCMP Security Service carrying a huge tar-and-feather brush much too far," Peter Marwitz said from Ottawa.
In one of the darkest moments in Canadian history, Ottawa interned thousands of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War for fear they might help Japan. The internees received an apology and compensation in 1988.
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2000 Communist Party of Canada