Harsh Treatment

Afew days after Germany and the Soviet Union concluded their cynical pact in August 1939, which preceded the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police presented the Department of Justice with its plan for “suppressing subversive activities” at the outbreak of war. The RCMP proposed that Canada outlaw all Nazi, Fascist, and Communist organizations; ban all foreign-­language political organizations of Fascist or Communist affiliation; and suppress the English-­language Communist press, along with the Nazi, Fascist, and Communist foreign press. The Mounties also proposed to seize the assets and records of such organizations, including records kept in consular archives.

The RCMP proposal upset Norman Robertson, the senior External Affairs official who had been his department’s representative on the various committees that had been desultorily readying Canada for war. “I...