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LeBel Royal Commission
Encyclopedia
The LeBel Royal Commission was an Ontario Royal Commission
set up on 28 May 1945 to look into charges made against the province's premier George A. Drew that he was operating a secret political police. The charges came from Ontario's Official Opposition Leader Edward Bigelow (Ted) Jolliffe
, during the 1945 Ontario general election
campaign. He made these allegations during a campaign radio speech on 24 May 1945. Drew announced in a radio speech on 26 May that he would call an inquiry, and appointed Mr. Justice A. M. LeBel to lead the commission on 28 May. Jolliffe, and Liberal leader Mitchell Hepburn
made offers to withhold from electioneering and have the commission report before the election. Drew refused to either postpone the election, or speed up the commission process. The commission began hearings on 20 June 1945, and heard final arguments on 20 July 1945. The report was issued on 11 October 1945, with LeBel agreeing with much of what Jolliffe charged, but ultimately ruled that the Premier did not have a secret political police reporting to him, mainly due to the lack of direct documented evidence. In the late 1970s, that documented evidence was found, but the provincial government at the time considered the case closed.
, Premier George Drew ran an anti-Semitic, union bashing, Red-baiting
campaign against the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
's Ontario section (CCF). The previous two-years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police
(OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating war-time 5th column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs, mainly focusing on the CCF caucus
. The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944 led to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th-century Canadian politics.
As can be discerned from the previous description, the 1945 campaign was anything but genteel and polite. Jolliffe replied by giving a radio speech (written with the assistance of Lister Sinclair) that accused Drew of running a political Gestapo
in Ontario. In the speech excerpt below, Jolliffe alleged that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police
was acting as a political police – spying on the opposition and the media.
Leslie Blackwell
vehemently denied Jolliffe's accusations, but the public outcry was too much for them to abate. On 26 May 1945 during his own radio speech, Drew announced that he would be appointing a Royal Commission to investigate these charges. Jolliffe's CCF and Mitchell Hepburn
's Ontario Liberal party wanted the election suspended until the Commission tabled its report, with Hepburn going as far as sending Drew a personal telegram stating he would stop campaigning if the commission were held immediately.Drew ignored these requests and continued to hold the election on its original date, despite it being many months before the Commission's findings would be made available.
Jolliffe's CCF went from 34 seats to 8, and he even lost his own seat in York South Drew, with his attack campaign, successfully drove the voter turn-out up, thereby driving the CCF's percentage and seat totals down.
Drew appointed Justice A.M. LeBel as the Royal Commissioner on 28 May 1945. His terms of reference were restricted to the question of whether Drew was personally responsible for the establishment of "a secret political police organization, for the purpose of collecting, by secret spying, material to be used in attempt to keep him in power. Wider questions like why the OPP, Ontario Civil Servants, were keeping files on MPPs were not allowed.
The hearings began on 20 June 1945, at Toronto's City Hall's third-floor courtroom. Jolliffe would act as his own counsel throughout the commission, but was assisted by fellow CCF lawyer, Andrew Brewin
. The crown prosecutor was Joseph Sedgwick.
Over the next month, both Jolliffe and Brewin were able to establish, from several eye-witnesses, that agent D-208, Dempster, was spying on the CCF. What they could not prove, because they did not have access to the information in 1945, that Drew was directly in written correspondence with his supporter M.A. (Bugsy) Sanderson suggesting that he would finance any lawsuits or other charges stemming from the information provided by Dempster in his advertisements. Sanderson was, in late 1943 to 1945, along with Gladstone Murray, leading the libelous advertisement campaigns against the CCF in newspapers and bill-boards, with information gleaned from Dempster's briefings. Jolliffe presented several witnesses that claimed to have seen these documents. But Jolliffe could not produce the actual letter, and Drew would deny ever writing it. Justice LeBel heard final arguments on 20 July and began writing his report.
was doing research for his Memoirs he came across archival evidence proving the charge. Due to Lewis's discovery, Drew's son Edward, placed extremely restrictive conditions on his father's papers housed in the Public Archives of Canada
that continue as of 2011.
As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario
had given false witness under testimony.... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate
got away with it." Former Ontario CCF and Ontario NDP leader, Donald C. MacDonald
attempted to get the report reopened when the new evidence became public in 1981. He was still a member of the Ontario Legislature, and asked the Attorney General Roy McMurtry
to reopen the Commission on 2 December 1981. McMurty refused to reopen the case, because almost everyone involved was dead and the commission already made its ruling in 1945.
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
set up on 28 May 1945 to look into charges made against the province's premier George A. Drew that he was operating a secret political police. The charges came from Ontario's Official Opposition Leader Edward Bigelow (Ted) Jolliffe
Ted Jolliffe
Edward Bigelow "Ted" Jolliffe, QC was a Canadian social democratic politician and lawyer from Ontario. He was the first leader of the Ontario section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and leader of the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature during the 1940s and 1950s...
, during the 1945 Ontario general election
Ontario general election, 1945
The Ontario general election of 1945 was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
campaign. He made these allegations during a campaign radio speech on 24 May 1945. Drew announced in a radio speech on 26 May that he would call an inquiry, and appointed Mr. Justice A. M. LeBel to lead the commission on 28 May. Jolliffe, and Liberal leader Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Frederick Hepburn was the 11th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1934 to 1942. He was the youngest Premier in Ontario history, appointed at age 37....
made offers to withhold from electioneering and have the commission report before the election. Drew refused to either postpone the election, or speed up the commission process. The commission began hearings on 20 June 1945, and heard final arguments on 20 July 1945. The report was issued on 11 October 1945, with LeBel agreeing with much of what Jolliffe charged, but ultimately ruled that the Premier did not have a secret political police reporting to him, mainly due to the lack of direct documented evidence. In the late 1970s, that documented evidence was found, but the provincial government at the time considered the case closed.
Background
During the spring 1945 Ontario electionOntario general election, 1945
The Ontario general election of 1945 was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, Premier George Drew ran an anti-Semitic, union bashing, Red-baiting
Red-baiting
Red-baiting is the act of accusing, denouncing, attacking or persecuting an individual or group as communist, socialist, or anarchist, or sympathetic toward communism, socialism, or anarchism. The word "red" in "red-baiting" is derived from the red flag signifying radical left-wing politics. In the...
campaign against the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section)
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – The Farmer-Labor Party of Ontario, or more informally and commonly known as The Ontario CCF, was a democratic socialist political party that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the provincial wing of the National CCF. The party officially had no leader in...
's Ontario section (CCF). The previous two-years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police is the Provincial Police service for the province of Ontario, Canada.-Overview:The OPP is the the largest deployed police force in Ontario, and the second largest in Canada. The service is responsible for providing policing services throughout the province in areas...
(OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating war-time 5th column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs, mainly focusing on the CCF caucus
Caucus
A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement, especially in the United States and Canada. As the use of the term has been expanded the exact definition has come to vary among political cultures.-Origin of the term:...
. The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944 led to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th-century Canadian politics.
As can be discerned from the previous description, the 1945 campaign was anything but genteel and polite. Jolliffe replied by giving a radio speech (written with the assistance of Lister Sinclair) that accused Drew of running a political Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
in Ontario. In the speech excerpt below, Jolliffe alleged that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police is the Provincial Police service for the province of Ontario, Canada.-Overview:The OPP is the the largest deployed police force in Ontario, and the second largest in Canada. The service is responsible for providing policing services throughout the province in areas...
was acting as a political police – spying on the opposition and the media.
Commission hearings
Jolliffe's inflammatory speech became the main issue of the campaign, and dominated coverage in the media for the rest of the election. Drew, and his Attorney-GeneralAttorney General of Ontario
The Attorney General of Ontario is a senior member of the Executive Council of Ontario and governs the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario - the department responsible for the oversight of the justice system within the province. The Attorney General is an elected Member of Provincial...
Leslie Blackwell
Leslie Blackwell
Leslie Egerton Blackwell was a Canadian politician.A graduate of Osgoode Law School, Blackwell was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1943 election that brought George Drew's Ontario Progressive Conservative Party to power with a minority government...
vehemently denied Jolliffe's accusations, but the public outcry was too much for them to abate. On 26 May 1945 during his own radio speech, Drew announced that he would be appointing a Royal Commission to investigate these charges. Jolliffe's CCF and Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Frederick Hepburn was the 11th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1934 to 1942. He was the youngest Premier in Ontario history, appointed at age 37....
's Ontario Liberal party wanted the election suspended until the Commission tabled its report, with Hepburn going as far as sending Drew a personal telegram stating he would stop campaigning if the commission were held immediately.Drew ignored these requests and continued to hold the election on its original date, despite it being many months before the Commission's findings would be made available.
Jolliffe's CCF went from 34 seats to 8, and he even lost his own seat in York South Drew, with his attack campaign, successfully drove the voter turn-out up, thereby driving the CCF's percentage and seat totals down.
Drew appointed Justice A.M. LeBel as the Royal Commissioner on 28 May 1945. His terms of reference were restricted to the question of whether Drew was personally responsible for the establishment of "a secret political police organization, for the purpose of collecting, by secret spying, material to be used in attempt to keep him in power. Wider questions like why the OPP, Ontario Civil Servants, were keeping files on MPPs were not allowed.
The hearings began on 20 June 1945, at Toronto's City Hall's third-floor courtroom. Jolliffe would act as his own counsel throughout the commission, but was assisted by fellow CCF lawyer, Andrew Brewin
Andrew Brewin
Francis Andrew Brewin was a lawyer and Canadian politician.Brewin was a stalwart in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and ran numerous times at the federal and provincial levels in the 1940 and 1950s...
. The crown prosecutor was Joseph Sedgwick.
Over the next month, both Jolliffe and Brewin were able to establish, from several eye-witnesses, that agent D-208, Dempster, was spying on the CCF. What they could not prove, because they did not have access to the information in 1945, that Drew was directly in written correspondence with his supporter M.A. (Bugsy) Sanderson suggesting that he would finance any lawsuits or other charges stemming from the information provided by Dempster in his advertisements. Sanderson was, in late 1943 to 1945, along with Gladstone Murray, leading the libelous advertisement campaigns against the CCF in newspapers and bill-boards, with information gleaned from Dempster's briefings. Jolliffe presented several witnesses that claimed to have seen these documents. But Jolliffe could not produce the actual letter, and Drew would deny ever writing it. Justice LeBel heard final arguments on 20 July and began writing his report.
Commission report
On 11 October 1945 Justice LeBel issued his report that essentially exonerated Drew and Blackwell. Due to Jolliffe presenting only circumstantial evidence that linked Drew to Dempster, Murray and Sanderson, the Commissioner found the information unconvincing, even though LeBel believed Dempster's interaction with Sanderson and Murray was inappropriate.Aftermath
Jolliffe's motives regarding his accusations, as well as his choice of words, would be questioned for many years afterwards. That would change. In the late 1970s, when David LewisDavid Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...
was doing research for his Memoirs he came across archival evidence proving the charge. Due to Lewis's discovery, Drew's son Edward, placed extremely restrictive conditions on his father's papers housed in the Public Archives of Canada
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
that continue as of 2011.
As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario
Politics of Ontario
The Province of Ontario is governed by a unicameral legislature, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, which operates in the Westminster system of government...
had given false witness under testimony.... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
got away with it." Former Ontario CCF and Ontario NDP leader, Donald C. MacDonald
Donald C. MacDonald
Donald Cameron MacDonald, CM, O.Ont was a long time Canadian politician and political party leader and had been referred to as the "Best premier Ontario never had." He represented the provincial riding of York South in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1955 to 1982...
attempted to get the report reopened when the new evidence became public in 1981. He was still a member of the Ontario Legislature, and asked the Attorney General Roy McMurtry
Roy McMurtry
Roland "Roy" McMurtry, OC, OOnt is a judge and former politician in Ontario, Canada and the current Chancellor of York University.-Early life:McMurtry was born in Toronto and educated at St. Andrew's College, graduating in 1950...
to reopen the Commission on 2 December 1981. McMurty refused to reopen the case, because almost everyone involved was dead and the commission already made its ruling in 1945.