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\"Compared to the idea that Canada was a nation forged in victory on Vimy Ridge, the reality of dissent and repression at home strikes a sour note. Through censorship, conscription, and internment, the government of Canada worked more ruthlessly than either Great Britain or the United States to suppress opposition to the war effort during the First World War. Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 examines the basis for those repressive policies. Brock Millman, an expert on wartime dissent in both the United Kingdom and Canada, argues that Canadian policy was driven first and foremost by a fear that opposition to the war amongst French Canadians and immigrant communities would provoke social tensions--and possibly even a vigilante backlash from the war's most fervent supporters in British Canada. Highlighting the class and ethnic divisions which characterized public support for the war, Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 offers a broad and much-needed reexamination of Canadian government policy on the home front.\"-- Provided by publisher.

This book brings to light the activities and influence of the anti-draft groups that sprang up to build support for American Vietnam war resisters in Canada.

The political movements and social causes of the turbulent 1920s and 30s are brought to life in this study of the work and times of feminist, socialist, and peace activist Rose Henderson (1871–1937). Her commitment to social justice led to frequent monitoring and repression by the authorities but her contributions to activist thought continue to pose challenges for interpretations of the history of Canada, leftism, labour, and women.

The United States is accustomed to accepting waves of migrants who are fleeing oppressive conditions and political persecution in their home countries. But in the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of migration reversed as over fifty thousand Americans fled across the border to Canada to resist military service during the Vietnam War or to escape their homeland's hawkish society. Unguarded Border tells their stories and, in the process, describes a migrant experience that does not fit the usual paradigms. Rather than treating these American refugees as unwelcome foreigners, Canada embraced them, refusing to extradite draft resisters or military deserters and not even requiring passports for the border crossing. And instead of forming close-knit migrant communities, most of these émigrés sought to integrate themselves within Canadian society. Historian Donald W. Maxwell explores how these Americans in exile forged cosmopolitan identities, coming to regard themselves as global citizens, a status complicated by the Canadian government's attempts to claim them and the U.S. government's eventual efforts to reclaim them. Unguarded Border offers a new perspective on a movement that permanently changed perceptions of compulsory military service, migration, and national identity.

What motivated Mine-Mill and its pugnacious western regional director, Harvey Murphy, to dedicate the resources of the union to organizing and promoting the concerts? [...]recently, Laurel Sefton MacDowell's essay on Robeson's visits to Canada offered the only detailed look at the concerts, and it remains one of the best studies of the larger political context of those events. According to his son, the late Rae Murphy, only a few of his oldest mining comrades stayed in touch with him, and he was no longer asked to address union strike rallies as he had once done so passionately111 Mine-Mill, too, has been relegated to a back seat in labour-left history.

[Paul Robeson] visited Canada numerous times, and on each occasion he espoused through his music an international philosophy that supported freedom struggles by all peoples, including Black Americans, for whom he increasingly served as a spokesperson. In June 1942, Robeson was a guest artist in a \"Salute to Canada's Army\" held in Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. (Document 1) The concert came at a time when Canada, the United States, and the Soviet Union were allies in the war against Nazism, and Communists supported Mackenzie King's government and an \"all-out\" war effort. The program reflected this political environment; it listed \"patrons\" of various political persuasions, was produced by Canadian Tribune, whose editor and future Communist (Labour Progressive Party -- LPP) MPP, A.A. MacLeod, opened the concert. Robeson was the main performer but UAW Director George Burt spoke briefly about \"Labor's Salute to Canada's Army.\" The program, with Karsh's photo of Lieutenant-General Andrew McNaughton on the cover, contained an Eaton's ad that promoted records of Paul Robeson's voice, a Karsh photo of Robeson, and a description of him as a singer of \"songs of the people\" who was known to millions around the world as \"a fighter for justice and the brotherhood of man.\" It had ads from both labour and non-labour groups, and the concert's proceeds went to the Canadian Red Cross Society. In wartime, temporary unity amongst unlikely partners, was in the interest of winning the war, and Robeson, as a man of peace, was willing to participate. John Gray, Robeson's manager, was anxious to prepare for another concert in 1954, as the American government still held Robeson's passport. A global campaign of support for its restoration, and thus Robeson's freedom of movement, involved major personalities from Britain. They launched a \"Let Robeson Sing\" campaign that grew so quickly that, by 1957, it was an embarrassment to the American government. Peace groups in France, Uruguay, Austria, Israel, South Africa, Iraq, and Finland sent protests to the State Department against Robeson's continued \"domestic arrest.\"(15) A planning committee organized a cultural salute to Robeson with an evening of song and drama in New York, including South Africans, West African students, the Workers Alliance of Guatemala, British writers such as Doris Lessing, and French trade unionists.(16) Robeson's many supporters argued that peoples outside the US wanted to hear the famous Black American singer. Around the world, thousands came to Robeson's defense; he had international appeal and interests, reflected in an entertainment program that drew upon music from different parts of the globe. For the last Peace Arch concert in 1955, the union's press statement stressed that the concerts were attended annually by thousands from both sides of the border, and were dedicated to world peace and international brotherhood. Once again, crowds gathered in a park and a farmer's field in the space between the borders, and the union was well prepared to deal with them. As the organizers told Robeson's manager, \"we are having the buses pick up along to the route to the Arch this year, and the pick-up points are stated on the tickets.\" The union advertised the concert in bus stations, in the local press, and placed ads in Seattle. It sold a program again, with Robeson's picture on the cover, with ads from labour and other groups welcoming Robeson to Canada. As [Harvey Murphy] wrote, \"the concert this year was a real success\" and \"Paul never sang better in his life.\"(19) To the audience, Robeson expressed his optimism that the political climate was improving, with Americans increasingly rejecting McCarthyism. Barriers to free speech still stood, but they were weakening, and as Robeson said, \"soon they must fall, and you and I together -- people everywhere -- shall sing the songs of peace and brotherhood, the songs of human triumph.\" And indeed the program included \"Freiheit,\" the song of the Thaelmann Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, and \"Zog Nit Keynmol\" a Yiddish song of the Warsaw ghetto. (Document 4) The union claimed that insofar as Robeson could travel to Canada, the Peace Arch concerts had \"won him for Canada; we must still help to free him for the rest of the world!\"(20)