Fred Rose (politician)
Fred Rose (born Fred Rosenberg) (
December 7 1907 -
March 16 1983) was a
Communist politician and
trade union organizer in
Canada. He was born in
Lublin in what is now
Poland, and emigrated to Canada as a child in
1920. He became involved with the
Young Communist League of Canada, and then joined the
Communist Party of Canada while working in a factory. However, he is best known as the only Member of the
Canadian Parliament ever convicted of spying for a foreign country.
Rose was jailed during the 1930s for his work organizing the unemployed, and won the hatred of
Quebec premier
Maurice Duplessis for writing about the close connections between the Duplessis government and the fascist governments of
Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini. He was a close associate of
Dr. Norman Bethune, who served first in
Spain during the
Spanish Civil War and later in
China. He was a candidate for the
Communist Party of Canada in the
working class Montreal-area
riding of
Cartier in the
1935 federal election, coming in second with 16% of the vote.
Early in
World War II, the Communist Party in Canada was formally banned, then reorganized as the
Labour Progressive Party. Rose won election to the
House of Commons as a LPP candidate from Cartier in a
1943 by-election. He won with 30% of the vote in a tight four way race, beating among others,
David Lewis of the
social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Rose was re-elected in the
1945 election with 40% of the vote. As a Member of Parliament, Rose proposed the first
medicare legislation and the first anti-hate legislation.
Fred Rose was caught up in the world political sea change following World War II, when seemingly overnight, the
Soviet Union went from ally to enemy. In July
1945,
Igor Gouzenko, a young
cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in
Ottawa, was recalled to his homeland. Rather than return home, Gouzenko defected with documents he claimed showed evidence of a massive Soviet
spy ring operating in Canada.
Few took his accusations and evidence seriously at first. Later, as the
Cold War began to heat up, a Royal Commission on espionage was established, headed by two Supreme Court justices. Scores of people were rounded up under the
War Measures Act (even though Canada was at peace), held incommunicado for weeks on end, without legal counsel and barred from all contact with the outside world. Meanwhile, the Royal Commission issued a stream of press releases about the "
Red menace". Prisoners were forcefully told to incriminate themselves and others under the penalty of contempt of court.
Fred Rose was the ultimate target, although the charges against him were non-specific, making his defence difficult. At one point, he was defending himself against conspiracy, and at another against violating the
Official Secrets Act.
In this charged atmosphere, Rose refused to testify at his trial, which was designed, he said, to "smear honest and patriotic Canadians". Rose denied his guilt to his death. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to prison for a term just one day longer than was required to deprive him of his elected seat in the House of Commons.
Rose wrote to the
Speaker of the House,
Gaspard Fauteux, on
January 24,
1947: :Mr. Speaker: If the will of the people is to prevail, if justice is to be done, there can be no question of my expulsion from the house. To the contrary, I should be in my seat in the House of Commons and not in the penitentiary. Parliament is the highest of Courts. Through its actions in my case it will decide whether hysteria is to continue or whether reason and justice are to prevail. Respectfully, Fred Rose, M.P.
His letter was returned to him at
St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary, and his fellow MPs never read this appeal. On
January 30,
1947, he was expelled from Parliament.
Rose was released from prison after four and a half years with his health broken. Attempting to find work in Montreal, he was tailed from jobsite to jobsite by the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who pointed out to employers and workmates that he was a convicted spy.
He finally went to Poland to attempt to set up an import-export business and to obtain health treatment he could not afford in Canada. While living in Poland, his Canadian citizenship was revoked in
1957, and he was unable to return to Canada to lead the fight to clear his name.
His appeal against revoking his citizenship was denied, although several years later
Ellen Fairclough amended the
Citizenship Act with the
Fred Rose amendment so that such a removal of Canadian citizenship could never happen again. Years later, former
federal cabinet minister Allan MacEachen acknowledged the pages of
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's diary dealing with Rose had gone missing, as had most of the other records dealing with his case.
