Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett[edit]

Controversy[edit]

Published in 2001 by Quebecois investigative journalist Normand Lester (himself part Jewish), Le Livre noir du Canada anglais (later translated as The Black Book of English Canada) first reported a relationship between R. B. Bennett and fascist Adrien Arcand. The book tells that, before the 1930 federal election campaign, Adrien Arcand and his associate Joseph Ménard were secretly approached by then-senator Joseph H. Rainville, in the name of Conservative leader in opposition Richard Bedford Bennett.

Arcand and Ménard were offered a initial guaranteed funding of 25,000 CAD dollars (equivalent to 268,577 CAD dollars at time of publication, according to the book) and promise of further financial support for their newspapers, now known for their anti-semitic content. In return, their publications (at the time, Le Miroir and Le Goglu; Le Chameau would soon follow) and Arcand's movement l'Ordre patriotique des Goglus would need to help the Conservative Party of Canada to win at least 12 seats in the upcoming election. A May 22, 1930 letter marked confidential from Adrien Arcand refers to Bennett and him meeting each other and the exposition of the plan to the future Canadian PM:

Last week, my partner Jos. Ménard and I were honored and favored with an interview with you. Our plan of procedure and propaganda was exposed to you as well as our program of meetings throughout this province. ^[1]

After the Conservative win in the 1930 election, on January 28, 1931, upon another letter marked confidential, Arcand and Ménard detailed their expenses. They asked to be reimbursed 52,000 dollars ($627,752 at publication) for their electoral help, including organizing 104 electoral assemblies having gathered 400,000 people. The two also recognized having already received 18,000 dollars ($193,376 at publication) in 1930, right in the Great Depression. Other letters pleading for financial help would follow. A January 2, 1932 letter of Adrien Arcand and Joseph Ménard to R. B. Bennett shows the loyalty they professed towards the latter:

We will be glad and proud in our misfortune to have loyally served our ideal, our country, the doctrin (sic) of our Party and the Godsent man who leads our country so wisely in this hour of great distress and who has all our admiration and confidence. […] If God permits that, by one way of the other, we survive for one week or one year, you may rest assured that we will be during that time as we have been since our first interview, Your loyal and faithful Soldiers, Adrien Arcand Joseph Ménard ^[2]

Arcand accumulated defamation cases against him and, in May 1932, asked again the Conservatives for help. On June 7, 1932, Conservative MP Leslie G. Bell wrote to Bennett that Le Goglu, "as you are aware, rendered us efficient and valuable service during the last election campaign. On every occasion when it was necessary to call upon their services, they responded most effectively." Later in the letter, he would note that "I am quite thoroughly convinced that the proprietors of 'The Goglu' are conservative in their politics and are prepared to back the Federal interests with all their strength." Another conservative, John A. Sullivan, would intervene and write about Le Goglu that "It would be a pity to see it fall, and you alone can help it in the present circumstances." ^[3] Unable to face the financial hardships brought on by the legal cases against them, Arcand and Ménard would fall into bankruptcy.

Arcand knew the British fascist Arnold Spencer Leese and would even once send to Bennett a copy of Leese's paper The Fascist. ^[4] On January 4, 1933, Arcand wrote to Bennett's secretary to inform him that Adolf Hitler's Washington representative, Kurt Ludecke, wished to meet with him in the second half of January. Ludecke was the Nazi representative in charge of gathering funds and support in America. No trace is to be found of Bennett either attending the meeting or refusing it. ^[5]

After the end of the three papers, the new middleman between Bennett and Arcand, Pierre Édouard Blondin, leader of the government in senate, recommended Arcand to "turn a new sheet" and start a new newspaper. Le Patriote would be launched on May 4, 1934. In the beginning of 1934, senator Blondin confides to Bennett that "[…] he [Arcand] has launched a movement which (under the name of The Christian national party) aims simply at the debunking of all the rot of the old parties, which, when the end comes, will be found to be 'a regenerated Conservative party' in Quebec, which I think we need." ^[6]

Arcand would once again be commissioned to help the Conservative Party for the 1935 federal election campaign. He and his paper Le Fasciste canadien campaigned for the Conservatives and attacked Mackenzie King, who would win the election. In 1936, in a letter to Bennett, a Conservative organizer, A. W. Reid, estimated that the Conservative Party gave Arcand 27,000 dollars ($359,284 at publication) in total. The author Lester notes that all the light may not have been shed on the relationship between the Conservative Party of Canada and Arcand: the Arcand archives from before the war have disappeared while in the care of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ^[7]

References[edit]

^ Lester, Normand (2001) Le Livre noir du Canada anglais; Montreal: Les Éditions des Intouchables, p.255. The letter is conserved at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa. A photocopy can be found at the archives of the Canadian Jewish Council in Montreal, under P0005 ARCAND, Adrien (collection).
^ Lester, Normand (2001) Le Livre noir du Canada anglais; Montreal: Les Éditions des Intouchables, pp. 257-258. Can also be found at the archives of the Canadian Jewish Council in Montreal, under P0005 ARCAND, Adrien (collection).
^ Lester, Normand (2001) Le Livre noir du Canada anglais; Montreal: Les Éditions des Intouchables, p. 259.
^ Lester, Normand (2001) Le Livre noir du Canada anglais; Montreal: Les Éditions des Intouchables, p.258. Originally from Robin, Martin (1992) Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920-1940; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 118.
^ Lester, Normand (2001) Le Livre noir du Canada anglais; Montreal: Les Éditions des Intouchables, p. 259.
^ Ibid., p. 260.
^ Ibid., p. 261.