Au nom de l'ordre ou de la liberté? Le Congrès juif canadien face à la répression des libertés civiles et des droits des minorités religieuses au Québec (1945–1954)

The author examines the positions taken by the Montreal-based national Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) on the issues affecting the repression of civil liberties and the infringement of the rights of religious non-Catholic minorities in Quebec in the decade following the Second World War. His analysis sheds new light on the understanding of the place held by representatives of Montreal's Jewish community in the social human rights movement in Canada. The author argues that the CJC – the main voice of Canada's Jewish community – in fact remained on the fringe of the movement protesting Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis' regime, refusing to condemn the Padlock Act and supporting the repression of the Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious minorities considered by the provincial government to be “seditious” or “subversive.” The controversies that ensued due to these positions, the author points out, demonstrate the ideological, regional, and class divisions the Jewish community and the “human rights community” were undergoing in the postwar period. He notes that they expose the tensions that existed within the CJC, between the leaders from Ontario and the Canadian West and their counterparts in Quebec, confronted more directly with the repressive Duplessis regime and the pattern of inter-faith relations in this mainly Catholic province.

Canadian Historical Review

Vol. 99

no. 2

196-224

Summer 2018

fr