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David Lewis (Canadian politician)

David Lewis CC QC (born David Losz; June 23 or October 1909 – May 23, 1981) was a Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from 1936 to 1950 and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. In 1962, he was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP), in the House of Commons of Canada, for the York South electoral district. While an MP, he was elected the NDP's national leader and served from 1971 until 1975. After his defeat in the 1974 federal election, he stepped down as leader and retired from politics. He spent his last years as a university professor at Carleton University, and as a travel correspondent for the Toronto Star. In retirement, he was named to the Order of Canada for his political service. After suffering from cancer for a long time, he died in Ottawa in 1981.

David Lewis
Lewis in 1944
Leader of the New Democratic Party
In office
April 24, 1971 – July 7, 1975
Preceded byTommy Douglas
Succeeded byEd Broadbent
Member of Parliament
for York South
In office
November 8, 1965 – July 8, 1974
Preceded byMarvin Gelber
Succeeded byUrsula Appolloni
In office
June 18, 1962 – April 8, 1963
Preceded byWilliam G. Beech
Succeeded byMarvin Gelber
National President
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In office
1958–1961
Preceded byM. J. Coldwell
Succeeded byOffice abolished
National Chairman
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In office
1954–1958
Preceded byPercy Wright
Succeeded byOffice abolished
National Secretary
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
In office
1936–1950
Preceded byM. J. Coldwell
Succeeded byLorne Ingle
Personal details
Born
David Losz

June 23 or October 1909
Svisloch, Russian Empire
DiedMay 23, 1981(1981-05-23) (aged 71)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Political partyCCF
New Democratic Party
Other political
affiliations
Labour
SpouseSophie Carson
Children4, including Stephen Lewis
Parent(s)Moishe Lewis
Rose Lazarovitch
Alma materMcGill University
Lincoln College, Oxford
OccupationLawyer

Lewis's politics were heavily influenced by the Jewish Labour Bund, which contributed to his support of parliamentary democracy. He was an avowed anti-communist, and while a Rhodes Scholar prevented communist domination of the Oxford University Labour Club. In Canada, he played a major role in removing communist influence from the labour movement.

In the CCF, he took the role of disciplinarian and dealt with internal organizational problems. He helped draft the Winnipeg Declaration, which moderated the CCF's economic policies to include acceptance of capitalism, albeit subject to stringent government regulation. As the United Steelworkers of America (USW)'s legal counsel in Canada, he helped them take over the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine-Mill). His involvement with the USW also led to a central role in the creation of the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956.

The Lewis family has been active in socialist politics since the turn of the twentieth century, starting with David Lewis's father's involvement in the Bund in Russia, continuing with David, and followed by his eldest son, Stephen Lewis, who led the Ontario NDP from 1970 until 1978. When David was elected the NDP's national leader in 1971, he and Stephen became one of the first father-and-son-teams to simultaneously head Canadian political parties.

Early life edit

The Bund and Jewish life in the Pale edit

David Losz was born in the Russian Empire sometime after Svisloch's first snowfall in October 1909 to Moishe Losz and his wife Rose (née Lazarovitch).[Note 1] His official birth date of June 23 was the one he gave the immigration officer when he arrived in Canada.[2][3] Lewis's political activism began in the shtetl he lived in until 1921.[4] Svisloch was located in the Pale of Settlement, the westernmost region of the Russian Empire, in what is now Belarus. After World War I, it became a Polish border town, occasionally occupied by the Soviet Union during the Polish-Soviet War of the early 1920s. Jewish people were in the majority, numbering 3,500 out of Svisloch's 4,500 residents. Unlike many of the other shtetls in the Pale, it had an industrial economy based on tanning. Its semi-urban industrial population was receptive to social democratic politics and the labour movement, as embodied by the Jewish Labour Bund.[4]

Moishe (or Moshe) Losz was Svisloch's Bund Chairman.[5] The Bund was an outlawed socialist party that called for overthrowing the Tsar, equality for all, and national rights for the Jewish community; it functioned both as a political party and labour movement.[6] Lewis spent his formative years immersed in its culture and philosophy.[6] The Bund's membership, although mostly ethnically Jewish, was secular humanist in practice.[6]

Moishe and David were influenced by the Bund's political pragmatism, embodied in its maxim that "It is better to go along with the masses in a not totally correct direction than to separate oneself from them and remain a purist."[7] David would bring this philosophy to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and New Democratic Party (NDP); in clashes between the parties' "ideological missionaries and the power pragmatists when internal debates raged about policy or action", he was in the latter camp.[7]

When the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War were at their fiercest, in the summer of 1920, Poland invaded, and the Red Russian Bolshevik army counter-attacked. The Bolsheviks reached the Svisloch border in July 1920. Moishe Losz openly opposed the Bolsheviks and would later be jailed by them for his opposition.[8] When the Polish army recaptured Svisloch on August 25, 1920, they executed five Jewish citizens as "spies".[9] Unsafe under either regime and with his family's future prospects bleak, Moishe left for Canada in May 1921, to work in his brother-in-law's Montreal clothing factory. By August, he saved enough money to send for his family, including David and his siblings, Charlie and Doris.[10]

David Lewis was a secular Jew, as was Moishe. However, his maternal grandfather, Usher Lazarovitch, was religious and, in the brief period between May and August 1921 before David emigrated, gave his grandson the only real religious training he would ever receive.[11] David did not actively take part in a religious service again until his granddaughter Ilana's Bat Mitzvah in the late 1970s.[12] In practice, the Lewis family, including David, his wife Sophie, and their children Janet, Nina, Stephen, and Michael, were atheists.[13]

Early life in Canada edit

The family came to Canada by boat and landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Autumn 1921.[10] They then went by rail to Montreal to meet Moishe Lewis. David Lewis was a native Yiddish speaker and understood very little English. He learned it by buying a copy of Charles Dickens' novel The Old Curiosity Shop and a Yiddish-English dictionary.[14] A Welsh teacher at Fairmount Public School, where Lewis was a student, helped him learn English but also passed on his Welsh accent.[15]

Lewis entered Baron Byng High School in September 1924. He soon became friends with A.M. (Abe) Klein, who became one of Canada's leading poets. He also met Irving Layton, another future prominent Canadian writer, to whom he acted as a political mentor.[16] Baron Byng High School was predominantly Jewish because it was in the heart of Montreal's non-affluent Jewish community, and was ghetto-like because Jews were forbidden from attending many high schools.[17]

Besides poets, at high school, Lewis met Sophie Carson, who eventually became his wife. Klein, their mutual friend, introduced them. Carson came from a religious Jewish family. Her father did not approve of Lewis, because he was a recent immigrant to Canada, and in Carson's father's opinion had little to no possibility of success.[18]

After high school, Lewis spent five years at McGill University in Montreal: four in arts and one in law. While there, he helped found the Montreal branch of the Young People's Socialist League.[19] He gave lectures sponsored by this anti-communist socialist club, and was its nominal leader.[20] One of his favourite professors was Canadian humorist, and noted Conservative party proponent, Stephen Leacock, whom Lewis liked more for his personality than for his discipline, economics.[21]

In his third year, Lewis founded The McGilliad campus magazine.[22] It published many of his anti-communist views, though the December 1930 issue included an article he wrote expressing his approval of the Russian Revolution and calling for a greater understanding of the Soviet Union;[22] throughout his career, he would attack communism, but would always have sympathy for the 1917 revolutionaries.[22] Also at McGill, Lewis met and worked with prominent Canadian socialists like F. R. Scott, Eugene Forsey, J. King Gordon, and Frank Underhill. He would work with all of them again in the 1940s and 50s in the CCF.[23]

Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford edit

With Scott's encouragement, Lewis applied for a Rhodes Scholarship during his first year at law school.[24] The interviews for the Quebec representative were conducted in Montreal. The examining board included the then-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), Sir Edward Beatty.[25] In response to a question about what he would do if he became prime minister, Lewis stated that he would nationalize the CPR.[25] Despite this answer and his socialist views in general, his responses to the board's cross-examination satisfied them that he was not a communist, and they awarded him the scholarship.[25]

Political involvement edit

When David Lewis entered Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1932,[26] he immediately took a leadership role in the university's socialist-labour circles. Michael Foot, the future leader of the British Labour Party, mentioned in an interview that Lewis was,

the most powerful socialist debater in the place. I don't think with any rival ... He had a very powerful influence indeed amongst students, partly because he had so much more experience than the rest of us but partly because he had brilliant debating powers. I mean one of the best I've ever heard. If you talk of tough political debates, well, he was absolutely unbeatable ... I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and] he played a part in converting me to socialism.[27]

When Lewis came to Oxford, the Labour Club was a tame organization adhering to Christian activism, or genteel socialist theories like those expressed by R.H. Tawney in his book The Acquisitive Society. Lewis's modified Bundist interpretation of Marxism, which Smith labels "Parliamentary Marxism", ignited renewed interest in the club after the disappointment of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government.[28]

The Oxford newspaper Isis noted Lewis's leadership ability at this early stage in his career. In its February 7, 1934, issue, while Lewis was president, they wrote of the club: "The energy of these University Socialists is almost unbelievable. If the Socialist movement as a whole is anything like as active as they are, then a socialist victory at the next election is inevitable."[29]

In February 1934, British fascist William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) visited Oxford. Lewis and future Ontario CCF leader Ted Jolliffe organized a noisy protest by planting Labour Club members in the dance hall where Joyce was speaking and having groups of two and three of them leave at a time, making much noise on the creaking wooden floors. They were successful in drowning out Joyce, and he did not complete his speech. Afterward, a street fight erupted between Joyce's Blackshirt supporters and members of the Labour Club, including Lewis.[30]

Lewis prevented the communists from making inroads at Oxford. Ted Jolliffe stated "there was a difference between his speeches at the Union and his speeches at the Labour Club. His speeches at the Union had more humour in them; the atmosphere was entirely different. But his speeches at the Labour Club were deadly serious ... His influence at the Labour Club, more than anyone else's, I think, explains the failure of the Communists to make headway there. There were so many naive people around who could have been taken in."[31] He increased the Labour Club's membership by three quarters by the time he left.[32]

In accordance with Bundism, Lewis rejected violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bund insisted that the revolution should be through democratic means, as Marx had judged possible in the late 1860s, and that democracy should prevail afterward.[33] Influenced by Fabianism, Lewis became an incrementalist in his approach to replacing non-socialist governments.[34] As Lewis biographer Cameron Smith points out:

So what he ended up with was a modified Bundist interpretation of Marxism. Call it, if you will, Parliamentary Marxism. It was a Marxian analysis of economics and a parliamentary approach to politics. And if David were forced to choose, he would have chosen Parliamentary over Marxism.[28]

Lewis was a prominent figure in the British Labour Party, which, in emphasizing parliamentary action and organizational prowess, took an approach similar to the Bund's.[28] Upon his 1935 graduation, the party offered him a candidacy in a safe seat in the British House of Commons.[35] This left Lewis with a difficult decision: whether to stay in England or go home to Canada. If he had stayed in England, he likely would have been a partner in a prominent London law firm associated with Stafford Cripps and become a cabinet minister the next time Labour formed a government.[14] Cripps, then a prominent barrister and Labour Party official, was grooming Lewis to be Prime Minister. Lewis's other choice was to return to Montreal and help build the fledgling Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), with no guarantee of success. A personal note from J. S. Woodsworth, dated June 19, 1935, asked Lewis to take this latter option;[36] in the end, he did.[35]

Oxford Union edit

Besides his political involvement, Lewis was active with the Oxford Union, probably the most prestigious and important debating club in the English-speaking world.[37] His first debate, in January 1933, was on the resolution "That the British Empire is a menace to International good will"; Lewis was one of the participants for the "Aye" side.[37] They lost.

The February 9, 1933, debate brought Lewis some level of early prominence. The resolution was "That this House will under no circumstances fight for its King or Country" and was so controversial that it was news around the British Empire and beyond.[38] Lewis again spoke for the "Aye" side. They won overwhelmingly and caused a newspaper uproar throughout the Empire. The Times of London entered the fray by pooh-poohing those who took the Union and their motion seriously.[38]

Lewis became a member of the Union's Library Committee on March 9, 1933, and its treasurer in March 1934. After two failed attempts, he was narrowly elected president in late November 1934. He was president during the Hilary term, from the beginning of January until the end of April 1935.[39] The Isis commented that "... David Lewis ... will be, beyond question, the least Oxonian person ever to the lead the Society. In appearance, background, and intellectual outlook he is a grim antithesis to all the suave, slightly delicate young men who for generations have sat on the Union rostrum ..."[40]

CCF National Secretary edit

Return to Canada edit

Sophie Carson had accompanied Lewis to Oxford, and they wed August 15, 1935, shortly after their return. The wedding took place in his parents' home; though a rabbi officiated, most traditional Jewish practices were not observed.[41]

In 1935, David Lewis became the National Secretary of the CCF. As Smith puts it:

Into this political whirlwind stepped David. A centralist in a nation that was decentralizing. A socialist in a country that voted solidly capitalist. A campaigner for a party with no money, facing two parties each of which was big, powerful, and affluent. A professional, in a party of amateurs who mostly thought of themselves as a movement, not a party. An anti-Communist at a time when Canadian Communists were about to enter their heyday. A publicist seeking a unified voice for a party riven with dissent. An organizer whose leader, J.S. Woodsworth, really didn't believe in the organization, thinking that the CCF should remain a loosely knit, co-operative association and believed this so implicitly that when it came time to appoint Lewis full-time to the job of the national secretary [in 1938] he resisted, fearing the CCF would lose its spontaneity.

That Lewis not only survived but prevailed is a testament to his skill and perseverance.[42]

Most of the founders of the CCF – including Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, M. J. Coldwell, and Stanley Knowles, – were informed by the Social Gospel, to which Lewis, with his Marxist socialism balanced by the Bund's democratic principles, felt an affinity.[43] Both the Bund and the Social Gospel were focused on the material present rather than the afterlife. Both called on people to change their environment for the better rather than hoping that God might do it for them. Social justice, the brotherhood of man, and moral self-improvement were common to both.[43]

It became obvious after the October 1937 Ontario election that the CCF needed an image change; it was seen by the electorate as too far left.[44] F. R. Scott pointed this out to Lewis in a letter, recommended moderating some of the party's policies, and advised that "... in the political arena we must find our friends among the near right."[45]

In August 1938, Lewis quit his job at the Ottawa law firm of Smart and Biggar to work full-time as the CCF National Secretary. His starting salary was $1,200 per year, a low sum of money, even at that time, for a job with so much responsibility.[46]

Trying to create an organization edit

As National Secretary, Lewis emphasized organization over ideology and forging links to unions.[44] He worked to moderate the party's image and downplay the Regina Manifesto's more radical language, which seemed to scare off moderate voters. The offending language included "No CCF government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning".[47] Lewis, federal leader M.J. Coldwell, and Clarie Gillis would spend the next 19 years trying to modify this declaration, finally succeeding with the 1956 Winnipeg Declaration.

At the 1944 CCF convention, Lewis won a concession "that even large business could have a place in the party – if they behave."[48] Rather than opposing all private enterprise, Lewis was concerned with preventing monopoly capitalism. He passed a resolution reading "The socialization of large-scale enterprise, however, does not mean taking over every private business. Where private business shows no signs of becoming a monopoly, operates efficiently under decent working conditions, and does not operate to the detriment of the Canadian people, it will be given every opportunity to function, to provide a fair rate of return, and to make its contribution to the nation's wealth."[49] This resolution allowed for a mixed-economy that left most jobs in the private sphere.[50]

 
Federal Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) delegation attending the September 1944 Conference of Commonwealth Labour Parties in London, England . Pictured from left to right: Clarie Gillis, MP for Cape Breton South; David Lewis, National Secretary; M.J. Coldwell, National Leader, MP for Rosetown—Biggar, Percy E. Wright, MP for Melfort; and Frank Scott, National Chairman.

Lewis did not share the desire of some members to keep the CCF "ideologically pure", and adhered to the Bundist belief that "it was better to go along with the masses in a not totally correct direction than to separate oneself from them and remain 'purist'."[51] However, the CCF was as much a movement as it was a political party, and its own members frequently undermined it with radical proclamations. Lewis criticized the British Columbia CCF for such comments, saying "... what we say and do must be measured by the effect which it will have on our purpose of mobilizing people for action. If what we say and do will blunt or harm our purpose ... then we are saying and doing a false thing even if, in the abstract, it is true ... When, in heaven's name are we going to learn that working-class politics and the struggle for power are not a Sunday-school class where the purity of godliness and the infallibility of the Bible must be held up without fear of consequences."[50]

David Lewis was the party's "heavy", which did not help his popularity among CCF members, but after witnessing what he considered to be the European left's self-destruction in the 1930s, he was quick to end self-immolating tactics or policies.[52] He would tolerate some criticism of the party by its members, but when he believed that it rose to self-mutilation, he suppressed it ruthlessly.[52] This was most apparent when Lewis attacked and discredited Frank Underhill and his handling of Woodsworth House.[Note 2] Early in Lewis's career, Underhill was one of his mentors; this did not matter when Woodsworth House was stricken with financial difficulties in the late 1940s. Lewis was quick to blame and then discharged Underhill and the rest of the Woodsworth executive of their responsibilities. It was an unfortunate event that cost the CCF in the academic and intelligentsia world.[52] To sum up Lewis's reign, discipline and solidarity were paramount. There had to be limited to discussion and tolerance of dissenting views.[clarification needed][52]

Make this your Canada edit

In 1943, Lewis co-wrote Make this Your Canada with F. R. Scott, then the CCF's National Chairman. The book's main argument was that national economic planning had proven itself during wartime with the King government's imposition of wage and price controls through the Wartime Prices and Trade Board.[54] Lewis and Scott further argued that its wartime success could translate to peacetime, and that Canada should adopt a mixed economy.[55] They also called for public ownership of key economic sectors, and for the burden to be placed on private companies to demonstrate that they could manage an industry more effectively in the private sector than the government could in the public sector.[56] The book also outlined the history of the CCF up to that time and explained the party's decision-making process. By Canadian standards, the book was popular, and sold over 25,000 copies in its first year of publication.[46][Note 3]

1943 Cartier by-election edit

Lewis first ran for the CCF in the 1940 federal election in York West. He placed a distant third, receiving 8,330 fewer votes than the second-place Liberal candidate, Chris J. Bennett.[57] Despite his poor showing in his first election, the party asked Lewis to run in the 1943 by-election in the Montreal, Quebec, federal riding of Cartier, made vacant by the death of Peter Bercovitch. Lewis's opponents included Fred Rose of the communist Labor–Progressive Party. It was a vicious campaign, immortalized by A. M. Klein in an uncompleted novel called Come the Revolution.[58] The novel was broadcast in the 1980s on Lister Sinclair's[Note 4] Ideas programme on CBC Radio One.[58] If the Communist rhetoric could be believed, "Lewis was a Fascist done up in brown."[59]

Rose won and became the only (as of 2013), Communist, to sit in the House of Commons. Lewis placed fourth. The sizable Jewish vote mostly went to Rose. The leftist "common front" punished Lewis by supporting Rose, who was seen to be of the community; Lewis lived in Ottawa at the time. It took Lewis many years to recover from this campaign, and its reverberation coloured Lewis's decision on where to run.[60]


Canadian federal by-election, August 9, 1943: Cartier
Death of Peter Bercovitch
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor–Progressive Fred Rose 5,789 30.42
Bloc populaire Paul Masse 5,639 29.63
Liberal Lazarus Phillips 4,180 21.97 –66.57
Co-operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3,313 17.41
Independent Moses Miller 109 0.57
Total valid votes 19,030 100.00  
Labor–Progressive gain from Liberal Swing +0.40

1945 elections: disappointment and defeat edit

The Canadian federal and the Ontario elections of 1945 were possibly the most crucial to Canada in the 20th century.[60] They took place at the beginning of the welfare state, and the elections would set the course of political thought to the end of the century and beyond.[60] The year was a disaster for the CCF, both nationally and in Ontario. It never fully recovered, and in 1961 would dissolve and become the New Democratic Party.[60] As NDP strategist and historian Gerald Caplan put it: "June 4, and June 11, 1945, proved to be black days in CCF annals: socialism was effectively removed from the Canadian political agenda."[60]

The anti-socialist crusade by the Ontario Conservative Party, mostly credited to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) special investigative branch's agent D-208 (Captain William J. Osborne-Dempster) and the Conservative propagandists Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson,[61] diminished the CCF's initially favourable position:[62] the September 1943 Gallup poll showed the CCF leading nationally with 29 percent support, with the Liberals and Conservatives tied for second place at 28 percent.[63] By April 1945, the CCF was down to 20 percent nationally, and on election day it received only 16 percent.[63]

Another factor in the CCF's defeat was the unofficial coalition between the Liberal Party of Canada and the communist Labor-Progressive Party.[64] It guaranteed a split in the left-of-centre vote.[65]

Lewis ran in Hamilton West instead of the CCF-friendly Winnipeg North riding that had elected CCF and Labour Party candidates since the 1920s and had a substantial Jewish population. Historians and activists disagree on Lewis's reasons for doing so, but Caplan suggests that the shock of the Cartier election probably made him reluctant to fight another intense campaign against a Jewish Communist candidate.[65] Whatever his reasons, he was soundly defeated.[65] In the 1949 federal election, Lewis ran again in the Hamilton area, in the riding of Wentworth. He lost again, placing a relatively distant third.[66]

Fighting Communist influence edit

The 1945 defeats were partially the result of an alliance between the Liberals and the communist Labor–Progressive Party (LPP).[67] The LPP focused in on CCF-held seats, deliberately splitting the vote,[68] and declared a "Liberal–Labour" coalition on May 29, 1944.[69] They declared open warfare on the CCF in 1944, with spokesman John Weir stating in the LPP's Canadian Tribune newspaper that "a resounding defeat of the CCF at the polls must be [their] the main objective."[70]

The Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) supported the CCF, but the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) refused to officially endorse them. This lack of unity between the two main Canadian umbrella labour organizations hurt the CCF, and was part of the Liberal–Communist alliance: TLC president Percey Berough was a Liberal, and vice-president Pat Sullivan was a Communist.[71]

In the Ontario provincial election, the communists urged trade union members to vote for the right-wing Conservative George Drew rather than the CCF.[69]

Lewis and Charles Millard, of the Canadian Congress of Labour, decided to purge organized labour's decision-making bodies of communists.[72] Their first target was the Sudbury, Ontario, CCF riding association and its affiliated International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine-Mill) Local 598.[73] However, Local 598 was not under Communist control: out of 11,000 dues-paying members, fewer than 100 were communists.[74] Over the next twenty years, a fierce and ultimately successful battle was waged by Millard's United Steel Workers of America (USW) to take over Local 598.

The attacks on the Sudbury CCF were even more costly, at least in terms of voter support. Sudbury's Bob Carlin was one of the few CCF Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) to survive the Drew government's 1945 landslide victory. Carlin had been part of Ted Jolliffe's team that had orchestrated the CCF's 1943 breakthrough but was first and foremost a union man. He was a long-time labour organizer, going back to 1916 and the predecessor to the Mine-Mill: the Western Federation of Miners. Carlin was loyal to his union, in whose service he had spent ten years, and to the men and woman who helped build it, regardless of their political affiliation; this made him unpopular with the CCF establishment in both Toronto and Ottawa.[75]

Millard, Jolliffe, and Lewis did not directly accuse Carlin of being a communist. Instead, they attacked him for not dealing with communists in Local 598, which was built by both communists and CCFers (with the latter firmly in control of the executive).[76] Lewis and Jolliffe made the case to expel him from the Ontario CCF caucus at a Toronto special meeting of the CCF executive and the legislative caucus on April 13, 1948.[76] In essence, Carlin became a casualty of Steel's plans to raid Mine-Mill. The CCF lost the seat in the 1948 Ontario election, placing fourth. The Conservatives won the seat and Carlin, as an independent, finished a close second.[77] It was not until the CCF became the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Mine-Mill versus USW war was over, in 1967, that another social democrat – Elie Martel in Sudbury East – was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from the city.[78]

Lewis and Millard's crusade to limit communist influence received an unexpected boost from the Soviet Union, in Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalinism. In his "Secret Speech", On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, delivered to a closed session of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for his cult of personality and his regime for "violation of Leninist norms of legality". When the excesses of Stalin's regime were exposed, it caused a split in the communist movement in Canada and permanently weakened it. By the end of 1956, the LPP's influence in the trade union movement and politics was spent.[79]

Private labour law practice edit

Lewis resigned as national secretary in 1950 and moved to Toronto to practise law in partnership with Ted Jolliffe. He became the chief legal advisor to the USW's Canadian division, and assisted them in their organizing efforts and battles with the Mine-Mill union.[80] Lewis focused on his law practice for the next five years.[81] In his first year, he paid more in income tax than he had earned annually as CCF National Secretary.[81]

He bought his first house, in the Bathurst StreetSt. Clair Avenue West area of Toronto, during this period. After his father Moishe died in 1951, his mother Rose moved into the 95 Burnside Drive Lewis home from Montreal.[81] This is the home where his son Stephen Lewis would spend his teenage years, and the other three children would grow up.

Winnipeg Declaration and the New Party edit

Although he gave-up day-to-day running of the party's organization, he stayed on the national executive as the English-speaking vice-president from 1950 to 1954.[82][83] After four years of comparatively limited involvement with CCF internal politics, Lewis became the party's national chairman, by winning the election to replace Percy Wright.[84] He, along with Lorne Ingle, the person that replaced him as national secretary in 1950, became the main drafters of the 1956 Winnipeg Declaration, which replaced the Regina Manifesto.[85] The lead-up to the August 1956 CCF convention had Lewis working full-time in his labour practice, including work on the merger of the Canadian Congress of Labour and the Trades and Labour Congress to form the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), and putting in long hours organizing the committee that wrote the Declaration. He collapsed in his office in May 1956; after administering several tests for a possible cardiac condition, the doctors concluded that Lewis collapsed of exhaustion.[86] He stayed in bed for a week and recovered enough to help the Declaration pass ten weeks later. The Winnipeg convention was the CCF's swan song. Even with the Declaration's modified tone, which removed state planning and nationalization of industry as central tenets of the party's platform, the CCF suffered a crippling defeat in the 1958 federal election, which became known as the "Diefenbaker sweep".[85] It was obvious to Lewis, Coldwell and the rest of the CCF executive that the CCF could not continue as it was, and, with the co-operation of the CLC, they started exploring how to broaden its appeal.[87]

CCF President edit

In 1958, Lewis worked closely with the CLC's president, Claude Jodoin, and the CLC's executive vice-president Stanley Knowles[Note 5] to merge the labour and social-democratic movements into a new party. Coldwell did not want to continue as the party's national leader, because he lost his parliamentary seat in the election. Lewis persuaded him to stay on until the new party was formed.[88] Lewis was elected party president at the July 1958 convention in Montreal, which also endorsed a motion for the executive and National Council to "enter into discussions with Canadian Labour Congress" and other like-minded groups to lay the groundwork for a new party.[89]

Leadership succession crisis edit

By 1960, progress was being made in creating a new party, but Lewis had to again act as the disciplinarian. Since Coldwell lost his seat, he was constantly considering resignation but was repeatedly dissuaded by the party. With Coldwell lacking a seat, the CCF caucus chose Hazen Argue as its leader in the House of Commons.[88] During the lead-up to the 1960 CCF convention, Argue was pressing Coldwell to step down. This leadership challenge jeopardized plans for an orderly transition to the new party. Lewis and the rest of the new party's organizers opposed Argue's manoeuvres, and wanted Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas to be the new party's first leader.[90] To prevent their plans from derailing, David Lewis attempted to persuade Argue not to force a vote at the convention on the question of the party's leadership. He was unsuccessful. There was a split between the parliamentary caucus and the party executive on the convention floor. Coldwell quit and Argue replaced him as a leader.[91]

In July 1961, the CCF became the New Democratic Party (NDP). They elected Tommy Douglas as their leader by a convincing 1391 to 380 margin over Argue. Six months later, Argue quit the party and crossed the floor to join the Liberals.[92]

In the mid-1970s, David Lewis reflected on this incident and he concluded that he had not handled the leadership transition well:

I, as president of the CCF, was very much in the wrong in trying to get a unanimous vote for Tommy. It arose out of a tradition we had had – no one opposed Woodsworth, no one had opposed Coldwell. They were chosen. I met with Hazen and tried to dissuade him from being a candidate. It was wrong. This attitude produced bitterness around the Hazen-Douglas contest.[93]

1962–1971: Member of Parliament for York South edit

Two days after the end of the NDP's 1961 founding convention, Tommy Douglas wrote a letter to Sophie Lewis, David's wife, telling her that David must run in the next election.[94] Lewis decided to run in his home riding of York South, which was concurrently held provincially, in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, by the NDP's Ontario leader, Donald C. MacDonald.

Diefenbaker's government had to call an election sometime in 1962, so there was time to plan Lewis's campaign. He had two campaign managers: his son Stephen and Gerry Caplan.[95] One of their main strategies was to gain votes in the riding's affluent Jewish enclave in the Village of Forest Hill. Lewis, however, was perceived by the Jewish community as an outsider because he did not take part in community events or belong to a synagogue.[96] His opposition to the creation of the state of Israel, a result of his Bundist politics, also did not sit well with the mostly Zionist community. It took extra effort on Stephen's and Caplan's parts to convince community members that David was a legitimate Jewish voice and that he would not harm their businesses.[96] Besides resistance from the Jewish community, in his role as party national vice-president David Lewis had to tackle the impending doctors' strike in Saskatchewan, the result of the CCF government's implementation of Medicare.[97] He called the province's doctors "blackmailers" for suggesting such a strike.[97] Lewis also appeared on one of the NDP's few national television spots.[98] He appeared on the national CTV Television Network with Walter Pitman to present the NDP's platform on a planned economy, in a conversation-style election broadcast.[98] On June 18, 1962, Lewis was elected in York South, and finally became an MP.[99] Since Tommy Douglas lost in his seat, Lewis was considered the front-runner to become house leader until Douglas entered the house in an October by-election.[99]

1962 Canadian federal election
Party Candidate Votes %
  New Democratic Party David Lewis 19,101 40.42
  Liberal Marvin Gelber 15,423 32.64
  Progressive Conservative William G. Beech 12,552 26.56
Social Credit Reinald Nochakoff 179 0.38


Lewis's first term as MP was a short one, as Diefenbaker's minority government was defeated in the April 8, 1963, general election.[Note 6] Lewis lost in Forest Hill, as his support among its Jewish community evaporated and returned to the Liberals, who were seen as best able to contain the Social Credit Party, which was perceived to be anti-Semitic.[100] This was only a temporary set-back. With Diefenbaker in opposition (and unlikely to resurrect the coalition in Quebec that gave him his majority in 1958) and Social Credit a diminished force, Lewis returned to the House of Commons in the 1965 general election.[101] He was re-elected in the 1968 election, and became the NDP leader in the House of Commons after Douglas lost his seat.[101][102] At the 1969 Winnipeg National Convention, Douglas announced that he intended to step down as leader by 1971, which meant that Lewis became the de facto leader in the interim.[102]

The October 1970 Quebec FLQ Crisis put Lewis in the spotlight, as he was the only NDP MP with any roots in Quebec. He and Douglas were opposed to the October 16 implementation of the War Measures Act.[103] The Act, enacted previously only for wartime purposes, imposed extreme limitations on civil liberties, and gave the police and military vastly expanded powers for arresting and detaining suspects, usually with little to no evidence required. Although it was only meant to be used in Quebec, since it was federal legislation, it was in-force throughout Canada. Some police services, from outside of Quebec, took advantage of it for their own purposes, which mostly had nothing even remotely related to the Quebec situation, as Lewis and Douglas suspected.[103] Sixteen of the 20 members of the NDP parliamentary caucus voted against the implementation of the War Measures Act in the House of Commons.[104] They took much grief for being the only parliamentarians to vote against it.[103] Lewis stated at a press scrum that day: "The information we do have, showed a situation of criminal acts and criminal conspiracy in Quebec. But, there is no information that there was unintended, or apprehended, or planned insurrection, which alone, would justify invoking the War Measures Act."[105] About five years later, many of the MPs who voted to implement it regretted doing so, and belatedly honoured Douglas and Lewis for their stand against it.[103] Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield went so far as to say that, "Quite frankly, I've admired Tommy Douglas and David Lewis, and those fellows in the NDP for having the courage to vote against that, although they took a lot of abuse at the time....I don't brood about it. I'm not proud of it."[103]

Leader of the NDP edit

Stephen Lewis was coming into his own during this period. In 1963, at the age of 26, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Following the engineered 1970 resignation of Donald C. MacDonald,[106] Stephen was elected leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.[107] During the early-to-mid-1970s, the father-and-son-team led the two largest sections of the NDP.[108]

In February 1968, Stephen Lewis, as a supposed representative of the Ontario NDP legislative caucus, asked the 63-year-old Tommy Douglas to step down as leader so that a younger person could take over.[109] Donald C. MacDonald stated that Lewis was not representing the caucus, but acting on his own.[110] Though Douglas was taken aback by the suggestion, his defeat in the ensuing election bolstered Stephen's case and on October 28, 1969, Douglas announced that he would step down as leader before the NDP's 1971 convention.[111]

David Lewis ran to succeed Douglas as national leader.[112] The 1971 leadership convention was a tumultuous affair.[113] A new generation of NDP activists known as The Waffle proposed many controversial resolutions, including nationalization of all natural resource industries and support for Quebec Sovereignty.[113] It took the combined efforts of the NDP establishment—and the sizable trade union delegation—to vote down these resolutions, which caused many bitter debates and sharply divided the convention.[113] Lewis, as the leading establishment figure, won the party's leadership on April 24 in a surprisingly close race that required four ballots before he could claim victory over the Waffle's James Laxer.[114] Laxer had been prominently featured in media coverage leading up to and during the convention.[114] Lewis's perceived heavy-handedness in dealing with The Waffle at this and previous conventions made him many enemies,[115] as had his involvement in most of the CCF and NDP's internal conflicts during the previous 36 years. Many members who had felt his wrath as party disciplinarian plotted their revenge against him.[115] At his first press conference after winning the leadership, Lewis stated that he was not beholden to the Waffle, as they were soundly defeated at the convention, and that he made no promises to them.[116] He also warned the party's Quebec wing that they could continue to theorize about possible self-determination resolutions, but that come election time they must pledge themselves to the party's newly confirmed federalist policy.[116] He did not purge the Waffle from the NDP, but left it to his son Stephen to do in June 1972, when the party's Ontario wing resolved to disband the Waffle or kick its members out of the party if they did not comply with the disbanding order.[117]

David Lewis led the NDP through the 1972 federal election, during which he uttered his best-known quotation, calling Canadian corporations "corporate welfare bums",[118] a term also used in the title of his 1972 book Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums.[119] This election campaign also employed the first dedicated plane for the NDP leader's tour, dubbed "Bum Air" by reporters, because it was a slow, twin-engine, turbo-prop driven Handley Page Dart Herald.[120] In previous campaigns, the party's leader, Tommy Douglas, had to use commercial Air Canada flights to get around during the election, with few people in his entourage.[120]

The 1972 election returned a Liberal minority government and elected the greatest number of NDP MPs until the 1980 election, and left the NDP holding the balance of power until 1974. The NDP propped up Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government in exchange for the implementation of NDP proposals such as the creation of Petro-Canada as a crown corporation. Lewis wanted to topple the government in a vote of no-confidence as early as possible because he saw no strategic advantage to support the Trudeau government: he believed that Trudeau would get the credit if a program was well-received and that the NDP would be vilified if it was unpopular.[121]

In hindsight, Lewis's no-win evaluation of the situation appears correct: the party would not be rewarded for its efforts by the electorate.[121] In the 1974 election, the NDP were reduced to 16 seats. Lewis lost his seat, leading him to resign as party leader in 1975. It was revealed immediately after the election that he had been battling leukemia for about two years; he had reportedly kept everyone, including his family, unaware of his condition.[122]

Final years edit

Lewis became a professor at the Institute of Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa during this time.[25] In 1978, as a travel correspondent for The Toronto Star, Lewis visited Svisloch one last time, and noted that, "not one Jew now lives there."[25] The Holocaust wiped out the town's Jewish community, and with it his extended family.[25]

He completed the first volume, of a planned two, of his memoirs, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs 1909–1958 in 1981.[25] He died of leukemia shortly thereafter, on May 23, 1981, in Ottawa.[25][123] He is the father of Stephen Lewis, a former Ontario NDP leader and was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa post-political career. His other son, Michael Lewis, was a former Ontario NDP Secretary and a leading organizer in the NDP. He is also the father of Janet Solberg, president of the Ontario NDP in the 1980s. His other twin daughter is Nina Libeskind, the wife and business partner of architect Daniel Libeskind. Stephen's son, broadcaster Avram (Avi) Lewis, is his grandson. In 2010, his granddaughter-in-law Naomi Klein, gave the inaugural David Lewis Lecture, sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.[124]

Awards and honours edit

In December 1976, Lewis was named as a Companion of the Order of Canada and was invested into it on April 20, 1977.[125] He was appointed to the highest level of the Order of Canada in "recognition of the contributions he has made to Labour and social reform and the deep concern he has had over the years for his adopted country."[125] David Lewis Public School in Scarborough, Ontario is named in his honour.[126]

Electoral record edit

1940 Canadian federal election: York West
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Agar Rodney Adamson 12,788 44.6 +12.9
Liberal Chris. J. Bennett 12,117 42.2 +10.3
Co-operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3,787 13.2 -6.4
Total valid votes 28,692 100.0

Note: "National Government" vote is compared to Conservative vote in 1935 election.

Canadian federal by-election, August 9, 1943: Cartier
Death of Peter Bercovitch
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor–Progressive Fred Rose 5,789 30.42
Bloc populaire Paul Masse 5,639 29.63
Liberal Lazarus Phillips 4,180 21.97 –66.57
Co-operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3,313 17.41
Independent Moses Miller 109 0.57
Total valid votes 19,030 100.0  
Labor–Progressive gain from Liberal Swing +0.40
1945 Canadian federal election: Hamilton West
Party Candidate Votes
Liberal GIBSON, Hon. Colin William G 11,439
Progressive Conservative NEW, Chester William 9,260
Co-operative Commonwealth LEWIS, David 6,728
Labor–Progressive SNIDERMAN, Sam 1,063
1949 Canadian federal election: Wentworth
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
  Progressive Conservative LENNARD, Frank Exton Jr. 16,443
  Liberal HICKS, Henry Arnott 13,312
  Co-operative Commonwealth LEWIS, David 11,638
Labor–Progressive RYERSON, Stanley B. 1,028
  Independent GILES, Charles 562
1949 Canadian federal election: Wentworth
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
  Progressive Conservative LENNARD, Frank Exton Jr. 16,443
  Liberal HICKS, Henry Arnott 13,312
  Co-operative Commonwealth LEWIS, David 11,638
Labor–Progressive RYERSON, Stanley B. 1,028
  Independent GILES, Charles 562

York South edit

1962 Canadian federal election
Party Candidate Votes
  New Democratic Party David LEWIS 19,101
  Liberal Marvin GELBER 15,423
  Progressive Conservative William G. BEECH 12,552
Social Credit Reinald NOCHAKOFF 179
1965 Canadian federal election
Party Candidate Votes
  New Democratic Party David LEWIS 21,693
  Liberal Marvin GELBER 18,098
  Progressive Conservative Maxwell ROTSTEIN 6,427
1968 Canadian federal election
Party Candidate Votes
  New Democratic Party David LEWIS 12,357
  Liberal Ron BARBARO 11,693
  Progressive Conservative Cy TOWNSEND 4,499
1972 Canadian federal election
Party Candidate Votes
  New Democratic Party David LEWIS 14,225
  Liberal Lucio APPOLLONI 9,551
  Progressive Conservative John M. OOSTROM 6,401
  Unknown Keith CORKHILL 172
1974 Canadian federal election: York South
Party Candidate Votes %
Liberal Ursula Appolloni 12,485 43.10
New Democratic David Lewis 10,622 36.67
Progressive Conservative Paul J. Schrieder 5,557 19.18
Independent Richard Sanders 103 0.04
Marxist–Leninist Keith Corkhill 102 0.04
Independent Robert Douglas Sproule 97 0.03

1971 leadership convention results edit

Held in Ottawa, Ontario on April 24, 1971.

Delegate Support by Ballot
Candidate 1st ballot 2nd ballot 3rd ballot 4th ballot
Votes cast % Votes cast % Votes cast % Votes cast %
  LEWIS, David 661 38.9% 715 42.5% 742 44.1% 1,046 63.1%
LAXER, James 378 22.3% 407 24.1% 508 30.2% 612 36.9%
HARNEY, John Paul 299 17.6% 347 20.5% 431 25.6% Eliminated
  BROADBENT, John Edward (Ed) 236 13.9% 223 13.1% Eliminated
HOWARD, Frank 124 7.3% Eliminated
Total 1,698 100.0% 1,692 100.0% 1,681 100.0% 1,658 100.0%

Archives edit

There is a David Lewis fonds at Library and Archives Canada.[127] Archival reference number is R6773.

Notes edit

  1. ^ His birthday is unknown. When he emigrated from Russia to Canada in 1921, he did not speak English, and according to his daughter Janet Solberg, June 23 was the first date that popped into his head when the immigration officer asked him when he was born. Smith identifies October as the best guess, since the only given specifics were that he was born "right after the first snows in 1909".[1]
  2. ^ Woodsworth House was both a building and political think-tank, the home of the Ontario CCF (the party that was involved in the Province of Ontario's politics). It was created by a financial foundation that was independent of the Ontario CCF. It took its name from the first CCF leader. The house was inaugurated in January 1947, at 565 Jarvis Street, in Toronto.[53] It ran into financial difficulties in the late 1940s, due to the educational programme that Underhill was responsible for. He allowed the expenses for publishing papers and other materials to exceed the budget, and his only solution was to sell Woodsworth House to pay the debt off. Also of note, Frank Underhill was one of the founders of the League of Social Reconstruction, and one of the people who drafted the CCF's Regina Manifesto in 1933. He was a prominent University of Toronto professor and until the Woodsworth House event, held in the same esteem as Lewis, by party members.
  3. ^ Make This Your Canada was re-printed in 2001, by the Hybrid Publishers Co-operative Ltd. – in time for the pivotal federal New Democratic Party convention in Winnipeg.
  4. ^ Sinclair co-wrote Ontario CCF leader Ted Jolliffe's "Gestapo" speech during the 1945 Ontario general election, that led to the appointment of the LeBel Royal Commission.
  5. ^ Knowles lost his Winnipeg seat in the "Diefenbaker Sweep", but was very quickly ushered into the CLC's executive.
  6. ^ In Canadian politics, if a minority government – one that does not have a majority of the elected members in the House of Commons – loses a vote of non-confidence, then the government has to call a general election or resign. This is exactly the scenario that happened in 1963, and why Lewis had to fight another election so soon after being elected.

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ Smith, pp. 93, 542
  2. ^ Smith, p.93
  3. ^ Smith, p.87
  4. ^ a b Lewis, David (July 15, 1978). "Lewis finds Nazi-like mentality in Russia". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. pp. 1, 3.
  5. ^ Smith, p.11
  6. ^ a b c Tobias, pp.312–316
  7. ^ a b Kosovsky, p.133
  8. ^ Smith. pp.17–19
  9. ^ Smith, pp.114–15
  10. ^ a b Smith, p.115
  11. ^ Lewis 1981, p.12
  12. ^ Smith, p.152
  13. ^ Smith, p.396
  14. ^ a b Frayne, Trent (April 17, 1971). "David Lewis has it all to win NDP leadership except for his age: 61". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 11.
  15. ^ Smith, p.125
  16. ^ Smith, pp.146,148–149
  17. ^ Smith, p.146
  18. ^ Smith, p.150
  19. ^ Lewis 1981, pp.29–30
  20. ^ Smith, p.155
  21. ^ Lewis 1981, p.24
  22. ^ a b c Smith, p.157
  23. ^ Smith, p.159
  24. ^ Lewis 1981, p.32
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h Ward, Bruce (May 24, 1981). "David Lewis' principles guided political career". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. A4.
  26. ^ Smith, p.178
  27. ^ Smith, pp.161–162 interview with the author.
  28. ^ a b c Smith, p.187
  29. ^ The Isis. Oxford: Holywell Press. February 7, 1934. p. 9. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  30. ^ Smith, pp.194–195
  31. ^ Smith, p.196. Ted Jolliffe in an interview with the author.
  32. ^ Smith, p.196
  33. ^ Asher, p.22
  34. ^ Penner, p.51
  35. ^ a b Smith, p.197
  36. ^ Smith, p.198
  37. ^ a b Smith, p.180
  38. ^ a b Smith, p.181
  39. ^ Smith, p.183
  40. ^ The Isis. Oxford: Holywell Press. November 28, 1934. p. 7. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  41. ^ Smith, p.199
  42. ^ Smith, p.248
  43. ^ a b Smith, p.232
  44. ^ a b Smith, p.290
  45. ^ Scott 1986, p.38
  46. ^ a b Caplan, p.111
  47. ^ Stewart 2000, p.103
  48. ^ Smith, p.292
  49. ^ Lewis 1981, p.250
  50. ^ a b Smith, p.293
  51. ^ Smith, p.63
  52. ^ a b c d Smith, p.295
  53. ^ "Labor Forum". Toronto Daily Star. April 13, 1948. p. 10. Woodsworth House's address is mentioned in the advertisement
  54. ^ Lewis & Scott, 1943, pp.5–16
  55. ^ Lewis & Scott, 1943, pp.122–137
  56. ^ Lewis & Scott, 1943, pp.126–132
  57. ^ . History of Federal Ridings since 1867. Information Service, Parliament of Canada. Archived from the original on June 9, 2009. Retrieved July 5, 2007.
  58. ^ a b Smith, p.299
  59. ^ Smith, p.301
  60. ^ a b c d e Caplan, p.191
  61. ^ Caplan, pp.168–169
  62. ^ Caplan, p.193
  63. ^ a b McHenry, pp.135–137
  64. ^ Caplan, p.148
  65. ^ a b c Caplan, pp.157–158
  66. ^ "Wentworth, Ontario (1903–1966)". History of Federal Ridings since 1867. Information Service, Parliament of Canada. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved July 5, 2007.
  67. ^ Caplan, p.133
  68. ^ Caplan, p.117
  69. ^ a b Caplan, p.135
  70. ^ Canadian Tribune, December 16, 1944
  71. ^ Caplan, p.116
  72. ^ Smith, p.305
  73. ^ Smith, p.310
  74. ^ Smith, p.317. From Mike Soliski's The Case for Sudbury, p.4
  75. ^ Smith, p.316
  76. ^ a b Horowitz, p. 131n
  77. ^ Smith, pp.317–318
  78. ^ MacDonald, p.145
  79. ^ Smith, p.322
  80. ^ Smith, p.308
  81. ^ a b c Smith, p.336
  82. ^ Braithwaite, Dennis (July 29, 1950). "C.C.F. Disavows Marx Class Struggle Idea, Tempers High in Debate". The Toronto Daily Star. pp. 1, 7.
  83. ^ Staff (August 9, 1952). "Make Own Foreign Policy, Follow U.N. CCF Meet Urges". The Toronto Daily Star. pp. 1–2.
  84. ^ McNenly, Pat (July 31, 1954). "'Ginger' Grouper Declines, Pick Lewis CCF Chairman". The Toronto Daily Star. p. 3.
  85. ^ a b Stewart 2000, pp.195–196
  86. ^ Smith, p.361
  87. ^ Stewart 2000, pp.196–197
  88. ^ a b Stewart 2000, p.211
  89. ^ Stewart 2000, p.210
  90. ^ McLeod & McLeod, pp.271, 275
  91. ^ Stewart 2000, pp.211–212
  92. ^ Stewart 2000, pp.213–214
  93. ^ Shackleton, pp.256–257
  94. ^ Smith, p.391
  95. ^ Smith, p.393
  96. ^ a b Smith, p.394
  97. ^ a b City Bureau (May 4, 1962). "Sask. Doctors 'Blackmailers' Lewis Tells Pharmacists". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 57.
  98. ^ a b City Bureau (May 15, 1962). "Planned Economy Key To Full Employment—NDP". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 02.
  99. ^ a b City Bureau (June 19, 1962). "Fight For Health Plan David Lewis Pledges". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 25.
  100. ^ Morton 1986, pp.42–43
  101. ^ a b Morton 1986, pp.64–68
  102. ^ a b McLeod & McLeod, pp.359–360
  103. ^ a b c d e Janigan, Mary (November 1, 1975). "Some MPs say they regret voting for War Measures". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. B4.
  104. ^ McLeod & McLeod, p.336
  105. ^ Spry, Robin (1973). "Action: the October crisis of 1970" (Video). NFB Documentary Feature Film. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved December 11, 2009.Quoted from 55:55 to 56:08 mins.
  106. ^ MacDonald, pp.151–152
  107. ^ Russell, Frances (October 5, 1970). "First-ballot sweep gives Lewis leadership of NDP in Ontario". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: CTVglobemedia. p. 1.
  108. ^ Malling, Eric (April 26, 1971). "Stephen Lewis didn't stop Waffle now must face radicals in Ontario". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 12.
  109. ^ McLeod & McLeod, pp.341
  110. ^ Stewart 2003, pp.269–271
  111. ^ Frank, Jones (October 29, 1969). "Socialism is only way to stop youth 'revolt' Tommy Douglas says". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 1.
  112. ^ Morton 1977, p.124
  113. ^ a b c Globe Editorial (April 26, 1971). "A self-inflicted wound". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: CTVglobemedia. p. 3.
  114. ^ a b Goldblatt, Murry (April 26, 1971). "Long road to the top". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: CTVglobemedia. p. 3.
  115. ^ a b Morton 1977, pp.124–126
  116. ^ a b Goldblatt, Murray (April 26, 1971). "Lewis asserts his command: no pandering to the Waffle". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: CTVglobemedia. p. 1.
  117. ^ Sykes, Philip (June 26, 1972). "Officially dead, the Waffle girds for its biggest battle". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 6.
  118. ^ Morton 1977, p.119
  119. ^ Lewis 1972
  120. ^ a b Ottawa Bureau (March 19, 1978). "NDP winging into jet age – at long last". The Toronto Star. Toronto: Torstar. p. 7.
  121. ^ a b Smith, p.474
  122. ^ Smith, p.477
  123. ^ "David Lewis Dead at 71". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. May 26, 1981. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
  124. ^ "The David Lewis Lecture Series". Naomi Klein on Climate Debt. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 2010. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
  125. ^ a b "David Lewis C.C." Honours, Order of Canada. Governor General of Canada. April 30, 2009. Retrieved November 8, 2009.
  126. ^ "The History of David Lewis Public School", Toronto District School Board
  127. ^ "Finding aid to David Lewis, Library and Archives Canada" (PDF).

References edit

  • Ascher, Abraham, ed. (1976). The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution: Documents of Revolution. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-75006-8.
  • Avakumovic, Ivan (1978). Socialism in Canada : a study of the CCF-NDP in federal and provincial politics. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-0978-X.
  • Azoulay, Dan (1999). "A Desperate Holding Action: The Survival of the Ontario CCF/NDP, 1948–1964". In Azoulay, Dan (ed.). Canadian political parties: historical readings. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. pp. 342–363. ISBN 0-7725-2703-2.
  • Boyko, John (2006). Into the Hurricane: Attacking Socialism and the CCF. Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-897289-09-X.
  • Caplan, Gerald (1973). The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism: The CCF in Ontario. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-1896-7.
  • Chamberlin, William Henry (1987). The Russian Revolution: 1917–1921. Vol. 2 (2 ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00816-7.
  • Horowitz, Gad (1968). Canadian Labour in Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-1902-1.
  • Kosovsky, Vladimir (1943). (in Yiddish). New York: American Representation of the General Jewish Workers' Union of Poland. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011.
  • Lewis, David (1981). The Good Fight: Political Memoirs 1909–1958. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0-7715-9598-0.
  • Lewis, David; Frank Scott (2001) [1943]. Make this YOUR CANADA: A Review of CCF History and Policy. Winnipeg: Hybrid Publishers Co-operative Ltd. ISBN 0-9689709-0-7.
  • Lewis, David (1972). Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums. Toronto: James Lewis & Samuel, Publishers. ISBN 978-0-88862-031-6.
  • MacDonald, Donald C. (1998). The Happy Warrior: Political Memoirs (2 ed.). Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 1-55002-307-1.
  • McHenry, Dean Eugene (1950). The Third Force in Canada; the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation 1932–1948. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • McLeod, Thomas; Ian McLeod (2004). Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem (2 ed.). Calgary: Fifth House. ISBN 1-894856-48-1.
  • Morton, Desmond (1977). NDP: Social Democracy in Canada (2 ed.). Toronto: A. M. Hakkert Ltd. ISBN 0-88866-581-4.
  • Penner, Norman (1988). Canadian Communism: the Stalin years and beyond. Toronto: Methuen. ISBN 0-458-81200-5.
  • Scott, Frank R. (1986). A New Endeavour: Selected Political Essays, Letters, and Addresses. Edited and introduced by Michiel Horn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5672-5.
  • Shackleton, Doris French (1975). Tommy Douglas. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-8116-2.
  • Smith, Cameron (1989). Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family. Toronto: Summerhill Press. ISBN 0-929091-04-3.
  • Stewart, Walter (2000). M.J.: The Life and Times of M.J. Coldwell. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited. ISBN 0-7737-3232-2.
  • Stewart, Walter (2003). The Life and Political Times of Tommy Douglas. Toronto: McArthur & Company. ISBN 1-55278-382-0.
  • Tobias, Henry Jack (1972). The Jewish Bund in Russia from its origin to 1905. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0764-2.
  • Young, Walter D. (1969). The anatomy of a party: the national CCF 1932–61. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5221-5.

External links edit

  • David Lewis Memorial Scholarship
  • New Democratic Party of Canada
  • Avi Lewis on CBC's Who Do You Think You Are?
  • 1975 Video Clip from the Race to Replace Lewis as Leader
  • 1974 Video clip after the Liberal minority government was defeated
  • 1972 Audio clip about the NDP as balance-of-power

david, lewis, canadian, politician, other, people, named, david, lewis, david, lewis, disambiguation, david, lewis, born, david, losz, june, october, 1909, 1981, canadian, labour, lawyer, social, democratic, politician, national, secretary, operative, commonwe. For other people named David Lewis see David Lewis disambiguation David Lewis CC QC born David Losz June 23 or October 1909 May 23 1981 was a Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician He was national secretary of the Co operative Commonwealth Federation CCF from 1936 to 1950 and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party NDP in 1961 In 1962 he was elected as the Member of Parliament MP in the House of Commons of Canada for the York South electoral district While an MP he was elected the NDP s national leader and served from 1971 until 1975 After his defeat in the 1974 federal election he stepped down as leader and retired from politics He spent his last years as a university professor at Carleton University and as a travel correspondent for the Toronto Star In retirement he was named to the Order of Canada for his political service After suffering from cancer for a long time he died in Ottawa in 1981 David LewisCC QCLewis in 1944Leader of the New Democratic PartyIn office April 24 1971 July 7 1975Preceded byTommy DouglasSucceeded byEd BroadbentMember of Parliamentfor York SouthIn office November 8 1965 July 8 1974Preceded byMarvin GelberSucceeded byUrsula AppolloniIn office June 18 1962 April 8 1963Preceded byWilliam G BeechSucceeded byMarvin GelberNational PresidentCo operative Commonwealth FederationIn office 1958 1961Preceded byM J ColdwellSucceeded byOffice abolishedNational ChairmanCo operative Commonwealth FederationIn office 1954 1958Preceded byPercy WrightSucceeded byOffice abolishedNational SecretaryCo operative Commonwealth FederationIn office 1936 1950Preceded byM J ColdwellSucceeded byLorne InglePersonal detailsBornDavid LoszJune 23 or October 1909Svisloch Russian EmpireDiedMay 23 1981 1981 05 23 aged 71 Ottawa Ontario CanadaPolitical partyCCFNew Democratic PartyOther politicalaffiliationsLabourSpouseSophie CarsonChildren4 including Stephen LewisParent s Moishe LewisRose LazarovitchAlma materMcGill UniversityLincoln College OxfordOccupationLawyer Lewis s politics were heavily influenced by the Jewish Labour Bund which contributed to his support of parliamentary democracy He was an avowed anti communist and while a Rhodes Scholar prevented communist domination of the Oxford University Labour Club In Canada he played a major role in removing communist influence from the labour movement In the CCF he took the role of disciplinarian and dealt with internal organizational problems He helped draft the Winnipeg Declaration which moderated the CCF s economic policies to include acceptance of capitalism albeit subject to stringent government regulation As the United Steelworkers of America USW s legal counsel in Canada he helped them take over the International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Mine Mill His involvement with the USW also led to a central role in the creation of the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956 The Lewis family has been active in socialist politics since the turn of the twentieth century starting with David Lewis s father s involvement in the Bund in Russia continuing with David and followed by his eldest son Stephen Lewis who led the Ontario NDP from 1970 until 1978 When David was elected the NDP s national leader in 1971 he and Stephen became one of the first father and son teams to simultaneously head Canadian political parties Contents 1 Early life 1 1 The Bund and Jewish life in the Pale 1 2 Early life in Canada 2 Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford 2 1 Political involvement 2 2 Oxford Union 3 CCF National Secretary 3 1 Return to Canada 3 2 Trying to create an organization 3 3 Make this your Canada 3 4 1943 Cartier by election 3 5 1945 elections disappointment and defeat 3 6 Fighting Communist influence 4 Private labour law practice 4 1 Winnipeg Declaration and the New Party 4 2 CCF President 4 3 Leadership succession crisis 5 1962 1971 Member of Parliament for York South 6 Leader of the NDP 7 Final years 8 Awards and honours 9 Electoral record 9 1 York South 9 2 1971 leadership convention results 10 Archives 11 Notes 12 Footnotes 13 References 14 External linksEarly life editThe Bund and Jewish life in the Pale edit David Losz was born in the Russian Empire sometime after Svisloch s first snowfall in October 1909 to Moishe Losz and his wife Rose nee Lazarovitch Note 1 His official birth date of June 23 was the one he gave the immigration officer when he arrived in Canada 2 3 Lewis s political activism began in the shtetl he lived in until 1921 4 Svisloch was located in the Pale of Settlement the westernmost region of the Russian Empire in what is now Belarus After World War I it became a Polish border town occasionally occupied by the Soviet Union during the Polish Soviet War of the early 1920s Jewish people were in the majority numbering 3 500 out of Svisloch s 4 500 residents Unlike many of the other shtetls in the Pale it had an industrial economy based on tanning Its semi urban industrial population was receptive to social democratic politics and the labour movement as embodied by the Jewish Labour Bund 4 Moishe or Moshe Losz was Svisloch s Bund Chairman 5 The Bund was an outlawed socialist party that called for overthrowing the Tsar equality for all and national rights for the Jewish community it functioned both as a political party and labour movement 6 Lewis spent his formative years immersed in its culture and philosophy 6 The Bund s membership although mostly ethnically Jewish was secular humanist in practice 6 Moishe and David were influenced by the Bund s political pragmatism embodied in its maxim that It is better to go along with the masses in a not totally correct direction than to separate oneself from them and remain a purist 7 David would bring this philosophy to the Co operative Commonwealth Federation CCF and New Democratic Party NDP in clashes between the parties ideological missionaries and the power pragmatists when internal debates raged about policy or action he was in the latter camp 7 When the Russian Civil War and the Polish Soviet War were at their fiercest in the summer of 1920 Poland invaded and the Red Russian Bolshevik army counter attacked The Bolsheviks reached the Svisloch border in July 1920 Moishe Losz openly opposed the Bolsheviks and would later be jailed by them for his opposition 8 When the Polish army recaptured Svisloch on August 25 1920 they executed five Jewish citizens as spies 9 Unsafe under either regime and with his family s future prospects bleak Moishe left for Canada in May 1921 to work in his brother in law s Montreal clothing factory By August he saved enough money to send for his family including David and his siblings Charlie and Doris 10 David Lewis was a secular Jew as was Moishe However his maternal grandfather Usher Lazarovitch was religious and in the brief period between May and August 1921 before David emigrated gave his grandson the only real religious training he would ever receive 11 David did not actively take part in a religious service again until his granddaughter Ilana s Bat Mitzvah in the late 1970s 12 In practice the Lewis family including David his wife Sophie and their children Janet Nina Stephen and Michael were atheists 13 Early life in Canada edit The family came to Canada by boat and landed in Halifax Nova Scotia in Autumn 1921 10 They then went by rail to Montreal to meet Moishe Lewis David Lewis was a native Yiddish speaker and understood very little English He learned it by buying a copy of Charles Dickens novel The Old Curiosity Shop and a Yiddish English dictionary 14 A Welsh teacher at Fairmount Public School where Lewis was a student helped him learn English but also passed on his Welsh accent 15 Lewis entered Baron Byng High School in September 1924 He soon became friends with A M Abe Klein who became one of Canada s leading poets He also met Irving Layton another future prominent Canadian writer to whom he acted as a political mentor 16 Baron Byng High School was predominantly Jewish because it was in the heart of Montreal s non affluent Jewish community and was ghetto like because Jews were forbidden from attending many high schools 17 Besides poets at high school Lewis met Sophie Carson who eventually became his wife Klein their mutual friend introduced them Carson came from a religious Jewish family Her father did not approve of Lewis because he was a recent immigrant to Canada and in Carson s father s opinion had little to no possibility of success 18 After high school Lewis spent five years at McGill University in Montreal four in arts and one in law While there he helped found the Montreal branch of the Young People s Socialist League 19 He gave lectures sponsored by this anti communist socialist club and was its nominal leader 20 One of his favourite professors was Canadian humorist and noted Conservative party proponent Stephen Leacock whom Lewis liked more for his personality than for his discipline economics 21 In his third year Lewis founded The McGilliad campus magazine 22 It published many of his anti communist views though the December 1930 issue included an article he wrote expressing his approval of the Russian Revolution and calling for a greater understanding of the Soviet Union 22 throughout his career he would attack communism but would always have sympathy for the 1917 revolutionaries 22 Also at McGill Lewis met and worked with prominent Canadian socialists like F R Scott Eugene Forsey J King Gordon and Frank Underhill He would work with all of them again in the 1940s and 50s in the CCF 23 Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford editWith Scott s encouragement Lewis applied for a Rhodes Scholarship during his first year at law school 24 The interviews for the Quebec representative were conducted in Montreal The examining board included the then president of the Canadian Pacific Railway CPR Sir Edward Beatty 25 In response to a question about what he would do if he became prime minister Lewis stated that he would nationalize the CPR 25 Despite this answer and his socialist views in general his responses to the board s cross examination satisfied them that he was not a communist and they awarded him the scholarship 25 Political involvement editWhen David Lewis entered Lincoln College Oxford in 1932 26 he immediately took a leadership role in the university s socialist labour circles Michael Foot the future leader of the British Labour Party mentioned in an interview that Lewis was the most powerful socialist debater in the place I don t think with any rival He had a very powerful influence indeed amongst students partly because he had so much more experience than the rest of us but partly because he had brilliant debating powers I mean one of the best I ve ever heard If you talk of tough political debates well he was absolutely unbeatable I knew him at Oxford when I was a Liberal and he played a part in converting me to socialism 27 When Lewis came to Oxford the Labour Club was a tame organization adhering to Christian activism or genteel socialist theories like those expressed by R H Tawney in his book The Acquisitive Society Lewis s modified Bundist interpretation of Marxism which Smith labels Parliamentary Marxism ignited renewed interest in the club after the disappointment of Ramsay MacDonald s Labour government 28 The Oxford newspaper Isis noted Lewis s leadership ability at this early stage in his career In its February 7 1934 issue while Lewis was president they wrote of the club The energy of these University Socialists is almost unbelievable If the Socialist movement as a whole is anything like as active as they are then a socialist victory at the next election is inevitable 29 In February 1934 British fascist William Joyce Lord Haw Haw visited Oxford Lewis and future Ontario CCF leader Ted Jolliffe organized a noisy protest by planting Labour Club members in the dance hall where Joyce was speaking and having groups of two and three of them leave at a time making much noise on the creaking wooden floors They were successful in drowning out Joyce and he did not complete his speech Afterward a street fight erupted between Joyce s Blackshirt supporters and members of the Labour Club including Lewis 30 Lewis prevented the communists from making inroads at Oxford Ted Jolliffe stated there was a difference between his speeches at the Union and his speeches at the Labour Club His speeches at the Union had more humour in them the atmosphere was entirely different But his speeches at the Labour Club were deadly serious His influence at the Labour Club more than anyone else s I think explains the failure of the Communists to make headway there There were so many naive people around who could have been taken in 31 He increased the Labour Club s membership by three quarters by the time he left 32 In accordance with Bundism Lewis rejected violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat The Bund insisted that the revolution should be through democratic means as Marx had judged possible in the late 1860s and that democracy should prevail afterward 33 Influenced by Fabianism Lewis became an incrementalist in his approach to replacing non socialist governments 34 As Lewis biographer Cameron Smith points out So what he ended up with was a modified Bundist interpretation of Marxism Call it if you will Parliamentary Marxism It was a Marxian analysis of economics and a parliamentary approach to politics And if David were forced to choose he would have chosen Parliamentary over Marxism 28 Lewis was a prominent figure in the British Labour Party which in emphasizing parliamentary action and organizational prowess took an approach similar to the Bund s 28 Upon his 1935 graduation the party offered him a candidacy in a safe seat in the British House of Commons 35 This left Lewis with a difficult decision whether to stay in England or go home to Canada If he had stayed in England he likely would have been a partner in a prominent London law firm associated with Stafford Cripps and become a cabinet minister the next time Labour formed a government 14 Cripps then a prominent barrister and Labour Party official was grooming Lewis to be Prime Minister Lewis s other choice was to return to Montreal and help build the fledgling Co operative Commonwealth Federation CCF with no guarantee of success A personal note from J S Woodsworth dated June 19 1935 asked Lewis to take this latter option 36 in the end he did 35 Oxford Union edit Besides his political involvement Lewis was active with the Oxford Union probably the most prestigious and important debating club in the English speaking world 37 His first debate in January 1933 was on the resolution That the British Empire is a menace to International good will Lewis was one of the participants for the Aye side 37 They lost The February 9 1933 debate brought Lewis some level of early prominence The resolution was That this House will under no circumstances fight for its King or Country and was so controversial that it was news around the British Empire and beyond 38 Lewis again spoke for the Aye side They won overwhelmingly and caused a newspaper uproar throughout the Empire The Times of London entered the fray by pooh poohing those who took the Union and their motion seriously 38 Lewis became a member of the Union s Library Committee on March 9 1933 and its treasurer in March 1934 After two failed attempts he was narrowly elected president in late November 1934 He was president during the Hilary term from the beginning of January until the end of April 1935 39 The Isis commented that David Lewis will be beyond question the least Oxonian person ever to the lead the Society In appearance background and intellectual outlook he is a grim antithesis to all the suave slightly delicate young men who for generations have sat on the Union rostrum 40 CCF National Secretary editReturn to Canada edit Sophie Carson had accompanied Lewis to Oxford and they wed August 15 1935 shortly after their return The wedding took place in his parents home though a rabbi officiated most traditional Jewish practices were not observed 41 In 1935 David Lewis became the National Secretary of the CCF As Smith puts it Into this political whirlwind stepped David A centralist in a nation that was decentralizing A socialist in a country that voted solidly capitalist A campaigner for a party with no money facing two parties each of which was big powerful and affluent A professional in a party of amateurs who mostly thought of themselves as a movement not a party An anti Communist at a time when Canadian Communists were about to enter their heyday A publicist seeking a unified voice for a party riven with dissent An organizer whose leader J S Woodsworth really didn t believe in the organization thinking that the CCF should remain a loosely knit co operative association and believed this so implicitly that when it came time to appoint Lewis full time to the job of the national secretary in 1938 he resisted fearing the CCF would lose its spontaneity That Lewis not only survived but prevailed is a testament to his skill and perseverance 42 Most of the founders of the CCF including Woodsworth Tommy Douglas M J Coldwell and Stanley Knowles were informed by the Social Gospel to which Lewis with his Marxist socialism balanced by the Bund s democratic principles felt an affinity 43 Both the Bund and the Social Gospel were focused on the material present rather than the afterlife Both called on people to change their environment for the better rather than hoping that God might do it for them Social justice the brotherhood of man and moral self improvement were common to both 43 It became obvious after the October 1937 Ontario election that the CCF needed an image change it was seen by the electorate as too far left 44 F R Scott pointed this out to Lewis in a letter recommended moderating some of the party s policies and advised that in the political arena we must find our friends among the near right 45 In August 1938 Lewis quit his job at the Ottawa law firm of Smart and Biggar to work full time as the CCF National Secretary His starting salary was 1 200 per year a low sum of money even at that time for a job with so much responsibility 46 Trying to create an organization edit As National Secretary Lewis emphasized organization over ideology and forging links to unions 44 He worked to moderate the party s image and downplay the Regina Manifesto s more radical language which seemed to scare off moderate voters The offending language included No CCF government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning 47 Lewis federal leader M J Coldwell and Clarie Gillis would spend the next 19 years trying to modify this declaration finally succeeding with the 1956 Winnipeg Declaration At the 1944 CCF convention Lewis won a concession that even large business could have a place in the party if they behave 48 Rather than opposing all private enterprise Lewis was concerned with preventing monopoly capitalism He passed a resolution reading The socialization of large scale enterprise however does not mean taking over every private business Where private business shows no signs of becoming a monopoly operates efficiently under decent working conditions and does not operate to the detriment of the Canadian people it will be given every opportunity to function to provide a fair rate of return and to make its contribution to the nation s wealth 49 This resolution allowed for a mixed economy that left most jobs in the private sphere 50 nbsp Federal Co operative Commonwealth Federation CCF delegation attending the September 1944 Conference of Commonwealth Labour Parties in London England Pictured from left to right Clarie Gillis MP for Cape Breton South David Lewis National Secretary M J Coldwell National Leader MP for Rosetown Biggar Percy E Wright MP for Melfort and Frank Scott National Chairman Lewis did not share the desire of some members to keep the CCF ideologically pure and adhered to the Bundist belief that it was better to go along with the masses in a not totally correct direction than to separate oneself from them and remain purist 51 However the CCF was as much a movement as it was a political party and its own members frequently undermined it with radical proclamations Lewis criticized the British Columbia CCF for such comments saying what we say and do must be measured by the effect which it will have on our purpose of mobilizing people for action If what we say and do will blunt or harm our purpose then we are saying and doing a false thing even if in the abstract it is true When in heaven s name are we going to learn that working class politics and the struggle for power are not a Sunday school class where the purity of godliness and the infallibility of the Bible must be held up without fear of consequences 50 David Lewis was the party s heavy which did not help his popularity among CCF members but after witnessing what he considered to be the European left s self destruction in the 1930s he was quick to end self immolating tactics or policies 52 He would tolerate some criticism of the party by its members but when he believed that it rose to self mutilation he suppressed it ruthlessly 52 This was most apparent when Lewis attacked and discredited Frank Underhill and his handling of Woodsworth House Note 2 Early in Lewis s career Underhill was one of his mentors this did not matter when Woodsworth House was stricken with financial difficulties in the late 1940s Lewis was quick to blame and then discharged Underhill and the rest of the Woodsworth executive of their responsibilities It was an unfortunate event that cost the CCF in the academic and intelligentsia world 52 To sum up Lewis s reign discipline and solidarity were paramount There had to be limited to discussion and tolerance of dissenting views clarification needed 52 Make this your Canada edit In 1943 Lewis co wrote Make this Your Canada with F R Scott then the CCF s National Chairman The book s main argument was that national economic planning had proven itself during wartime with the King government s imposition of wage and price controls through the Wartime Prices and Trade Board 54 Lewis and Scott further argued that its wartime success could translate to peacetime and that Canada should adopt a mixed economy 55 They also called for public ownership of key economic sectors and for the burden to be placed on private companies to demonstrate that they could manage an industry more effectively in the private sector than the government could in the public sector 56 The book also outlined the history of the CCF up to that time and explained the party s decision making process By Canadian standards the book was popular and sold over 25 000 copies in its first year of publication 46 Note 3 1943 Cartier by election edit Lewis first ran for the CCF in the 1940 federal election in York West He placed a distant third receiving 8 330 fewer votes than the second place Liberal candidate Chris J Bennett 57 Despite his poor showing in his first election the party asked Lewis to run in the 1943 by election in the Montreal Quebec federal riding of Cartier made vacant by the death of Peter Bercovitch Lewis s opponents included Fred Rose of the communist Labor Progressive Party It was a vicious campaign immortalized by A M Klein in an uncompleted novel called Come the Revolution 58 The novel was broadcast in the 1980s on Lister Sinclair s Note 4 Ideas programme on CBC Radio One 58 If the Communist rhetoric could be believed Lewis was a Fascist done up in brown 59 Rose won and became the only as of 2013 Communist to sit in the House of Commons Lewis placed fourth The sizable Jewish vote mostly went to Rose The leftist common front punished Lewis by supporting Rose who was seen to be of the community Lewis lived in Ottawa at the time It took Lewis many years to recover from this campaign and its reverberation coloured Lewis s decision on where to run 60 vteCanadian federal by election August 9 1943 Cartier Death of Peter Bercovitch Party Candidate Votes Labor Progressive Fred Rose 5 789 30 42 Bloc populaire Paul Masse 5 639 29 63 Liberal Lazarus Phillips 4 180 21 97 66 57 Co operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3 313 17 41 Independent Moses Miller 109 0 57 Total valid votes 19 030 100 00 Labor Progressive gain from Liberal Swing 0 40 1945 elections disappointment and defeat edit The Canadian federal and the Ontario elections of 1945 were possibly the most crucial to Canada in the 20th century 60 They took place at the beginning of the welfare state and the elections would set the course of political thought to the end of the century and beyond 60 The year was a disaster for the CCF both nationally and in Ontario It never fully recovered and in 1961 would dissolve and become the New Democratic Party 60 As NDP strategist and historian Gerald Caplan put it June 4 and June 11 1945 proved to be black days in CCF annals socialism was effectively removed from the Canadian political agenda 60 The anti socialist crusade by the Ontario Conservative Party mostly credited to the Ontario Provincial Police OPP special investigative branch s agent D 208 Captain William J Osborne Dempster and the Conservative propagandists Gladstone Murray and Montague A Sanderson 61 diminished the CCF s initially favourable position 62 the September 1943 Gallup poll showed the CCF leading nationally with 29 percent support with the Liberals and Conservatives tied for second place at 28 percent 63 By April 1945 the CCF was down to 20 percent nationally and on election day it received only 16 percent 63 Another factor in the CCF s defeat was the unofficial coalition between the Liberal Party of Canada and the communist Labor Progressive Party 64 It guaranteed a split in the left of centre vote 65 Lewis ran in Hamilton West instead of the CCF friendly Winnipeg North riding that had elected CCF and Labour Party candidates since the 1920s and had a substantial Jewish population Historians and activists disagree on Lewis s reasons for doing so but Caplan suggests that the shock of the Cartier election probably made him reluctant to fight another intense campaign against a Jewish Communist candidate 65 Whatever his reasons he was soundly defeated 65 In the 1949 federal election Lewis ran again in the Hamilton area in the riding of Wentworth He lost again placing a relatively distant third 66 Fighting Communist influence edit The 1945 defeats were partially the result of an alliance between the Liberals and the communist Labor Progressive Party LPP 67 The LPP focused in on CCF held seats deliberately splitting the vote 68 and declared a Liberal Labour coalition on May 29 1944 69 They declared open warfare on the CCF in 1944 with spokesman John Weir stating in the LPP s Canadian Tribune newspaper that a resounding defeat of the CCF at the polls must be their the main objective 70 The Canadian Congress of Labour CCL supported the CCF but the Trades and Labour Congress TLC refused to officially endorse them This lack of unity between the two main Canadian umbrella labour organizations hurt the CCF and was part of the Liberal Communist alliance TLC president Percey Berough was a Liberal and vice president Pat Sullivan was a Communist 71 In the Ontario provincial election the communists urged trade union members to vote for the right wing Conservative George Drew rather than the CCF 69 Lewis and Charles Millard of the Canadian Congress of Labour decided to purge organized labour s decision making bodies of communists 72 Their first target was the Sudbury Ontario CCF riding association and its affiliated International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Mine Mill Local 598 73 However Local 598 was not under Communist control out of 11 000 dues paying members fewer than 100 were communists 74 Over the next twenty years a fierce and ultimately successful battle was waged by Millard s United Steel Workers of America USW to take over Local 598 The attacks on the Sudbury CCF were even more costly at least in terms of voter support Sudbury s Bob Carlin was one of the few CCF Members of Provincial Parliament MPPs to survive the Drew government s 1945 landslide victory Carlin had been part of Ted Jolliffe s team that had orchestrated the CCF s 1943 breakthrough but was first and foremost a union man He was a long time labour organizer going back to 1916 and the predecessor to the Mine Mill the Western Federation of Miners Carlin was loyal to his union in whose service he had spent ten years and to the men and woman who helped build it regardless of their political affiliation this made him unpopular with the CCF establishment in both Toronto and Ottawa 75 Millard Jolliffe and Lewis did not directly accuse Carlin of being a communist Instead they attacked him for not dealing with communists in Local 598 which was built by both communists and CCFers with the latter firmly in control of the executive 76 Lewis and Jolliffe made the case to expel him from the Ontario CCF caucus at a Toronto special meeting of the CCF executive and the legislative caucus on April 13 1948 76 In essence Carlin became a casualty of Steel s plans to raid Mine Mill The CCF lost the seat in the 1948 Ontario election placing fourth The Conservatives won the seat and Carlin as an independent finished a close second 77 It was not until the CCF became the New Democratic Party NDP and the Mine Mill versus USW war was over in 1967 that another social democrat Elie Martel in Sudbury East was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from the city 78 Lewis and Millard s crusade to limit communist influence received an unexpected boost from the Soviet Union in Nikita Khrushchev s 1956 denunciation of Stalinism In his Secret Speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences delivered to a closed session of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev denounced Stalin for his cult of personality and his regime for violation of Leninist norms of legality When the excesses of Stalin s regime were exposed it caused a split in the communist movement in Canada and permanently weakened it By the end of 1956 the LPP s influence in the trade union movement and politics was spent 79 Private labour law practice editLewis resigned as national secretary in 1950 and moved to Toronto to practise law in partnership with Ted Jolliffe He became the chief legal advisor to the USW s Canadian division and assisted them in their organizing efforts and battles with the Mine Mill union 80 Lewis focused on his law practice for the next five years 81 In his first year he paid more in income tax than he had earned annually as CCF National Secretary 81 He bought his first house in the Bathurst Street St Clair Avenue West area of Toronto during this period After his father Moishe died in 1951 his mother Rose moved into the 95 Burnside Drive Lewis home from Montreal 81 This is the home where his son Stephen Lewis would spend his teenage years and the other three children would grow up Winnipeg Declaration and the New Party edit Although he gave up day to day running of the party s organization he stayed on the national executive as the English speaking vice president from 1950 to 1954 82 83 After four years of comparatively limited involvement with CCF internal politics Lewis became the party s national chairman by winning the election to replace Percy Wright 84 He along with Lorne Ingle the person that replaced him as national secretary in 1950 became the main drafters of the 1956 Winnipeg Declaration which replaced the Regina Manifesto 85 The lead up to the August 1956 CCF convention had Lewis working full time in his labour practice including work on the merger of the Canadian Congress of Labour and the Trades and Labour Congress to form the Canadian Labour Congress CLC and putting in long hours organizing the committee that wrote the Declaration He collapsed in his office in May 1956 after administering several tests for a possible cardiac condition the doctors concluded that Lewis collapsed of exhaustion 86 He stayed in bed for a week and recovered enough to help the Declaration pass ten weeks later The Winnipeg convention was the CCF s swan song Even with the Declaration s modified tone which removed state planning and nationalization of industry as central tenets of the party s platform the CCF suffered a crippling defeat in the 1958 federal election which became known as the Diefenbaker sweep 85 It was obvious to Lewis Coldwell and the rest of the CCF executive that the CCF could not continue as it was and with the co operation of the CLC they started exploring how to broaden its appeal 87 CCF President edit In 1958 Lewis worked closely with the CLC s president Claude Jodoin and the CLC s executive vice president Stanley Knowles Note 5 to merge the labour and social democratic movements into a new party Coldwell did not want to continue as the party s national leader because he lost his parliamentary seat in the election Lewis persuaded him to stay on until the new party was formed 88 Lewis was elected party president at the July 1958 convention in Montreal which also endorsed a motion for the executive and National Council to enter into discussions with Canadian Labour Congress and other like minded groups to lay the groundwork for a new party 89 Leadership succession crisis edit By 1960 progress was being made in creating a new party but Lewis had to again act as the disciplinarian Since Coldwell lost his seat he was constantly considering resignation but was repeatedly dissuaded by the party With Coldwell lacking a seat the CCF caucus chose Hazen Argue as its leader in the House of Commons 88 During the lead up to the 1960 CCF convention Argue was pressing Coldwell to step down This leadership challenge jeopardized plans for an orderly transition to the new party Lewis and the rest of the new party s organizers opposed Argue s manoeuvres and wanted Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas to be the new party s first leader 90 To prevent their plans from derailing David Lewis attempted to persuade Argue not to force a vote at the convention on the question of the party s leadership He was unsuccessful There was a split between the parliamentary caucus and the party executive on the convention floor Coldwell quit and Argue replaced him as a leader 91 In July 1961 the CCF became the New Democratic Party NDP They elected Tommy Douglas as their leader by a convincing 1391 to 380 margin over Argue Six months later Argue quit the party and crossed the floor to join the Liberals 92 In the mid 1970s David Lewis reflected on this incident and he concluded that he had not handled the leadership transition well I as president of the CCF was very much in the wrong in trying to get a unanimous vote for Tommy It arose out of a tradition we had had no one opposed Woodsworth no one had opposed Coldwell They were chosen I met with Hazen and tried to dissuade him from being a candidate It was wrong This attitude produced bitterness around the Hazen Douglas contest 93 1962 1971 Member of Parliament for York South editTwo days after the end of the NDP s 1961 founding convention Tommy Douglas wrote a letter to Sophie Lewis David s wife telling her that David must run in the next election 94 Lewis decided to run in his home riding of York South which was concurrently held provincially in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by the NDP s Ontario leader Donald C MacDonald Diefenbaker s government had to call an election sometime in 1962 so there was time to plan Lewis s campaign He had two campaign managers his son Stephen and Gerry Caplan 95 One of their main strategies was to gain votes in the riding s affluent Jewish enclave in the Village of Forest Hill Lewis however was perceived by the Jewish community as an outsider because he did not take part in community events or belong to a synagogue 96 His opposition to the creation of the state of Israel a result of his Bundist politics also did not sit well with the mostly Zionist community It took extra effort on Stephen s and Caplan s parts to convince community members that David was a legitimate Jewish voice and that he would not harm their businesses 96 Besides resistance from the Jewish community in his role as party national vice president David Lewis had to tackle the impending doctors strike in Saskatchewan the result of the CCF government s implementation of Medicare 97 He called the province s doctors blackmailers for suggesting such a strike 97 Lewis also appeared on one of the NDP s few national television spots 98 He appeared on the national CTV Television Network with Walter Pitman to present the NDP s platform on a planned economy in a conversation style election broadcast 98 On June 18 1962 Lewis was elected in York South and finally became an MP 99 Since Tommy Douglas lost in his seat Lewis was considered the front runner to become house leader until Douglas entered the house in an October by election 99 1962 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes New Democratic Party David Lewis 19 101 40 42 Liberal Marvin Gelber 15 423 32 64 Progressive Conservative William G Beech 12 552 26 56 Social Credit Reinald Nochakoff 179 0 38 Lewis s first term as MP was a short one as Diefenbaker s minority government was defeated in the April 8 1963 general election Note 6 Lewis lost in Forest Hill as his support among its Jewish community evaporated and returned to the Liberals who were seen as best able to contain the Social Credit Party which was perceived to be anti Semitic 100 This was only a temporary set back With Diefenbaker in opposition and unlikely to resurrect the coalition in Quebec that gave him his majority in 1958 and Social Credit a diminished force Lewis returned to the House of Commons in the 1965 general election 101 He was re elected in the 1968 election and became the NDP leader in the House of Commons after Douglas lost his seat 101 102 At the 1969 Winnipeg National Convention Douglas announced that he intended to step down as leader by 1971 which meant that Lewis became the de facto leader in the interim 102 The October 1970 Quebec FLQ Crisis put Lewis in the spotlight as he was the only NDP MP with any roots in Quebec He and Douglas were opposed to the October 16 implementation of the War Measures Act 103 The Act enacted previously only for wartime purposes imposed extreme limitations on civil liberties and gave the police and military vastly expanded powers for arresting and detaining suspects usually with little to no evidence required Although it was only meant to be used in Quebec since it was federal legislation it was in force throughout Canada Some police services from outside of Quebec took advantage of it for their own purposes which mostly had nothing even remotely related to the Quebec situation as Lewis and Douglas suspected 103 Sixteen of the 20 members of the NDP parliamentary caucus voted against the implementation of the War Measures Act in the House of Commons 104 They took much grief for being the only parliamentarians to vote against it 103 Lewis stated at a press scrum that day The information we do have showed a situation of criminal acts and criminal conspiracy in Quebec But there is no information that there was unintended or apprehended or planned insurrection which alone would justify invoking the War Measures Act 105 About five years later many of the MPs who voted to implement it regretted doing so and belatedly honoured Douglas and Lewis for their stand against it 103 Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield went so far as to say that Quite frankly I ve admired Tommy Douglas and David Lewis and those fellows in the NDP for having the courage to vote against that although they took a lot of abuse at the time I don t brood about it I m not proud of it 103 Leader of the NDP editStephen Lewis was coming into his own during this period In 1963 at the age of 26 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Following the engineered 1970 resignation of Donald C MacDonald 106 Stephen was elected leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party 107 During the early to mid 1970s the father and son team led the two largest sections of the NDP 108 In February 1968 Stephen Lewis as a supposed representative of the Ontario NDP legislative caucus asked the 63 year old Tommy Douglas to step down as leader so that a younger person could take over 109 Donald C MacDonald stated that Lewis was not representing the caucus but acting on his own 110 Though Douglas was taken aback by the suggestion his defeat in the ensuing election bolstered Stephen s case and on October 28 1969 Douglas announced that he would step down as leader before the NDP s 1971 convention 111 David Lewis ran to succeed Douglas as national leader 112 The 1971 leadership convention was a tumultuous affair 113 A new generation of NDP activists known as The Waffle proposed many controversial resolutions including nationalization of all natural resource industries and support for Quebec Sovereignty 113 It took the combined efforts of the NDP establishment and the sizable trade union delegation to vote down these resolutions which caused many bitter debates and sharply divided the convention 113 Lewis as the leading establishment figure won the party s leadership on April 24 in a surprisingly close race that required four ballots before he could claim victory over the Waffle s James Laxer 114 Laxer had been prominently featured in media coverage leading up to and during the convention 114 Lewis s perceived heavy handedness in dealing with The Waffle at this and previous conventions made him many enemies 115 as had his involvement in most of the CCF and NDP s internal conflicts during the previous 36 years Many members who had felt his wrath as party disciplinarian plotted their revenge against him 115 At his first press conference after winning the leadership Lewis stated that he was not beholden to the Waffle as they were soundly defeated at the convention and that he made no promises to them 116 He also warned the party s Quebec wing that they could continue to theorize about possible self determination resolutions but that come election time they must pledge themselves to the party s newly confirmed federalist policy 116 He did not purge the Waffle from the NDP but left it to his son Stephen to do in June 1972 when the party s Ontario wing resolved to disband the Waffle or kick its members out of the party if they did not comply with the disbanding order 117 David Lewis led the NDP through the 1972 federal election during which he uttered his best known quotation calling Canadian corporations corporate welfare bums 118 a term also used in the title of his 1972 book Louder Voices The Corporate Welfare Bums 119 This election campaign also employed the first dedicated plane for the NDP leader s tour dubbed Bum Air by reporters because it was a slow twin engine turbo prop driven Handley Page Dart Herald 120 In previous campaigns the party s leader Tommy Douglas had to use commercial Air Canada flights to get around during the election with few people in his entourage 120 The 1972 election returned a Liberal minority government and elected the greatest number of NDP MPs until the 1980 election and left the NDP holding the balance of power until 1974 The NDP propped up Pierre Trudeau s Liberal government in exchange for the implementation of NDP proposals such as the creation of Petro Canada as a crown corporation Lewis wanted to topple the government in a vote of no confidence as early as possible because he saw no strategic advantage to support the Trudeau government he believed that Trudeau would get the credit if a program was well received and that the NDP would be vilified if it was unpopular 121 In hindsight Lewis s no win evaluation of the situation appears correct the party would not be rewarded for its efforts by the electorate 121 In the 1974 election the NDP were reduced to 16 seats Lewis lost his seat leading him to resign as party leader in 1975 It was revealed immediately after the election that he had been battling leukemia for about two years he had reportedly kept everyone including his family unaware of his condition 122 Final years editLewis became a professor at the Institute of Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa during this time 25 In 1978 as a travel correspondent for The Toronto Star Lewis visited Svisloch one last time and noted that not one Jew now lives there 25 The Holocaust wiped out the town s Jewish community and with it his extended family 25 He completed the first volume of a planned two of his memoirs The Good Fight Political Memoirs 1909 1958 in 1981 25 He died of leukemia shortly thereafter on May 23 1981 in Ottawa 25 123 He is the father of Stephen Lewis a former Ontario NDP leader and was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa post political career His other son Michael Lewis was a former Ontario NDP Secretary and a leading organizer in the NDP He is also the father of Janet Solberg president of the Ontario NDP in the 1980s His other twin daughter is Nina Libeskind the wife and business partner of architect Daniel Libeskind Stephen s son broadcaster Avram Avi Lewis is his grandson In 2010 his granddaughter in law Naomi Klein gave the inaugural David Lewis Lecture sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 124 Awards and honours editIn December 1976 Lewis was named as a Companion of the Order of Canada and was invested into it on April 20 1977 125 He was appointed to the highest level of the Order of Canada in recognition of the contributions he has made to Labour and social reform and the deep concern he has had over the years for his adopted country 125 David Lewis Public School in Scarborough Ontario is named in his honour 126 Electoral record editvte1940 Canadian federal election York West Party Candidate Votes Conservative Agar Rodney Adamson 12 788 44 6 12 9 Liberal Chris J Bennett 12 117 42 2 10 3 Co operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3 787 13 2 6 4 Total valid votes 28 692 100 0 Note National Government vote is compared to Conservative vote in 1935 election vteCanadian federal by election August 9 1943 Cartier Death of Peter Bercovitch Party Candidate Votes Labor Progressive Fred Rose 5 789 30 42 Bloc populaire Paul Masse 5 639 29 63 Liberal Lazarus Phillips 4 180 21 97 66 57 Co operative Commonwealth David Lewis 3 313 17 41 Independent Moses Miller 109 0 57 Total valid votes 19 030 100 0 Labor Progressive gain from Liberal Swing 0 40 1945 Canadian federal election Hamilton West Party Candidate Votes Liberal GIBSON Hon Colin William G 11 439 Progressive Conservative NEW Chester William 9 260 Co operative Commonwealth LEWIS David 6 728 Labor Progressive SNIDERMAN Sam 1 063 1949 Canadian federal election Wentworth Party Candidate Votes Progressive Conservative LENNARD Frank Exton Jr 16 443 Liberal HICKS Henry Arnott 13 312 Co operative Commonwealth LEWIS David 11 638 Labor Progressive RYERSON Stanley B 1 028 Independent GILES Charles 562 1949 Canadian federal election Wentworth Party Candidate Votes Progressive Conservative LENNARD Frank Exton Jr 16 443 Liberal HICKS Henry Arnott 13 312 Co operative Commonwealth LEWIS David 11 638 Labor Progressive RYERSON Stanley B 1 028 Independent GILES Charles 562 York South edit Main article York South 1962 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes New Democratic Party David LEWIS 19 101 Liberal Marvin GELBER 15 423 Progressive Conservative William G BEECH 12 552 Social Credit Reinald NOCHAKOFF 179 1963 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes Liberal Marvin GELBER 21 042 New Democratic Party David LEWIS 17 396 Progressive Conservative William G BEECH 9 648 1965 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes New Democratic Party David LEWIS 21 693 Liberal Marvin GELBER 18 098 Progressive Conservative Maxwell ROTSTEIN 6 427 1968 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes New Democratic Party David LEWIS 12 357 Liberal Ron BARBARO 11 693 Progressive Conservative Cy TOWNSEND 4 499 1972 Canadian federal election Party Candidate Votes New Democratic Party David LEWIS 14 225 Liberal Lucio APPOLLONI 9 551 Progressive Conservative John M OOSTROM 6 401 Unknown Keith CORKHILL 172 vte1974 Canadian federal election York South Party Candidate Votes Liberal Ursula Appolloni 12 485 43 10 New Democratic David Lewis 10 622 36 67 Progressive Conservative Paul J Schrieder 5 557 19 18 Independent Richard Sanders 103 0 04 Marxist Leninist Keith Corkhill 102 0 04 Independent Robert Douglas Sproule 97 0 03 1971 leadership convention results edit Main article 1971 New Democratic Party leadership election Held in Ottawa Ontario on April 24 1971 Delegate Support by Ballot Candidate 1st ballot 2nd ballot 3rd ballot 4th ballot Votes cast Votes cast Votes cast Votes cast nbsp LEWIS David 661 38 9 715 42 5 742 44 1 1 046 63 1 LAXER James 378 22 3 407 24 1 508 30 2 612 36 9 HARNEY John Paul 299 17 6 347 20 5 431 25 6 Eliminated nbsp BROADBENT John Edward Ed 236 13 9 223 13 1 Eliminated HOWARD Frank 124 7 3 Eliminated Total 1 698 100 0 1 692 100 0 1 681 100 0 1 658 100 0 Archives editThere is a David Lewis fonds at Library and Archives Canada 127 Archival reference number is R6773 Notes edit His birthday is unknown When he emigrated from Russia to Canada in 1921 he did not speak English and according to his daughter Janet Solberg June 23 was the first date that popped into his head when the immigration officer asked him when he was born Smith identifies October as the best guess since the only given specifics were that he was born right after the first snows in 1909 1 Woodsworth House was both a building and political think tank the home of the Ontario CCF the party that was involved in the Province of Ontario s politics It was created by a financial foundation that was independent of the Ontario CCF It took its name from the first CCF leader The house was inaugurated in January 1947 at 565 Jarvis Street in Toronto 53 It ran into financial difficulties in the late 1940s due to the educational programme that Underhill was responsible for He allowed the expenses for publishing papers and other materials to exceed the budget and his only solution was to sell Woodsworth House to pay the debt off Also of note Frank Underhill was one of the founders of the League of Social Reconstruction and one of the people who drafted the CCF s Regina Manifesto in 1933 He was a prominent University of Toronto professor and until the Woodsworth House event held in the same esteem as Lewis by party members Make This Your Canada was re printed in 2001 by the Hybrid Publishers Co operative Ltd in time for the pivotal federal New Democratic Party convention in Winnipeg Sinclair co wrote Ontario CCF leader Ted Jolliffe s Gestapo speech during the 1945 Ontario general election that led to the appointment of the LeBel Royal Commission Knowles lost his Winnipeg seat in the Diefenbaker Sweep but was very quickly ushered into the CLC s executive In Canadian politics if a minority government one that does not have a majority of the elected members in the House of Commons loses a vote of non confidence then the government has to call a general election or resign This is exactly the scenario that happened in 1963 and why Lewis had to fight another election so soon after being elected Footnotes edit Smith pp 93 542 Smith p 93 Smith p 87 a b Lewis David July 15 1978 Lewis finds Nazi like mentality in Russia The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar pp 1 3 Smith p 11 a b c Tobias pp 312 316 a b Kosovsky p 133 Smith pp 17 19 Smith pp 114 15 a b Smith p 115 Lewis 1981 p 12 Smith p 152 Smith p 396 a b Frayne Trent April 17 1971 David Lewis has it all to win NDP leadership except for his age 61 The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 11 Smith p 125 Smith pp 146 148 149 Smith p 146 Smith p 150 Lewis 1981 pp 29 30 Smith p 155 Lewis 1981 p 24 a b c Smith p 157 Smith p 159 Lewis 1981 p 32 a b c d e f g h Ward Bruce May 24 1981 David Lewis principles guided political career The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p A4 Smith p 178 Smith pp 161 162 interview with the author a b c Smith p 187 The Isis Oxford Holywell Press February 7 1934 p 9 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a Missing or empty title help Smith pp 194 195 Smith p 196 Ted Jolliffe in an interview with the author Smith p 196 Asher p 22 Penner p 51 a b Smith p 197 Smith p 198 a b Smith p 180 a b Smith p 181 Smith p 183 The Isis Oxford Holywell Press November 28 1934 p 7 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a Missing or empty title help Smith p 199 Smith p 248 a b Smith p 232 a b Smith p 290 Scott 1986 p 38 a b Caplan p 111 Stewart 2000 p 103 Smith p 292 Lewis 1981 p 250 a b Smith p 293 Smith p 63 a b c d Smith p 295 Labor Forum Toronto Daily Star April 13 1948 p 10 Woodsworth House s address is mentioned in the advertisement Lewis amp Scott 1943 pp 5 16 Lewis amp Scott 1943 pp 122 137 Lewis amp Scott 1943 pp 126 132 York West Ontario 1914 History of Federal Ridings since 1867 Information Service Parliament of Canada Archived from the original on June 9 2009 Retrieved July 5 2007 a b Smith p 299 Smith p 301 a b c d e Caplan p 191 Caplan pp 168 169 Caplan p 193 a b McHenry pp 135 137 Caplan p 148 a b c Caplan pp 157 158 Wentworth Ontario 1903 1966 History of Federal Ridings since 1867 Information Service Parliament of Canada Archived from the original on January 1 2013 Retrieved July 5 2007 Caplan p 133 Caplan p 117 a b Caplan p 135 Canadian Tribune December 16 1944 Caplan p 116 Smith p 305 Smith p 310 Smith p 317 From Mike Soliski s The Case for Sudbury p 4 Smith p 316 a b Horowitz p 131n Smith pp 317 318 MacDonald p 145 Smith p 322 Smith p 308 a b c Smith p 336 Braithwaite Dennis July 29 1950 C C F Disavows Marx Class Struggle Idea Tempers High in Debate The Toronto Daily Star pp 1 7 Staff August 9 1952 Make Own Foreign Policy Follow U N CCF Meet Urges The Toronto Daily Star pp 1 2 McNenly Pat July 31 1954 Ginger Grouper Declines Pick Lewis CCF Chairman The Toronto Daily Star p 3 a b Stewart 2000 pp 195 196 Smith p 361 Stewart 2000 pp 196 197 a b Stewart 2000 p 211 Stewart 2000 p 210 McLeod amp McLeod pp 271 275 Stewart 2000 pp 211 212 Stewart 2000 pp 213 214 Shackleton pp 256 257 Smith p 391 Smith p 393 a b Smith p 394 a b City Bureau May 4 1962 Sask Doctors Blackmailers Lewis Tells Pharmacists The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 57 a b City Bureau May 15 1962 Planned Economy Key To Full Employment NDP The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 02 a b City Bureau June 19 1962 Fight For Health Plan David Lewis Pledges The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 25 Morton 1986 pp 42 43 a b Morton 1986 pp 64 68 a b McLeod amp McLeod pp 359 360 a b c d e Janigan Mary November 1 1975 Some MPs say they regret voting for War Measures The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p B4 McLeod amp McLeod p 336 Spry Robin 1973 Action the October crisis of 1970 Video NFB Documentary Feature Film National Film Board of Canada Retrieved December 11 2009 Quoted from 55 55 to 56 08 mins MacDonald pp 151 152 Russell Frances October 5 1970 First ballot sweep gives Lewis leadership of NDP in Ontario The Globe and Mail Toronto CTVglobemedia p 1 Malling Eric April 26 1971 Stephen Lewis didn t stop Waffle now must face radicals in Ontario The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 12 McLeod amp McLeod pp 341 Stewart 2003 pp 269 271 Frank Jones October 29 1969 Socialism is only way to stop youth revolt Tommy Douglas says The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 1 Morton 1977 p 124 a b c Globe Editorial April 26 1971 A self inflicted wound The Globe and Mail Toronto CTVglobemedia p 3 a b Goldblatt Murry April 26 1971 Long road to the top The Globe and Mail Toronto CTVglobemedia p 3 a b Morton 1977 pp 124 126 a b Goldblatt Murray April 26 1971 Lewis asserts his command no pandering to the Waffle The Globe and Mail Toronto CTVglobemedia p 1 Sykes Philip June 26 1972 Officially dead the Waffle girds for its biggest battle The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 6 Morton 1977 p 119 Lewis 1972 a b Ottawa Bureau March 19 1978 NDP winging into jet age at long last The Toronto Star Toronto Torstar p 7 a b Smith p 474 Smith p 477 David Lewis Dead at 71 Jewish Telegraphic Agency May 26 1981 Retrieved April 20 2021 The David Lewis Lecture Series Naomi Klein on Climate Debt Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 2010 Retrieved February 17 2010 a b David Lewis C C Honours Order of Canada Governor General of Canada April 30 2009 Retrieved November 8 2009 The History of David Lewis Public School Toronto District School Board Finding aid to David Lewis Library and Archives Canada PDF References editAscher Abraham ed 1976 The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution Documents of Revolution London Thames and Hudson ISBN 0 500 75006 8 Avakumovic Ivan 1978 Socialism in Canada a study of the CCF NDP in federal and provincial politics Toronto McClelland and Stewart ISBN 0 7710 0978 X Azoulay Dan 1999 A Desperate Holding Action The Survival of the Ontario CCF NDP 1948 1964 In Azoulay Dan ed Canadian political parties historical readings Toronto Irwin Publishing pp 342 363 ISBN 0 7725 2703 2 Boyko John 2006 Into the Hurricane Attacking Socialism and the CCF Winnipeg J Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc ISBN 1 897289 09 X Caplan Gerald 1973 The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism The CCF in Ontario Toronto McClelland and Stewart ISBN 0 7710 1896 7 Chamberlin William Henry 1987 The Russian Revolution 1917 1921 Vol 2 2 ed Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 0 691 00816 7 Horowitz Gad 1968 Canadian Labour in Politics Toronto University of Toronto Press ISBN 0 8020 1902 1 Kosovsky Vladimir 1943 Vladimier Medem on the Twentieth Anniversary of His Death in Yiddish New York American Representation of the General Jewish Workers Union of Poland Archived from the original on July 6 2011 Lewis David 1981 The Good Fight Political Memoirs 1909 1958 Toronto Macmillan of Canada ISBN 0 7715 9598 0 Lewis David Frank Scott 2001 1943 Make this YOUR CANADA A Review of CCF History and Policy Winnipeg Hybrid Publishers Co operative Ltd ISBN 0 9689709 0 7 Lewis David 1972 Louder Voices The Corporate Welfare Bums Toronto James Lewis amp Samuel Publishers ISBN 978 0 88862 031 6 MacDonald Donald C 1998 The Happy Warrior Political Memoirs 2 ed Toronto Dundurn Press ISBN 1 55002 307 1 McHenry Dean Eugene 1950 The Third Force in Canada the Co operative Commonwealth Federation 1932 1948 Berkeley University of California Press McLeod Thomas Ian McLeod 2004 Tommy Douglas The Road to Jerusalem 2 ed Calgary Fifth House ISBN 1 894856 48 1 Morton Desmond 1977 NDP Social Democracy in Canada 2 ed Toronto A M Hakkert Ltd ISBN 0 88866 581 4 Penner Norman 1988 Canadian Communism the Stalin years and beyond Toronto Methuen ISBN 0 458 81200 5 Scott Frank R 1986 A New Endeavour Selected Political Essays Letters and Addresses Edited and introduced by Michiel Horn Toronto University of Toronto Press ISBN 0 8020 5672 5 Shackleton Doris French 1975 Tommy Douglas Toronto McClelland amp Stewart ISBN 0 7710 8116 2 Smith Cameron 1989 Unfinished Journey The Lewis Family Toronto Summerhill Press ISBN 0 929091 04 3 Stewart Walter 2000 M J The Life and Times of M J Coldwell Toronto Stoddart Publishing Co Limited ISBN 0 7737 3232 2 Stewart Walter 2003 The Life and Political Times of Tommy Douglas Toronto McArthur amp Company ISBN 1 55278 382 0 Tobias Henry Jack 1972 The Jewish Bund in Russia from its origin to 1905 Stanford California Stanford University Press ISBN 0 8047 0764 2 Young Walter D 1969 The anatomy of a party the national CCF 1932 61 Toronto University of Toronto Press ISBN 0 8020 5221 5 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Lewis David Lewis Memorial Scholarship New Democratic Party of Canada Avi Lewis on CBC s Who Do You Think You Are 1975 Video Clip from the Race to Replace Lewis as Leader 1974 Video clip after the Liberal minority government was defeated 1972 Audio clip about the NDP as balance of power Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title David Lewis Canadian politician amp oldid 1214734727, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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