Camillien Houde - World War II Controversy

World War II Controversy

When World War II came, Houde then campaigned against conscription.

In its 20 February 1939 issue, Time Magazine quoted from Mayor Camillien Houde's speech to a YMCA audience on the subject of War in Europe:

If war comes, and if Italy is on one side and England on the other, the sympathy of the French-Canadians in Quebec will be on the side of Italy. Remember that the great majority of French-Canadians are Roman Catholics, and that the Pope is in Rome. We French-Canadians are Normans, not Latins, but we have become Latinized over a long period of years. The French-Canadians are Fascists by blood, but not by name. The Latins have always been in favour of dictators.

On 2 August 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition, and then confined without trial in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario and Minto, New Brunswick until 1944. Upon his release on 18 August 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers, and won back his job as Montreal mayor in 1944's civic election.