Tim Buck - National Figure

National Figure

With the onset of the Great Depression, the Conservative government of R. B. Bennett became increasingly worried about left wing activity and agitation. On August 11, 1931, the Communist Party offices in Toronto were raided, and Buck and several of his colleagues were arrested and charged with sedition. Buck was tried in November, convicted of sedition and sentenced to hard labour.

He was imprisoned from 1932 to 1934 in Kingston Penitentiary where he was the target of an apparent assassination attempt in his cell the night after a prison riot. While Buck was sitting in his cell listening to the mêlée outside, eight shots were fired into his cell via a window, narrowly missing the prisoner. In late 1933, Minister of Justice Hugh Guthrie admitted in the Canadian House of Commons that shots had been deliberately fired into Buck's cell, but "just to frighten him." A widespread civil rights campaign ultimately secured Buck's release. His extensive testimony before the Archambault Commission contributed to the reform of prisons in Canada. As a result, Buck was hailed a heroic champion of civil liberties.

The Communist Party was banned in 1941 under the Defence of Canada Regulations and Buck and other prominent Communist leaders were forced underground and ultimately into exile in the United States. The political environment changed with the German invasion of the USSR and the Soviet Union's entry into World War II on the side of the Allies. As a result, Canadian Communists ended their opposition to the war and became enthusiastic supporters of the Canadian war effort. The party supported the government's call for conscription and established Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees which called for a "Yes" vote in the 1942 national plebiscite on conscription. The campaigning in support of the war helped change public opinion towards the Communists and resulted in the government's release of Communist leaders being held in detention and the return of Buck and other leaders from exile. While the ban on the party itself was not lifted it was allowed to organize the Labor-Progressive Party as a legal public face.