Charlotte Whitton - Accusations of Racism

Accusations of Racism

Whitton had many remarkable achievements but her story is framed by current controversy over some of her actions.

She has been accused in print of espousing, "a 'scientific' racism that viewed groups such as Jews and Armenians as 'undesirable' immigrants." (Open Your Hearts: The Story of the Jewish War Orphans in Canada by Fraidie Martz)

In 1938, she attended a conference in Ottawa to launch the Canadian National Committee on Refugees (CNCR). She showed opposition to some of the other attendee's arguments. A common belief is that she was directly opposed to Jews and in particular Jewish children. Oscar Cohen of the Canadian Jewish Congress is reported to have said she "almost broke up the inaugural meeting of the congress on refugees by her insistent opposition and very apparent anti-Semitism." This sentiment is countered by the official record which includes notes from her presentation, including " ... lobby the government to initiate a long-term refugee program ..." and an interest in protecting all at risk, "particularly Hebrews in the Reich and in Italy."

According to the Canadian Jewish Congress: "Certainly in the course of the Second World War and the Holocaust, she was instrumental in keeping Jewish orphans out of Canada because of her belief that Jews would not make good immigrants and were basically inferior."

As Mayor in 1964, she declined Bertram Loeb's $500,000 donation to the City's Ottawa Civic Hospital. The official rationale was that the city could not afford to keep the centre operating. The sentiment exists that she "simply didn't want the name of a Jewish family on an Ottawa hospital building.".

According to Patricia Rooke, Whitton was a "complete anglophile" who opposed all non-British immigration to Canada. "Charlotte Whitton was a racist," according to Rooke. "Her anti-Semitism, I think, was the least of it. She was quite racist about the Ukrainians, for example. She really didn't like the changing character of Canadian society."

In opposition to the anti-Semite argument Whitton was well received by various Jewish organizations in her lifetime including B'nai Brith and various Jewish centered publications. She was also a supporter of - and the first to sign the nomination papers of - the first Jewish Mayor of Ottawa, Lorry Greenburg.

In 2011 Whitton's name was kept off of a new Archives Building in Ottawa due to this controversy.