See also
- COINTELPRO, a similar American program to gather intelligence on groups deemed subversive
- Orwell's list
PROFUNC, an acronym for "prominent functionaries of the communist party", was a top secret Government of Canada project to identify and observe suspected Canadian communists and crypto-communists during the height of the Cold War. [1]
In operation from 1950 to 1983, the goal of the program was to allow for quick internment of known and suspected communist sympathizers in the event of war with the Soviet Union or its allies. [2] [3]
With the 1945 Gouzenko Affair occurring in Canada, which was a main contributor to the start of the Cold War [4] and the threat of the Korean War becoming the precursor for a Third World War, the Government of Canada in 1950 determined a need to create a blacklist of potential subversives. This was made the responsibility of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) Special Branch, later the name was changed to the RCMP Security Service. [1] [3]
In the 1950s, RCMP Commissioner Stuart Wood had a "PROFUNC list" of approximately 16,000 suspected communists and 50,000 suspected communist sympathizers. [5] [6] These lists dictated who the Special Branch would observe and potentially intern in a national security state of emergency, such as a Third World War crisis with the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China. [1] [3]
A separate arrest document, known formally as a C-215 form, was written up for each potential internee and updated regularly with personal information until the 1980s, including but not limited to: age, physical descriptions, photographs, vehicle information. [7] In addition, more obscure information such as potential escape routes from the individual's personal residence were noted. [3] Several prominent Canadians are suspected of being on the PROFUNC list including: Winnipeg alderman Jacob Penner, [3] Roland Penner [7] and the founder of the New Democratic Party of Canada Tommy Douglas. [3]
It is suspected that the PROFUNC blacklist was used to increase the number of people detained as Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) suspects during the 1970 October Crisis, in contravention of the presumption of innocence, many of whom had no affiliation with the FLQ. [1]
The Canadian Penitentiary Service received an updated PROFUNC list from the RCMP in 1971 to make them aware of the number of potential internees. [8]
In the early 1980s Solicitor General of Canada Bob Kaplan caused PROFUNC to become defunct [2] by introducing administrative changes entailing the RCMP to discontinue whatever was contributing to some elderly Canadians encountering problems while attempting to cross the Canada–United States border. [7] Kaplan claimed to have had no knowledge of PROFUNC itself until he was advised of it by journalists in 2010 and that he was dismayed by its existence, stating "I just can’t believe it had any government authorization behind it". [3]
Mobilization Day (M-Day) was to be the day, in the event of a perceived national security crisis, police services would arrest and transport people noted on the PROFUNC list and temporarily detain them in reception centres across Canada including: Casa Loma, a country club in Port Arthur, Ontario and Regina Exhibition Park then they would be transferred to penitentiaries. [7]
The men would be interned across Canada, the women would be interned in one of two facilities in the Niagara Peninsula or Kelowna and the children would be sent to relatives or interned with their parents. [7]
Strict punishment regulations awaited the internees if they broke the rules, including being held indefinitely and shot when caught while attempting a prison escape. [3]
The existence of the program was revealed in a January 24, 2000, news story by Dean Beeby of The Canadian Press. [9] In October 2010, the PROFUNC plan was discussed at length in a television documentary by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Fifth Estate [3] and Enquête . [10]
It was not until 2010 that some Canadians, their family and friends learned for the first time that they were deemed a potential enemy of the state by the Government of Canada and law enforcement in Canada. [11] Canadians who want to determine if they or a family member were in the PROFUNC files can make a disclosure request to the Federal Government of Canada through the Privacy Act or the Access to Information Act . [12]
The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a militant Quebec separatist group which aimed to establish an independent and socialist Quebec through violent means. It was considered a terrorist group by the Canadian government. Founded sometime in the early 1960s, the FLQ conducted a number of attacks between 1963 and 1970, which totaled over 160 violent incidents and killed eight people and injured many more. These attacks culminated with the Montreal Stock Exchange bombing in 1969 and the October Crisis in 1970, the latter beginning with the kidnapping of British Trade Commissioner James Cross. In the subsequent negotiations, Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte was kidnapped and murdered by a cell of the FLQ. Public outcry and a federal crackdown subsequently ended the crisis and resulted in a drastic loss of support for the FLQ, with a small number of FLQ members being granted refuge in Cuba.
The October Crisis was a chain of political events that started in October 1970 when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross from his Montreal residence. These events saw the Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act for the first time in Canadian history during peacetime.
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). He defected on September 5, 1945, three days after the end of World War II, with 109 documents on the USSR's espionage activities in the West. In response, Canada's Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, called a royal commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Canada in the Cold War was one of the western powers playing a central role in the major alliances. It was an ally of the United States, but there were several foreign policy differences between the two countries over the course of the Cold War.
Fred Rose was a Polish-Canadian politician and trade union organizer, best known for being the only member of the Canadian Parliament to ever be convicted of a charge related to spying for a foreign country. A member of the Communist Party of Canada and Labor-Progressive Party, he served as the MP for Cartier from 1943 to 1947. He was ousted from his seat after being found guilty of conspiring to steal weapons research for the Soviet Union.
Stuart Zachary Taylor Wood, CMG served as the ninth Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, from March 6, 1938 to April 30, 1951.
William Leonard Higgitt was the 14th Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), holding office from 1969 to 1973, and President of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) from 1972 to 1976. Leonard Higgitt's background in intelligence and counterintelligence with the RCMP during and after World War II made him the preferred choice as RCMP Commissioner at what was the height of the Cold War. Higgitt also directed national security operations during the October Crisis of 1970, when members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped the provincial Labour Minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross, events which saw then Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoke the War Measures Act, the first time in Canadian history that the Act was invoked during peacetime. As Commissioner, Higgitt also presided over the RCMP centenary.
The RCMP Security Service was a branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that had responsibility for domestic intelligence and security in Canada. It was replaced by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 1984 on the recommendation of the McDonald Commission, which was called in the wake of major scandals during the 1970s.
The Ukrainian Canadian internment was part of the confinement of "enemy aliens" in Canada during and for two years after the end of the First World War. It lasted from 1914 to 1920, under the terms of the War Measures Act.
The Gouzenko Affair was the name given to events in Canada surrounding the defection of Igor Gouzenko, a GRU cipher clerk stationed at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, from the Soviet Union in 1945 and his allegations regarding the existence of a Soviet spy ring of Canadian communists. Gouzenko's defection and revelations are considered by historians to have marked the beginning of the Cold War in Canada, as well as potentially setting the stage for the "Red Scare" of the 1950s.
The Canadian Anti-terrorism Act was passed by the Parliament of Canada in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. It received Royal Assent on December 18, 2001, as Bill C-36. The "omnibus bill" extended the powers of government and institutions within the Canadian security establishment to respond to the threat of terrorism.
Internment of German resident aliens and German-American citizens occurred in the United States during the periods of World War I and World War II. During World War II, the legal basis for this detention was under Presidential Proclamation 2526, made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act.
Italian Canadian internment was the removal and internment of Italian Canadians during World War II following Italy's June 10, 1940, declaration of war against the United Kingdom. Through the War Measures Act, the government of Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King gave itself the power to suspend habeas corpus, revoke rights, seize property and arrest those who were deemed a threat to the safety of Canada—labelling 31,000 Italian Canadians as "enemy aliens". Between 1940 and 1943, between 600 and 700 Italian Canadian men were arrested and sent to internment camps as potentially dangerous "enemy aliens" with alleged fascist connections. In the decades that followed, political apologies were made for the internment of Italian Canadians.
On Guard For Thee was a Canadian documentary television miniseries which aired on CBC Television in 1981.
The decades following the Rebellions of 1837–1838 marked the start of intelligence services in Canada. Defeat in the failed uprising caused the restoration of colonial regimes and the reform of imperialism. As a result, informal intelligence services were formed to conduct certain activities. 1864 marked the formation of two secret police forces and the formal intelligence service in Canada. Created to protect the Canada–United States border, these organization were under the control of a Montreal police commander and political ally. In response to a number of raid and attacks connected with Irish nationalism, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald merged the two forces to form the Dominion Police (DP). The DP was subsequently merged with the North-West Mounted Police to form the Royal North-West Mounted Police in 1904 and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1920.
Bower Featherstone was a Canadian civil servant who was convicted of espionage in 1966.
The TashmeIncarceration Camp was a purpose-built incarceration camp constructed to forcibly detain people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of Canada during World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Located at the current unincorporated community of Sunshine Valley, east of Hope in British Columbia, Canada, Tashme was operational between 1942 and 1946 and had a peak population of 2,624 people to 2,636 people. Tashme was constructed on 600 acres of leased land for $500/year on the A.B. Trites Farm.
Emma Woikin was a Canadian civil servant who, in 1946, was convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. Woikin was one of the Canadians identified as spies by Igor Gouzenko when he defected from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa in September 1945 in what became known as the Gouzenko Affair. Woikin was sentenced to two-and-a-half years at Kingston Penitentiary, becoming the first woman imprisoned for espionage in Canada.
Occurring between the 1950s and the 1990s, the Gay Purges were a series of mass discrimination and expulsion of Canadian workers in the civil service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and armed forces due to their suspected homosexuality.