Member of Parliament Demands Investigation of Civil Service

Debates, House of Commons
March 19, 1946

Mr. Solon Low (Peace River):

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For a moment or two I should like to refer to the question which is currently uppermost in the minds of all our people—this whole business of espionage.

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I think enough has already been said about holding suspects in the [Gouzenko] case incommunicado. Serious as that is, especially from the point of view of personal freedom and human rights, there are other aspects of the case which now require most earnest consideration and with which no one yet has dealt. I should like to know how these men and women who are charged before the courts in this country got into their important position. I should like to know too who appointed them. I should like to know who recommended them, which is a very important thing. I should like to know too if there was any investigation of their background and their past before they were given such key responsibilities as they seem to have been given. Some person or persons in the government service must be responsible for putting these people where they were and, furthermore, for retaining them there as long as they were retained.

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Surely it is quite obvious that the government service, if not its ranks, has been shot through and through with communist sympathizers and actual members of the communist party. The Liberal government stands charged to-day with gross negligence as a result of which vast spy rings appear to have grown up within our country.

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Why was not a most careful inquiry conducted to determine the loyalties of these suspects who are now before the courts, and many others not yet suspected? […] There seems to have been little difficulty for communists and others of very doubtful loyalties to secure highly important and key positions in the government services. Perhaps if we could find out how, we might also find out how so many of their ilk have secured key positions on university staffs throughout Canada where they find opportunity to undermine the faith of our young people in Canada in true democracy and in Christianity.

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