Montreal At War 1938-1943 describes the ways in which the citizens of Canada’s largest and most muti-cultural city responded to the challenges of the late years of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the Second World War. Planned as a sequel to Montreal at War 1914-1918 (Toronto: 2022). This draft begins with a chapter, “Metropolis” offering a socio-economic portrait of a city under stress. “Mosaic” outlines the cultural-linguistic character of Montreal, followed by “Appeasement”, “Mobilisation”, “Distant War 1940-1941” and “Limited War 1942-1943”.

The most important sources for this enquiry are the daily and weekly newspapers published in the city. Five of the eight dailies and three of the five major weeklies were printed in French and have been digitised by the Bibliothèque et archives nationale du Quebec (BANQ) and are freely accessible at the website. The Montreal Daily Star was digitised for this project at the Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada, Wilfrid Laurier University. The Montreal Gazette is available on newspapers.com. Neither the Herald nor the Standard were accessed.

Weekly newspapers consulted include The Canadian Jewish Chronicle edited by the poet and journalist A. M. Klein and Le Jour a literary and political paper in the anti-clerical, rouge tradition edited by Jean-Charles Harvey. Monthly publications including Le Monde Ouvrier/Labour World, Relations, L’action nationale and the Labour Gazette are also available online.

Much of the material cited on social and economic conditions as well as unionization and government regulation is drawn from my research and publications undertaken at Concordia University 1970-1975. More recent articles and theses, available online have been consulted but once again I have declined to engage with the presentist historiography that dominates the field. 

Reading the newspapers for the war years reveals that censorship, voluntarily and imposed, was for more effective than in the First World War limiting public knowledge of diplomatic, strategic and operational aspects of the war. The press was however free to report and criticize the actions of Canadian decision-makers. The two mass-circulation papers the Montreal Star (180,000 subscribers) and La Presse (147,000 subscribers) provide detailed coverage of local, provincial and national affairs. Both used Canadian Press and the international wire services extensively. Their classified and display ads made them required reading for most Montrealers.

Pamphille du Tremblay who controlled La Presse and La Patrie professed political neutrality but as a Laurier Liberal who identified with Ernest Lapointe and the Quebec Liberal party his newspaper generally supported the liberals in Ottawa and Quebec City.[1] J.W. McConnell who owned the Star, Herald and Standard adopted a similar attitude, but the Star became more critical of the Federal Government as the war progressed.[2] Three smaller circulation newspapers, Le Canada, Le Devoir and the Montreal Gazette were openly committed to political parties or movements, liberal, nationalist and conservative. L’Illustration which became Montréal Matin in 1942, supported Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale.[3]

Montrealers had much in common but the linguistic-cultural divide evident before 1939 was accentuated by the outbreak of war. For Anglo-Celtic and Jewish citizens, close to forty percent of the population, the war became all-encompassing. They volunteered in great numbers, identified with Britain’s struggle to survive, adopted Winston Churchill as their inspirational leader, extended respect and affection to President Roosevelt, favoured the centralization of power in Ottawa and became increasingly critical of French-Canadian leaders who opposed the total war effort they believed necessary.

French-Canadian public opinion leaders took a very different view. Those who did not oppose Canadian participation favoured a limited commitment and were firmly opposed to conscription for overseas service. They opposed the centralization of power in Ottawa and frequently questioned Canada’s relationship with Britain. After the fall of France in 1940 they supported or sympathised with Phillipe Pétain and his “national revolution” in Vichy France, a regime condemned by other Canadians. The broader public may not have shared all of these views but public opinion surveys, the 1942 plebiscite and the provincial election of 1944 suggest the political class had board support among the French-speaking population.[4]

Historians do not have access to the complete personnel records that permit accurate analysis of enlistment as in the First World War so all attempts to establish the ethnic or linguistic background of volunteers is problematic. Since both the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy required fluency in English it is unlikely that large numbers of French Canadians enlisted in these services. The army made somewhat greater efforts to accommodate unilingual or partially bi-lingual French Canadians but their active service would be largely limited to four infantry battalions.

Serge Bernier, a National Defence historian has estimated that 84,235 of the 131,618 men and women from Quebec who volunteered spoke French as their first language. This figure is based on the assumption that English-speaking Quebecois enlisted at the same rate as Canadians from Ontario. If the Toronto rate a more likely comparison, is used the number would be greater than 48,000.[5] If seventy to seventy-five thousand French-speaking Quebecois volunteered, the number would, given its circumstances, be evidence of a considerable commitment to the Allied cause.

---

[1] Mathieu Noel, Le Montreal-Matin (1930-1978): Un journal d’information Populaire. PHD thesis, UQHM 2014. Ch II (online)

[2] William Fong, J.W. McConnell (Montreal 2008), Ch 16

[3] Before his internment in 1990 Adrien Arcand, the fascist leader edited the paper but Eugène Berthiaume the owner refused to allow Arcand to promote his views. Noel, Ch II.

[4] Serge Bernier, “Participation des Canadiens Francois sur combat. Evaluation et tentative de Qualification.” Bulletin Histoire Politique, 1995 (online)

[5] Serge Durflinger’s research on enlistment in Verdun a Montrealsuburb notes that “of 12,221 males aged fifteen to thirty-four in 1941 approximately 50.3 percent are known to have served overseas and others served in Canada. Of 6,565 English speakers in that age group, 4,948 (75.4 percent) were overseas; the comparable number of French speakers is 1,178 of the 5,156 available (22.8 percent).” Durflinger believes “that the exceptionally strong British demographic character is responsible for this remarkable response” but anecdotal evidence suggests that a similar rate of enlistment of English-speakers occurred throughout the city. Serge Marc Durflinger, Fighting From Home: The Second World War in Verdun Quebec (Vancouver 2006), p30.