Did Radicals Aim to Overthrow Government?

Category:   Historical Reprints
Source:   The Winnipeg Free Press
Date:   “Did Radicals Aim to Overthrow Government?“, Thursday, January 27th, 1977.   Front Page and Page 4.
Unsigned Editorial

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The Winnipeg Free Press

Letter names
21 suspects
in 1971 plot

OTTAWA (CP) — Prime Minister Trudeau said Wednesday that some “pretty senior” public servants are named in a 1971 letter as suspects in a radical socialist attempt to set up an “extra-parliamentary opposition” and overthrow the government.

The letter from Jean-Pierre Goyer, then solicitor-general and now supply minister, is accompanied by a list of 21 names, mostly public servants. With proper names blanked out, it was read in the Commons by Frank Oberle (PC-Prince George-Peace River), who urged that the matter be referred to the House committee on privileges.

Mr. Oberle maintained that:

— Solicitor General Francis Fox misrepresented the letter this week saying it simply advised that those named be briefed on security responsibilities and that other ministers lied in saying they had never heard of it.

— The June 15, 1971, letter led to the dismissal in 1973 of Walter Rudnicki, 56, one of the 21 named, as $33,000 a year policy planning director of Central Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMH), which was singled out in the letter as emplyer for “a small group of former campus revolutionaries”.

The Ontario Supreme Court ruled last summer that Mr. Rudnicki was wrongfully dismissed and awarded him $18,000 compensation.

The letter said the New Left, a 1960 movement, had devised an extra-parliamentary opposition program to “mold the underclass into a revolutionary force capable of overthrowing the present socio-political system.”

The Just Society, “originally a legitimate citizen’s group,” had been infiltrated and used as “a stepping stone into other legitimate welfare agencies such as the Toronto Metropolitan Social Planning Council and the United Appeal.”

The Poor People’s Conference of January, 1971 had been turned into “a sounding board for (the) radical EPO program and revolutionary propaganda,” the Goyer letter said.

The radical group also was alleged to be at work in the reform causus [sic] of the Canadian Labor Congress and had received a federal grant of $68,000 “through contacts in government”.

“Of more concern, however, is the presence within certain government departments and agencies, particularly

— Continued

See RADICAL page 4

/ 4

Radical suspects
named in letter

Continued

CMHC, of a small group of former campus revolutionaries,” the Goyer letter said.

“This group was led until recently by        of the Canadian Union of Students.  The short-term objectives of       ‘s group include the organizing and radicalizing of sympathetic civil servants and getting them to support its long-term political program of socialist revolution.”  [Blanks are left by The Winnipeg Free Press.  Admin]

The letter said the number of sympathizers in government jobs was probably small but worrying because it suggested a “conscious attempt by various persons to use the knowledge and influence gained by their employment within the federal government to further their own ends.”

“For this reason,” Mr. Goyer concluded, “I have attached a list of those we suspect of being engaged in or sympathetic to EPO activity in one way or another, with the recommendation that steps be taken to ensure that these people have been fully briefed as to their responsibilities for ensuring the security of government information and that their activities be watched with more than normal care.”
 
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READ The Winnipeg Free Press:  ““Goyer Cites Destructive New Left” (The Winnipeg Free Press: 27 January 1977).
 
READ my Intro post to these front-page exposes of 1977:  ““Did Radicals Aim to Overthrow Government?” Soviet Agent Jean-Pierre Goyer “Blows Whistle” on Red Friends of Red Mole Pierre Trudeau“.