Dennis G. Molinaro. "A Species of Treason? Deportation and Nation-Building in the Case of Tomo Cacic, 1931-1934." Canadian Historical Review 91 (2010): 61-85.
National identity (and its related institution, citizenship), morality, and political ideology are interconnected. This point would not be seriously challenged by many cultural historians of the 20th century, and in fact Canada already has a growing literature on this subject relating to the early Cold War, populated by well-known figures like Reg Whitaker.
Molinaro goes earlier, however, to the suppression of communism during the 1930s. He focuses in particular on the deportation of Tomo Cacic, the lone "foreigner" (a Yugoslavian immigrant) among the eight defendants in the government's infamous prosecution of the Communist Party of Canada in 1931. Cacic, like the rest, was convicted. He was then deported to Yugoslavia, where the fascist government was expected to kill him. Fortunately this never happened -- sympathetic Brits arranged for a Soviet passport while he was in Liverpool, and he ended up in Moscow instead.
So much for Cacic, but Molinaro is more concerned with the consequences for Canada, and he illustrates this quite well. When Cacic was prosecuted, he notes, the court stressed that being communist was not only evil -- it was foreign, an alien ideology invading liberal British Canada. It wasn't just that immigrants (who were subject to deportation) made easy targets, he argues: it was part of the process by which communism was defined as un-Canadian. (This phrase may jar some readers -- we just don't use it as often as our neighbors to the south use the phrase un-American.)
I was still left wanting a bit more context. After all, the other seven defendants in 1931 represented a range of other ethnic backgrounds, but plenty of them were properly British. Tim Buck was even born in England. If Molinaro's assessment of the court's position on communism is accurate, then the court was fudging on this -- but Molinaro fails to look much deeper, either.
One further bit of quibbling -- Molinaro says he's drawn, in part, on "Canadian Security and Intelligence (CSIS) files" in producing this essay. Of course, CSIS did not exist until 1984. The files in question do reside in the CSIS record groups now, but technically they would have originated with the RCMP (and its Security Service). That organization got caught burning down barns in Quebec in the 1970s, and as a result got spun off into a separate agency.
CSIS assumed control of RCMP files from this era and any review process through the archives goes through them. They are part of CSIS's collection now and they are to be cited as the record holders. Referring to the files as "CSIS" files is entirely correct and in keeping with their current modern day status.
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