Canada's Sweetheart
April 21, 2020 2:54 PM Subscribe
In 1955, Maclean's magazine asked, Should We Kick Hal Banks Out of Canada? His allies in the labour union movement argued that he had done the job that the government of Louis St. Laurent had invited him to Canada to do, and that he should stay: "He threw out the Commies and got the ships sailing again." 40 years later, former merchant marine (and former Member for Kicking Horse Pass) Dave Broadfoot recalled to Parliament the "black chapter in our history" when Banks' men "came on our ships with baseball bats and bicycle chains."
It wasn't until almost a decade after Macleans first asked the question that Banks faced a sprawling commission of inquiry appointed by Diefenbaker which revealed the full extent of the violence and corruption in Banks' union. Peter Gzowski recorded the saga in another article for Maclean's, Hal Banks: The fight to break Canada's waterfront warlord.
When the government - with Diefenbaker out, now under Lester B. Pearson - finally acted on the report, American unions exploded in rage. John F. Kennedy and Pearson became tangled in the dispute after armed standoffs paralyzed shipping.
After Banks fled to the United States in 1964, a request for his extradition back to Canada was refused by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Buried in the vaults of the National Film Board is a movie about Banks, Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks, which
It wasn't until almost a decade after Macleans first asked the question that Banks faced a sprawling commission of inquiry appointed by Diefenbaker which revealed the full extent of the violence and corruption in Banks' union. Peter Gzowski recorded the saga in another article for Maclean's, Hal Banks: The fight to break Canada's waterfront warlord.
When the government - with Diefenbaker out, now under Lester B. Pearson - finally acted on the report, American unions exploded in rage. John F. Kennedy and Pearson became tangled in the dispute after armed standoffs paralyzed shipping.
After Banks fled to the United States in 1964, a request for his extradition back to Canada was refused by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Buried in the vaults of the National Film Board is a movie about Banks, Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks, which
exposes the real villain as the Canadian government that brought Banks into the picture and proceeded to silently condone his brutality, and then, protected him from prosecution for 25 years.
a movie about Banks, Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
Psst. Buddy. Over here.
This whole story is bananas. I had no idea. Thanks for this.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
Psst. Buddy. Over here.
This whole story is bananas. I had no idea. Thanks for this.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
Thanks for finding the link to the full movie! I'm looking forward to watching the whole thing.
posted by clawsoon at 4:27 PM on April 21, 2020
posted by clawsoon at 4:27 PM on April 21, 2020
Oh, duh. I was thinking that was a documentary. Thanks!
posted by klanawa at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2020
posted by klanawa at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2020
On preview: 15 minutes in, I have to say it leans pretty heavy on the "docu" end of "docu-drama." Fair bit of narration explaining stuff. Very NFB (I mean that in a good way).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:48 PM on April 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:48 PM on April 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is a pretty deep dive into some interesting Canadian history. I'm looking forward to filling in my knowledge gaps with some of these links! Mandolin Conspiracy beat me to that link to Donald Brittain's film on Banks (which sadly doesn't seem to be available via the NFB site). Donald Brittain was a pretty interesting director and he made a lot for the NFB (his best known might be Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen which he directed with the great Don Owen)
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:14 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:14 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
Unions got a bad reputation in North America for a long time because of guys like this. Interesting that he was backed by the government. Not surprising, given that the whole theme of the Cold War was "any horrible person is fine as long as they say they hate Commies", but interesting.
posted by clawsoon at 5:36 PM on April 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 5:36 PM on April 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
"any horrible person is fine as long as they say they hate Commies"
For many of my grandfather's and uncles' generation who worked in the Sudbury area mines in the 50's it was an open secret that Inco employed ex-Nazis as part of their union busting efforts (Mike Solski is a particularly colourful figure from that era if anyone is interested in that stuff).
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:02 PM on April 21, 2020 [10 favorites]
For many of my grandfather's and uncles' generation who worked in the Sudbury area mines in the 50's it was an open secret that Inco employed ex-Nazis as part of their union busting efforts (Mike Solski is a particularly colourful figure from that era if anyone is interested in that stuff).
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:02 PM on April 21, 2020 [10 favorites]
Oh yeah, the Mine Mill raids by the Steelworkers are a fascinating and hugely consequential period in Canadian labour history!
Solski's radical labour past was used against him in this election when NDP Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Ken Bryden described him as a "commie" during a legislative debate.
My grandfather, a Sudbury Finn, was most definitely not a Sudbury Red Finn, to put it mildly. When I was a kid, I remember stopping in Wanup to pick something up on the way to their camp, and he pointed to a Finnish-affiliated building across the road (The local Finn community centre or something? I was like 10 at the time) and said, very pointedly, "Dem. Dey all communists."
Of course, worker's comp and socialized medicine would come to his aid when the injuries and illnesses he acquired doing blackleg construction work at Inco and other places caught up with him.
*shrug emoji*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:43 PM on April 21, 2020 [8 favorites]
Solski's radical labour past was used against him in this election when NDP Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Ken Bryden described him as a "commie" during a legislative debate.
My grandfather, a Sudbury Finn, was most definitely not a Sudbury Red Finn, to put it mildly. When I was a kid, I remember stopping in Wanup to pick something up on the way to their camp, and he pointed to a Finnish-affiliated building across the road (The local Finn community centre or something? I was like 10 at the time) and said, very pointedly, "Dem. Dey all communists."
Of course, worker's comp and socialized medicine would come to his aid when the injuries and illnesses he acquired doing blackleg construction work at Inco and other places caught up with him.
*shrug emoji*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:43 PM on April 21, 2020 [8 favorites]
→ Inco employed ex-Nazis as part of their union busting efforts
An acquaintance's late father, hired by Inco as an explosives operator, got his training in the fascist Slovene Home Guard
posted by scruss at 7:21 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
An acquaintance's late father, hired by Inco as an explosives operator, got his training in the fascist Slovene Home Guard
posted by scruss at 7:21 PM on April 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
Google Books has the Norris Commission report (Report of an Industrial Inquiry Commission Concerning Matters Relating to the Disruption of Shipping on the Great Lakes), but sadly only in snippet view. So far I haven't been able to find it digitized anywhere on government websites.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 PM on April 21, 2020
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 PM on April 21, 2020
Thanks for this great post. I learned so much I didn't know about the Hal Banks fiasco. I was only kid and not politically aware at the time, but my uncle worked on a ferry boat on the great lakes. He told us how the cooks on his boat were stingy with the food, cranky and unreasonable and cooked horrible meals. (As you can imagine food is very important to sailors). So the union steward called head office and one day in this small dusty Ontario town two men pulled up who looked like they came out of an Al Capone movie dressed in fine suits and ties..they were just missing the fedoras. They came on the ferry, asked directions for the galley. All was quiet no one could hear a thing. Half hour after the men slammed the galley door and left. All anyone knew was they never had better meals all season long with no complaints from the cooks. There was a folk group called the Brothers-in-Law at the time..who sang very political songs. Here is the one they sang about Hal Banks (around 11:20).
posted by smudgedlens at 10:23 PM on April 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by smudgedlens at 10:23 PM on April 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
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If they made a TV show about this guy, I might watch it, but only if it was made by Canadians.
posted by klanawa at 4:22 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]