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RCMP spied on women during '60s

by Dean Beeby of the Canadian Press  Fall, 1993 | Clipped from the StarPhoenix front page.

The RCMP spied on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in the late 1960s to monitor its "penetration" by subversives, newly released documents show.

Intelligence officers began the 269-page secret file on the ground-breaking commission in 1968 and kept it open for four years, the documents indicate. More than 100 pages of the file, obtained under the Access to Information Act, have been removed as still too sensitive by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

Even so, the remaining documents show that intelligence officers closely monitored all potentially subversive groups making submissions to the commission. The list of such groups included the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the League for Socialist Action and the Quebec Women's League. Intelligence officers, however, focused most of their efforts on the Voice of Women and the Congress of Canadian Women -- two women's groups thought by the RCMP to be manipulated or infiltrated by communists.

The documents suggest intelligence officers were more concerned about "subversive" ideas presented to the commission than about the loyalty of the seven commissioners themselves. Such ideas included opposition to arms manufacturing to bring an end to the Cold war.  The file entitled "Penetration of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women," shows that the RCMP monitored key meetings of suspect groups. 

An RCMP informer at a Voice of women meeting in Parksville, B.C., in 1968, for example, reported some leaders were "very radical and appear to be against everything and seem intent on destroying Canadian relations with the U.S.A."  And an RCMP undercover team reported from a Regina meeting of the Saskatchewan Peace Council that it "observed vehicles of interest in the vicinity of the library and persons from same noted entering and leaving the meeting room.

The royal commission was appointed in 1967 by Prime Minister Lester Pearson after lobbying by St. Catherines, Ont., councillor Laura Sabia. Commissioners, under chair Florence Bird held cross-country hearings and delivered a final report in 1970. The Liberal government of the day adopted some of the report's 167 recommendations, which included spending federal money on day care.

The RCMP file contains a piece of correspondence between a women's group and the royal commission suggesting intelligence officers either worked closely with someone inside the commission or intercepted mail.

 Perhaps those hundred pages would reveal some of the thoroughly nasty tricks they played on us. I was a member of the League for Socialist Action and along with three other women, helped draft a brief to Florence Bird's commission. We worked hard on our brief, put forward some proposals which seemed revolutionary in 1968 and are taken for granted today: equal pay for work of equal value, subsidized, accessible universal daycare, access to contraception and abortion, pay for housework.

We at no time advocated any kind of violent overthrow of anything, never mind the government. We were young, bright and excited that a Royal Commission was going to listen to us. We debated among ourselves, talked with Laura Sabia and other liberal women. We were at the cutting edge of what became feminist politics before it turned ugly. We sympathasized with the plight of men while demanding our equal share of money, leisure, responsibility and voice.

We were certainly not doing any penetrating. But the RCMP was. And no doubt some of the more vicious and hateful things they did are documented in those unreleased pages. They do like to keep files.

By the time I became politicized, in 1959-60, I had already developed an abiding distrust of the Mounties. This came from being raped in 1958. It was a nasty, frightening and ultimately boring bit of business. I was certainly partly the author of the situation insofar as I freely entered the vehicle (a half-ton truck) in the still-light hours of a summer's evening. The two young men introduced themselves and offered me a ride. They were from Biggar, a town about which I knew little except that it was about fifty miles from Zealandia where I lived, and where they picked me up. I knew I was in trouble as soon as the truck door slammed shut. They drove to the country, parked beside a slough and took turns raping me. After initally resisting and realizing i was overpowered, I did not fight. I submitted and after it was over I persuaded them to drive me back to town, promising not to tell. My biggest fear was that they would kill me. I was grateful to get home where It was still not quite dark when I sneaked into the house and quietly went to the bathroom to search for some dignity in the humiliation. My mother apprehended me on the way to bed, got the story out of me, and reported the matter to the RCMP in Rosetown. I believe he was a Corporal and I know his name was MacDonald. I was subjected to an interrogation which was as unpleasant as the rape. I was examined by a doctor. We were sent home. A few days later the word came down that the men had denied it was rape, that they said I was "easy," and since the doctor could not state for sure that I had been a virgin before the incident, they were not prepared to prosecute. That would have been that. Except that my relationship with my father was forever changed -- he was inclined to believe the boys and the cop! Furthermore, he received a ticket for a liquor violation because as part of my report to Corporal MacDonald, I had told them the boys had open liquor in the truck! He paid the $54 fine without question.

That was when I developed some strong views about the status of women and the corruption of the RCMP. So ten years later, when I had an opportunity to put forward some considerations for legislative change, I did so.

. . . .to be continued

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Richard Tomlinson blew the whistle on M16 and now they have tried to discredit him. The more they smear him, the more plausible his allegations become. Years ago, injusticebuster Sheila Steele visited East Germany and the Soviet Union: in 1962 to be exact. She was 18 years old and visited these countries to see and judge for herself the truth of what was being said about them. Two years later, while living in Minneapolis with her husband, who was studying child development at the University of Minnesota, the two of them were given 48 hours to leave the country because they were a threat to the security of the United States: the American spooks had learned from the RCMP that the Steeles had visited places where their own citizens were forbidden to go. Thus began a series of international adventures too ludicrous to be believed by many of her friends. Sheila Steele knows for a fact that the spooks have a huge file on her and that since she was busted for growing those pathetic spider-mite infested marijuana plants, they have probably upgraded her to an international drug lord. This whole swarm of assholes get it wrong more often than they get it right. The small amount of disclosure Sheila Steele has seen under the U.S. freedom of information shows they can't even get high school records right, or find the most basic information which is available with Stats Canada. Anyone who thinks these jerks protect our interest is a fool. The fact that the CIA more or less runs things should be a clue: the americans who claim to be so keen on democratic rights won't even let their citizens travel to judge for themselves the (in)accuracy of their government's propaganda! More episodes of Steele's adventures will appear on this page when she has time to post them. In the meantime, injusticebusters wish Tomlinson all the best!