Ted Jolliffe

Infobox Politician
name = Edward Bigelow Jolliffe


caption = Ted Jolliffe in 1942, MPP York South
small_

office = Leader of the Ontario CCF
term_start = 1942
term_end = 1953
predecessor = None
successor = Donald C. MacDonald
constituency = Ontario
majority =
office2 = Member of Provincial Parliament
term_start2 = 1942
term_end2 = 1945
predecessor2 = Leopold Macaulay, Conservative
successor2 = Howard Julian Sale, Progressive Conservative
constituency2 = York South
majority2 =
office3 = Member of Provincial Parliament
term_start3 = 1948
term_end3 = 1951
predecessor3 = Howard Julian Sale, Progressive Conservative
successor3 = William George Beech, Progressive Conservative
constituency3 = York South
majority3 =
birth_date = 1909
birth_place = Luchow, China
death_date = death date|mf=yes|1998|3|18|mf=y
death_place = Salt Spring Island, British Columbia
party = Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
relations =
spouse = Ruth Jolliffe
civil partner =
children = Tom Jolliffe
residence = Toronto, Ontario
occupation = Lawyer
religion = United Church of Canada


website =
footnotes =

Edward Bigelow "Ted" Jolliffe (1909 – March 18, 1998) was a Canadian social democratic politician and lawyer. He was the first leader of the Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and leader of the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature during the 1940s and 1950s.

Early life and education

Born to missionary parents, Jolliffe was home-schooled in China by his mother until his early teens. He subsequently attended the University of Toronto and then Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church. As a member of Oxford's Labour Club, he met David Lewis, the club's leader and a fellow Canadian. Together they fought the Communist Red October club and fascists like Lord Haw-Haw–William Joyce. [Smith, p. 195] Both he and Lewis planned a 'silent' protest at Joyce's February 1934 speech at Oxford. They carefully made sure that enough members from the Labour Club attended the meeting, and then in groups of two or three, strategically walked out of the speech, across the creaking wooden floors, effectively blotting out Joyce's speech. [Smith, p.195] The Blackshirts in the audience then caused riots in the street after the meeting and Jolliffe and Lewis were in the thick of it. [Smith, p.195]

His Oxford experiences made him a socialist and he joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation shortly after it was formed in 1932 during his summer vacation. When Jolliffe permanently returned from Oxford, he was a candidate in the 1935 Canadian election in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's, placing fourth. He ran again in the 1940 election, this time in the York East electoral district, placing third.

Leader and 1943 election

He became the first leader of the Ontario CCF in 1942. The following year, he lead the party to within five seats of victory with 34 seats and 32% of the vote in the election of 1943 that elected a Conservative minority government under George Drew. He won the York South seat, and became its Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP).

1945 "Gestapo" Campaign

In the 1945 Ontario election, Drew ran an anti-Semitic, union bashing, Red-baiting campaign. [MacDonald, p.292] The previous two years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. [Caplan, p. 157] Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police(OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating war-time 5th column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs, mainly focusing on the CCF caucus. [Caplan, 182-184,187] The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944, lead to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th century Canadian politics. [Caplan, p. 168]

May 24, 1945 Radio Speech

As can be discerned from the previous description, the 1945 campaign was anything but genteel and polite. Jolliffe replied by giving a radio speech (written with the assistance of Lister Sinclair) [Caplan, p.179] that accused Drew of running a political Gestapo in Ontario. [MacDonald, p.292] In the speech excerpt below, Jolliffe alleged that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police was acting as a political police – spying on the opposition and the media. [MacDonald, p.292]

cquote|It is my duty to tell you that Colonel Drew is maintaining in Ontario, at this very minute, a secret political police, a paid government spy organization, a Gestapo to try and keep himself in power. And Col [onel] Drew maintains his secret political police at the expense of the taxpayers of Ontario – paid out of the Public Funds...Now all through this election campaign, you've been hearing that the real issue is freedom versus dictatorship.... And I quite agree; there certainly is a very grave danger; and when you've heard all the facts, true facts, supported by affidavits, about Col [onel] Drew's Ontario Gestapo – Well, I'll let you decide for yourselves where the danger of dictatorship is coming from. [Caplan, p. 168]

The dramatic tone of the speech is Sinclair's, as at the time, he was a dramatist, mostly writing for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). [Caplan, p. 179] At the time, there was speculation among CCF supporters as to whether or not the speech damaged the party's reputation. But as Gerald Caplan maintains in his book "The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism", the CCF was already at 21 percent in popular support in the Gallop poll just prior to the speech. [Caplan, 171] On election day, they received 22 percent of the popular vote, so at best it added an extra percentage point of support. At worst, it didn't have an effect, which is highly unlikely.

Jolliffe's inflammatory speech became the main issue of the campaign, and dominated coverage in the media for the rest of the election. [Caplan, 170] Drew, and his Attorney-General Leslie Blackwell vehemently denied Jolliffe's accusations, but the public outcry was too much for them to abate. On May 28, 1945 they appointed a Royal Commission to investigate these charges. [Caplan, 170] Jolliffe's CCF and the Ontario Liberal party wanted the election suspended until the Commission tabled its report. Drew ignored these requests and continued to hold the election on its original date, despite it being many months before the Commission's findings could be made available. [Caplan, p.170-171]

Election Day, June 4, 1945

Jolliffe's CCF went from 34 seats to 8, but almost garnering the same number of actual votes cast, though their percentage of the popular vote dropped from 32 to 22 percent. [Caplan, p. 191] Drew, with his attack campaign, successfully drove the voter turn-out up, thereby driving the CCF's percentage and seat totals down.

Monday, June 4, 1945, was one of Ontario's most important elections in the 20th century according to Caplan and David Lewis. It shaped the province for the next 40 years, as the Conservatives won a massive majority in the Legislature, and would remain in government for the next 40 consecutive years.

After going from 34 seats to 8, as Caplan puts it, "June 4 and June 11 [federal election] , 1945, proved to be black days in CCF annuals: Socialism was effectively removed from the Canadian political agenda." [Caplan, 191] The CCF would never fully recover from this defeat and would eventually cease as party and morph into the Ontario New Democratic Party. Only then, and in the 1970s, did a social democratic party attain the popularity it had under Jolliffe in 1943.

For Ted Jolliffe, another election consequence was his tenure as the MPP from York South ended, at least for the time being. He lost the election but did better than any other CCF candidate in Toronto or in the outlying Yorks. [Caplan, p.191]

LeBel Royal Commission

Drew appointed Justice A.M. LeBel as the Royal Commissioner. His terms of reference were restricted to the question of whether Drew was personally responsible for the establishment of "a secret political police organization, for the purpose of collecting, by secret spying, material to be used in attempt to keep him in power. [Caplan, p. 171-172] " Wider questions like why the OPP, Ontario Civil Servants, were keeping files on MPPs were not allowed.

Jolliffe would act as his own counsel throughout the commission, but was assisted by fellow CCF lawyer, Andrew Brewin. Both he and Brewin were able to establish, from several eye-witnesses, that agent D-208, Dempster, was spying on the CCF. What they could not prove, because they did not have access to the information in 1945, [Lewis, p. 276] were the letters that Drew wrote to his supporter M.A. (Bugsy) Sanderson suggesting that he would finance any lawsuits or other charges stemming from the information provided by Dempster in his advertisements. [Caplan, 173] Sanderson was, in late 1943 to 1945, along with Gladstone Murray, leading the libelous advertisement campaigns against the CCF in newspapers and bill-boards, with information gleaned from Dempster's briefings. [Caplan,pp.172-188] Jolliffe presented several witnesses that claimed to have seen these documents. But Jolliffe could not produce the actual letter, and Drew would deny ever writing it. [Caplan,pp.172-188]

On October 9, 1945 Justice LeBel issued his report that essentially exonerated Drew and Blackwell. Due to Jolliffe presenting only circumstantial evidence that linked Drew to Dempster, Murray and Sanderson, the Commissioner found the information unconvincing, even though LeBel believed Dempster's interaction with Sanderson and Murray was inappropriate. [Caplan,pp.181-188]

Jolliffe's motives regarding his accusations, as well as his choice of words, would be questioned for many years afterwards. That would change. In the late 1970s, when David Lewis was doing research for his "Memoirs" he came across archival evidence proving the charge. [MacDonald, p.295] Due to Lewis's discovery, Drew's son Edward, placed extremely restrictive conditions on his father's papers housed in the Public Archives of Canada that continue as of 2007. [MacDonald, p.295-296] [cite web
last =
first =
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = George Drew fonds: Call# MG 32-C3
work = Restricted Papers
publisher = Library and Archives Canada
date = 2005-01-04
url = http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/r000000841.pdf
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2007-05-13 When Edward Drew (George's son) dies, these archives will become unrestricted.]

As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario had given false witness under testimony.... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate got away with it." [Lewis, pp. 276, 287]

Jolliffe faced a leadership challenge in 1946, but was re-elected CCF leader.

1948 re-elected MPP

As a result of the 1948 Ontario election, the CCF recovered, winning 21 seats. Jolliffe again became Leader of the Opposition in Ontario and Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for York South. In 1951, however, as a result of the Cold War and the "red scare", the CCF and labour movement acted to purge individuals (including CCF MPP Robert Carlin) suspected of being under Communist influence. Among the general public, support for socialism suffered: the CCF was reduced to only two seats in the 1951 election. Jolliffe lost his own seat and resigned as party leader in 1953.

Post MPP career

He returned to his previous career as a labour lawyer, founding the firm Jolliffe, Lewis and Osler with fellow CCF activist and future New Democratic Party leader, David Lewis. In the 1950s and 1960s, the firm assisted the United Steelworkers union in their fight with the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers union in Sudbury, Ontario. In 1968, he was appointed Chief Adjudicator under the (federal) Public Service Staff Relations Act, a position he held until 1978. He then became active as a labour arbitrator, until his retirement. In 1972, an historical novel he wrote, entitled The First Hundred, was published (by McClelland and Stewart Limited).

Ted Jolliffe was the first social democratic leader of the opposition in Ontario's Legislature in 1943. He lived long enough to see Bob Rae and the NDP form the Ontario government in September 1990. He died on March 18, 1998 in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.

References and notes

*cite book
last = Caplan
first = Gerald
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism: The CCF in Ontario
publisher = McClelland and Stewart
year = 1973
location = Toronto
pages =
url =
doi =
id =
isbn= 0771018967
*cite book
last = Lewis
first = David
authorlink = David Lewis (politician)
coauthors =
title = The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909-1958
publisher = Macmillan of Canada
year = 1981
location = Toronto
pages =
url =
doi =
id =
isbn= 0771595980
*cite book
last = MacDonald
first = Donald C.
authorlink = Donald C. MacDonald
coauthors =
title = The Happy Warrior: Political Memoirs, 2nd Ed.
publisher = Dundurn Press
year = 1998
location = Toronto
pages = pp.292-296
url =
doi =
id =
isbn=1-55002-307-1
* cite book
last = Smith
first = Cameron
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = 'Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family'
publisher = Summerhill Press
year = 1989
location = Toronto
pages =
url =
doi =
id =
isbn = 0-929091-04-3

External links

* [http://www.publicpower.ca/the_party/history_3.htm Ted Jolliffe and the CCF Breakthrough in Ontario, "A History of the NDP"]