New Book Extolls Role of Churches in Changing Canadian Policy and Saving Lives

Ask a North American adult if they remember what they were doing on “9/11” and you will likely hear them refer to the year 2001. The shock of passenger jets flying into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon building in Washington, DC caused almost 3,000 fatalities and precipitated the “War on Terror” half a world away.

But for some Canadians, “9/11” has other significance, as well.

A new book is dedicated to the memory of another “9/11” that happened 50 years ago.

On September 11, 1973, a CIA-backed coup d’état overthrew the first democratically elected socialist government in the Western Hemisphere. Some 80,000 persons were then jailed (including some Canadian citizens), over 30,000 people were tortured, and 3,200 killed by the military junta that retained repressive dictatorial power for the next 17 years.

Descriptions of Canadian efforts to confront this injustice fill the book “Canada-Chile Solidarity, 1973 – 1990: Testimonies of Civil Society Action” edited by Toronto’s Liisa North and published this month by Novalis.

In 1973, I was a teenaged student, protesting the coup on the streets in front of the US Consulate in Toronto. I had no idea that this 9/11 event would change my life – and the lives of so many other Canadians like my twin sister, who later went to live and work in Chile for 36 years. An astounding series of intense actions to respond to this far-away crisis illustrate how deep and mutually impactful expressions of solidarity between Canadian and Latin American peoples would emerge.

A notable aspect of this book recounts how leadership in the Canadian churches successfully responded together – swiftly and resolutely. They denounced the military coup, demanded a more just Canadian policy that respected human rights, and won expedited entry to Canada of thousands of refugees.

For example, only three days after the coup, leaders of Canada’s three largest Christian churches released a joint statement to the Hon. Mitchell Sharp, then-Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. It cautioned “against precipitous recognition of an unconstitutional regime” and called for “safe conduct and assistance” to refugees wishing to come to Canada. The Roman Catholic bishop who initiated this statement, William Power of Antigonish, NS, had recently visited Chile and was most likely aware that, on September 13, Cardinal Silvio Henriquez of Santiago had already condemned the coup. It was most advantageous that the other two signatories, Anglican Church Primate Archbishop Ted Scott, as well as United Church Moderator Rev. Bruce McLeod, had both visited Chile in recent years.

One estimate suggested that in the early 1970’s some 3,000 Canadian Catholic missionaries served in Latin America. From Chile, Quebecois Oblate priests and members of the Prêtres des Missions Etrangères were in constant communication with Fr. Bill Smith SFM (then a staff person for the Canadian bishops’ Office on Latin America – long since shuttered, although the US bishops still maintain such a post.) Methodist Rev. Arturo and his wife Florrie Chacon (from Newfoundland) allowed Canadian media to be supplied with on-the-ground reports of Chilean reality that countered pro-junta propaganda. Officials in government were disturbed that the churches were very often better informed than Canadian diplomats. Canada’s ambassador (a Cold War Warrior whose cables were released in the Parliamentary record by a whistleblower) referred to the Chilean military’s actions as being “reminiscent of the Nazis” while he also defended the torture and imprisonment of thousands as “abhorrent but understandable.”  (Returning to Canada, Florrie was hired to staff the new Inter-Church Committee on Chile – one of the first ecumenical coalitions created by the Christian churches, and after 1976 becoming the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America.)

Church staffers initiated letter-writing campaigns to Robert Andras, Minister of Manpower and Immigration, asking Canada to expedite the entry of persons suffering from imprisonment and persecution. Fr. Francois Lapierre PME (later to be named bishop of St. Hyacinthe, QC) joined Anglican George Cram, traveling inside Chile to interview and propose candidates for refuge in Canada.  (Canada’s nascent refugee policies had allowed “special movements” of refugees from Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Uganda in 1972.) Church pressure on Ottawa saved thousands of lives. Local church groups helped to settle those forced to flee (almost 23,000 people by 1991), finding work and getting kids into schools. Our archdiocesan social justice office organized Catholic youth to oppose the three banks that were financing the dictatorship – we jammed up bank branches by depositing stacks of pennies (“coppers”). We protested new copper mine investments by Canada’s Noranda Mines. We assisted Chilean newcomers to visit Catholic schools and parishes and even once, a semi-cloistered convent where the sisters were most anxious to support actions for human rights in Chile.

The Canadian Council of Churches hosted weekly meetings in their Toronto offices so that information from Chile could be shared and coordinated actions developed. Nonetheless, church delegations to Ottawa encountered pushback in their efforts to move the Liberal government away from slavish devotion to Washington’s worldview. Scarboro Missions Fr. Bill Smith once told this author how at a September 30, 1973, meeting, church delegates were surreptitiously photographed in a lobby area of a federal building, likely by the Mounties, as they were preparing to meet government officials.

This book is an inspiring example of how faith communities once changed Canadian federal policy and saved lives: churches had better information on the ground than the Canadian government and media; church leadership was informed and committed to act; church staff mobilized effective lobby efforts with politicians and engaged their own membership in the pews; and churches worked collaboratively with each other and in partnership with civil society groups.

This is not just an historic account. The question all readers are led to ponder is: how might our faith communities today act to address current social justice issues with similar commitment, resolve and organizational capacity?

By Joe Gunn

Joe Gunn serves the Centre Oblat: A Voice for Justice at St. Paul University in Ottawa. He lived in Latin America for 7 years, and authored the introduction to Section 1 of “Canada-Chile Solidarity 1973 – 1990: Testimonies of Civil Society Action.”