Survey One: What did the Press have to say?

The press became increasingly critical of the government’s actions following the publication of the first interim report on 2 March 1946, which revealed that David Shugar and eight other suspects remained interned at the RCMP's Rockliffe barracks. A key theme in the media's coverage was the suspects' civil liberties. The media wrote about, among other things, family members' attempts to contact the detainees, lawyers criticizing the government for preventing them from speaking with their clients, and Matt Nightingale and Fred Poland's relatives failed attempts to secure writs of habeas corpus in court to force the government to release them.

The six English-language papers in this study printed 8 to 15 editorials each on the espionage affair within a two-month period. While editors for the Montreal Gazette and Halifax Herald were quick to support the government’s actions, editors for the Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Evening Citizen and the Globe and Mail criticized the commission’s tactics. In contrast, the affair received limited attention in French-language newspapers. Le Devoir provided limited coverage of the commission and the spy trials, but the issue rarely hit the front page of the paper, and the newspaper rarely discussed the restrictions on the suspects' civil liberties. Action Catholique, for instance, did not comment on the issue at all. The only story that dealt with the commission was an editorial that pointed to the defections as an example of French-Canadian moral superiority (all of the spies were English-Canadians).

The following is a statistical summary of the four major English-Canadian newspapers' coverage of the controversy :

For a detailed, day by day statistical breakdown, click here.

Survey Two: Evening Citizen

The following graph indicates the number of stories dealing with the Soviet Union that appeared in the Evening Citizen in February 1946 . As a case study of a major newspaper in Canada, it is clear that, among the media, Canada's relations with the USSR was a serious issue of concern. Stories do not include those relating to the Gouzenko Affair.

This public was exposed to a constant stream of information on Soviet domestic and foreign policies (on average at least two stories each day). Most of this coverage appeared on the front page of the newspaper. In fact, on average, the Soviet Union received more media coverage than the United States during this period.

However, the newspaper's coverage was not hostile to Soviet policy. In fact, the editorials and front-page stories often suggested that Russia was relatively democratic and portrayed the country in a positive light. Still, many stories reflected the media's unease with the Soviet Union's plans for the future, particularly the country's designs on Central Europe. The Gouzenko Affair emerged in this context of anxiety and uncertainty.

Survey Three: Canadian Bar Review

The following is a survey of the Canadian Bar Review from its inception in 1923 to 1970. The survey provides a breakdown of the number of articles published each year in the journal that dealt with civil liberties or due process. The survey is based on an examination of the subject titles provided at the beginning of each issue as well as an index produced in the 1960 edition which lists articles dealing with "Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.' 

(Note: Numbers refer to individual years: ie. 31=1931. As the graph indicates below, three stories were published in 1931 that dealt with civil liberties)

Please note: In 1923, 1949 and 1954 the dominant issue was race. Some of the key figures involved in the espionage commission were executive members of the Canadian Bar Association including E.K. Williams, Judge James McRuer and Gérald Fauteux. Women's rights were rarely discussed in the CBR, whereas habeas corpus was the most common rights-issue discussed in the journal. While the journal was technically a national publication, it was predominantly an English-language periodical. The journal rarely carried more than a few articles in French in any given year.