One of the long term implications of the October Crisis of 1970 was the creation of the Canadian Federation of Civil Liberties and Human Rights Associations (‘the Federation’). It was designed as a federation of civil liberties and human rights groups, each having an equal vote and voice within the organization, paying minimal membership fees and funded by the Secretary of State. The idea behind the creation of the Federation emerged from the imposition of the War Measures Act. A collection of rights associations from Montreal, Toronto, St. John’s, Edmonton, Windsor, Fredericton and Vancouver had coordinated their efforts in 1970 to publicly oppose the imposition of the War Measures Act and lobby the federal government to rescind the emergency powers as soon as possible. On 18 February 1971 rights groups in Ottawa, Newfoundland and British Columbia sent a letter endorsed by ten other rights associations across the country to Quebec’s Minister of Justice, Jérôme Choquette, asking the government of Quebec to compensate individuals arrested under the War Measures Act. These initial efforts prompted the leaders of established rights associations to consider the formation of some type of national umbrella organization to provide a unified national voice.

During the October crisis an information network of rights associations was formed under the banner of the Union of Human Rights and Civil Liberties Associations, officially established on 30 October 1970. It had the support of groups in Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, Fredericton, Ottawa, Edmonton and Windsor. The Union published a regular newsletter, and focussed its energies on applying for a grant from the Secretary of State to hold a national conference of rights associations. At this stage the Union was not an advocacy group, but an association facilitating the exchange of ideas, communication and development of national positions on public issues.

On 27 June 1972 the Canadian Federation of Civil Liberties and Human Rights Associations and Human Rights Associations was officially formed at a meeting in Montreal, the first truly national rights association in Canadian history, with representation from every province. The central aim of the organization was to liaise between rights associations and consider national policies in the field of rights. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, with its desire to ignore regional distinctions through a single national voice, would not accept such an arrangement (CCLA representatives insisted that each organization in the Federation be given votes based on the number of paid members within each group) and boycotted the new organization.

Over the next ten years the Federation provided as much support to its affiliates as was fiscally possible, writing letters of support and working with the media to offer national credibility to a local group’s campaigns. It dealt with a variety of issues from the federal Privacy Act to opposing the deportation of Haitians in 1975 who faced poverty and persecution back home. In general, however, it was a weak advocacy group and its major contribution was to network among rights associations. Nonetheless, it played a critical role in the deliberations of the Special Joint Committee on the Constitution in 1981 in which the Federation, represented by members from three separate associations, presented a comprehensive brief. The Federation folded in 1990-1.