Nova Scotia

CANADA'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT: A HISTORY

Nova Scotia

Sydney, Nova Scotia, was briefly home to a chapter of the LDR but the province had no active rights association until 1962 with the creation of the Halifax Advisory Committee on Human Relations (although there was a human rights committee with the Halifax and District Labour Council and the Cape Breton Labour Council). In its fourteen year history it experienced more name changes than any other rights association, including the Halifax Advisor Committee on Human Rights (1963), Nova Scotia Human Rights Association (1966), Nova Scotia Civil Liberties and Human Rights Association (1969) and the Nova Scotia Civil Liberties Association (1972) [The name change in 1969 reflected the leadership's desire to narrow the group's activism to civil liberties issues after the province appointed a full time director for the human rights commission. Human rights legislation had been passed in Nova Scotia in 1963 but the association at that time continued to play a key role in publicizing the legislation and bringing cases before the commission which had a small staff operating out of the Ministry of Labour].

In its original form, the creation of the Human Rights Advisory Committee on Human Relations was a product of the Jewish Labour Committee. Sid Blum, Director of the JLC, sent his most effective employee, Alan Borovoy, to Halifax in 1962 to work with the labour federation and other community groups to see if there was anything they could do to help the black population of Africville. The all-black suburb of Halifax had long been an issue of concern for both local and national minority rights activists. It was a dilapidated and run down part of the city with approximately 80 families (400 people), many of whom lived in hovels with no running water and used outdoor toilets.

Working with Joe Gannon, a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress headquartered in Nova Scotia, Borovoy mobilized a group of activists to agitate for the rights of blacks in Africville who eventually took the name of the Halifax Advisory Committee on Human Relations. Within a few years, the group had Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, Gordon S. Cowan, as its president and H.A.K. 'Gus' Wedderburn, president of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, as its Vice-Chairman. By 1972 it had approximately 230 members. Wedderburn was the real mover behind the organization. A tireless black activist born and raised in Nova Scotia who was employed as a high school principle (and became a lawyer in the 1970s), it was Wedderburn who became the JLC representative in Halifax. For the next ten years, the Halifax group would function in much the same capacity as the Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights and receive funding from the JLC; however, the group operated independently and never formally worked with the provincial labour federation as was the case in Ontario and British Columbia. An attempt to form chapters in Pictou County, Truro, Cape Breton and Yarmouth did not last for very long and these groups quickly became defunct.

The Nova Scotia organization had only been linked to the JLC through Wedderburn and did not depend on them, as the Ontario group had, for all its funding. When the JLC became defunct in the mid-1970s, the group was able to continue functioning with little hindrance. But by this stage the organization was in decline. It had changed its name to the Nova Scotia Civil Liberties Association to reflect its new mandate. The group no longer dealt with cases of discrimination, which it felt best belonged to the human rights commission. At this stage Wedderburn had retired from the organization and it fell into the hands of a group of lawyers and academics mostly from Dalhousie University [According to an article covering the February 1972 meeting of the Nova Scotia Civil Liberties Association, much of the energy of the organization in the past went into fighting for the rights of minority groups, especially black and Indians. But now that the Human Rights Commission and the Black United Front are operating many members feel the Civil Liberties Association can better serve the community by working to protect the civil liberties of all citizens]. The name change also reflected the organization's decision to affiliate with the CCLA. For the next three years, before the organization became defunct in 1976, most of its energies were directed towards dealing with complaints against the police, reviewing legislation and offering legal advice. It began receiving grants from the federal government as well, including a $16 400 grant from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to organize tenants associations across the province in 1971 and a $57 000 grant from the Secretary of State to study doctor-patient relations in 1973. The group also vigorously studied the McRuer report and attempted to apply the same recommendations to Nova Scotia by making presentations to the legislature's Law Amendments Committee in such areas as tenants rights and police practices. By 1976 the leadership of the group had turned to a local lawyer, Walter Thompson, and once he was unable to continue organizing the association's meetings, the Nova Scotia Civil Liberties Association ceased to be an active force in the province.