Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, Canadian Government Opposition Leader, called for action to curb the spate of anti-Jewish and anti-Negro literature in Canada. He suggested a test case be initiated by the Federal Minister of Justice under Section 166 of the Criminal Code, leaving prosecution of the case to the Attorney General of the province where the act was committed. Section 166 makes it a crime to publish a false statement tale or news likely to cause injury to the public interest.
Mr. Diefenbaker spoke at a dinner here at which he received an honorary fellowship from Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv. Several hundred people attended the event, sponsored by the Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University, Calling the hate literature “poisonous,” he said it was outrageous and offensive and could not be justified as an exercise of freedom of speech.
The former Prime Minister also said that he would like to see Canada take the lead in protesting to the USSR against the anti-Jewish discriminations there. “We should call on Khrushchev and others associated with him to end discriminatory measures for without protest, the leaders of the USSR may be lulled into believing that what is being done does not matter to the free world, ” Mr. Diefenbaker received the honorary fellowship from Dr. Joseph H. Lookstein, acting president of Bar-Ilan.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
