The RCMP secretly photographed private union correspondence and monitored Canadian labour leaders during the Cold War as part of a campaign to uncover suspected Communist influence, newly declassified federal records reveal.Blacklock's Reporter says documents obtained through Access to Information show Mounties gained access to confidential correspondence at the Vancouver headquarters of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers in 1955.Investigators obtained five rolls of microfilm containing private letters, handwritten notes and communications between union officials and local branches.“Confidential enquiries have been carried out,” stated RCMP memorandums detailing the operation.The documents do not explain how police obtained access to the union's private correspondence or whether officers entered the premises secretly or relied on an informant equipped with a camera.“It will be noted these exhibits include several documents indicating future activities,” RCMP investigators wrote.The surveillance was part of a broader effort to identify suspected Communist organizers within Canada's labour movement.At the time, the Mounties suspected the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers had been infiltrated by individuals associated with the Labour Progressive Party, which was linked to Canada's Communist movement.Federal authorities continued monitoring suspected Communist activity in unions for decades.A confidential 1968 Privy Council memorandum identified five Canadian labour organizations believed to be under Communist control at their senior leadership levels.Along with the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the organizations included the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, United Fishermen and Allied Workers, the Shipyard General Workers' Federation of British Columbia and the Canadian Textile Council.The federal assessment, titled The Threat To Canada From Subversion, Espionage And Sabotage, estimated nearly 2,000 active Communists were operating within organized labour.“There were an estimated 1,931 active Communists within the trade union movement in Canada,” the memorandum stated.“In addition there were over 1,000 inactive Communists who are not now under investigation but who at last report were union members.”.Despite those concerns, federal intelligence officials acknowledged there was little possibility of Communists taking control of the Canadian government.“There is no prospect of a Communist seizure of power, peaceful or otherwise, but the Party’s limited influence is increasing, owing largely to the effectiveness of the Communist Party of Canada’s increased activity in certain key sectors of Canadian society,” the 1968 report stated.Other previously released documents reveal the RCMP maintained a network of informants inside Canadian unions for approximately 40 years.Those operations included sources connected to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.A secret RCMP memorandum from 1965 outlined the Mounties' concerns that Communist organizers intended to use labour disputes to destabilize Canada's economy.“It is through manipulation and control of labour that the Communists intend to bring about an economic crisis which would result in the eventual collapse of capitalist society,” the document stated.The newly disclosed 1955 operation involving the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers represents the first known instance identified in the records of RCMP investigators obtaining and photographing confidential internal union correspondence.The surveillance extended beyond monitoring public meetings and political activities to collecting private communications between union executives.A separate 1965 memorandum prepared by RCMP investigators in Quebec described how police recruited informants inside organized labour to gather intelligence on suspected Communist influence.The Mounties relied on what investigators described as “live sources” within unions, providing access to information about Communist efforts to influence or infiltrate labour organizations.The intelligence network even included “a secret agent who is a member of the Communist Party of Canada,” according to the memorandum.The declassified documents provide further details about the extent of RCMP surveillance of Canadian workers and labour organizations during the Cold War, including the secret collection of private correspondence from union offices.
