- Arthur Roebuck
Arthur Wentworth Roebuck (
February 28 1878 —November 17 1971 ) was a Canadian politician and labour lawyer.Roebuck ran for a seat in the
Canadian House of Commons in the 1917 federal election as aLaurier Liberal , but was defeated. He won a seat in theLegislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1934 provincial election that brought theOntario Liberal Party led byMitchell Hepburn to power.Roebuck was a senior figure in the Hepburn government serving as
Attorney-General of Ontario from 1934 to 1937 as well as Minister of Labour from 1934 until 1935. A progressive, Roebuck promoted the rights ofJew s against theanti-Semitism that was still prevalent in 1930s Ontario, and defended the rights oftrade union s. He broke with Hepburn over the government's handling of the 1937 United Auto Workers strike against General Motors inOshawa , and resigned in protest with fellow ministerDavid Croll . Roebuck remained as the LiberalMember of the Legislative Assembly for theToronto riding ofBellwoods until 1940.Re-entering federal politics, Roebuck was elected Liberal
Member of Parliament for theToronto riding of Trinity in the 1940 federal election. He attempted to return to provincial politics running for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party at its 1943 leadership convention to succeed Hepburn, but finished second toHarry Nixon .In 1945, he was appointed to the
Canadian Senate by Prime MinisterWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King , and remained in theUpper House until his death. At the outset of his appointment, he worked with theCanadian Jewish Congress and RabbiAvraham Aharon Price to have young, Jewish refugees released from internment camps to study in Toronto.He was an important figure in the
civil liberties movement in Canada following the war. Following theIgor Gouzenko Affair, Roebuck opposed the government's suspension of the individual rights of individuals accused of espionage, and criticized the use of the Royal Commission on Espionage's transcripts in court. Later, he participated in the defence of Israel Halperin, one of the accused spies, and chaired the Senate Committee on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1950, advocating the creation of a Canadian Bill of Rights.External links
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