Section 98 (s. 98) of the '' Criminal Code'' of Canada was a law enacted after the Winnipeg general strike of 1919 banning "unlawful associations." It was used in the 1930s against the

Communist Party of Canada The Communist Party of Canada (french: Parti communiste du Canada) is a federal political party in Canada, founded in 1921 under conditions of illegality. Although it does not currently have any parliamentary representation, the party's can ...

. After the Winnipeg general strike of 1919, Arthur Meighen, Minister of Justice in Robert Borden's government, introduced an amendment to the ''Criminal Code''. The legislation was tabled in the House of Commons on June 27, 1919, where it was passed with little to no debate. In the Senate, it only took two days to pass going on to receive royal assent on July 7, 1919. Section 98 read:

Any association...whose professed purpose...is to bring about any governmental, industrial or economic change within Canada by use of force, violence or physical injury to person or property, or by threats of such injury, or which teaches, advocates, advises or defends the use of force, violence, terrorism, or physical injury to person or property...in order to accomplish such change, or for any other such purpose..., or which shall by any means prosecute or pursue such purpose...or shall so teach, advocate, advise or defend, shall be an unlawful association.

The law was extremely broad and carried a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. It was used throughout the 1920s and early half of the 1930s to harass Communists, other left parties and organizations, and

labour unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

generally. The most well-known use of Section 98 was in a crackdown designed to "strike a death blow at the Communist Party." The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police rounded up eight leaders of the Communist Party on 11 August 1931, who were subsequently convicted under the law and sentenced for up to five-year prison terms. In the years after the conviction, public opinion turned in favour of the Communists and against the law, which was opposed by liberals and moderate leftists as well as far-left organizations like the Canadian Labour Defence League, a Communist legal defence committee. As a result of public opposition, the Communists were released early from jail and the law was repealed in 1936 following the election of

Mackenzie King William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A Li ...

in 1935. Opposition to Section 98 was an important campaign for crystallizing an early civil rights movement within an otherwise fractured

left wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

in Canada. Although the law was repealed, it served as the model for the '' Defence of Canada Regulations'' under the '' War Measures Act'' to suppress aliens and dissenters during the Second World War and during the October Crisis of 1970.

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* {{cite book , last=Wfirst=Barry & Eric Tucker, Susan Binnie , title = Canadian State Trials, Volume IV, year=2015, publisher = University of Toronto Press, isbn= 9781442631083 - Total pages: 464 Canadian federal legislation Anti-communism Political and cultural purges Canadian criminal law Repealed Canadian legislation 1919 in Canadian law