Jehovah’s Witnesses Fight for Religious Liberty

The Lord Jesus had said of this “time of the end” where we have been since 1914: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14) The Christian witnesses of Jehovah accept this mandate. Part of the “inhabited earth” is the province of Quebec. There Jehovah’s witnesses began to enlarge their missionary evangelical activity in 1924.

The problems appeared mountainous. The people were friendly enough if left alone; but priestly influence led to violence and arrests as a standard part of missionary experience. Many Catholic judges, educated by priests, had a somewhat myopic view of the legal rights of any who dared to disagree with the Church. Legal battles in the courts of Quebec began in 1924 and continued until 1964.

Jehovah’s witnesses were seeking to exercise the legally guaranteed right of freedom of worship by peaceably preaching to the people the encouraging message of God’s kingdom under Christ Jesus. But in Quebec, the attempt to exercise these modern-day liberties encountered a Roman Catholic-controlled system that had never really come out of the Dark Ages. To them Jehovah’s witnesses (or any non-Catholics) were heretics who had no rights.

It was a classic confrontation similar to that encountered by the apostles when they sought to preach the message of God’s kingdom in the face of Roman power during the days of Nero. Jehovah’s witnesses faced a powerful, rich and politically entrenched Catholic Church. From a human standpoint it was no contest; the Catholic Church seemingly had all the advantages. The humble witnesses of Jehovah were without influence or support from earthly authorities, but they were extremely strong in faith and in the spirit of Jehovah.

The activity of Jehovah’s witnesses in Quebec prior to World War II was limited and under constant harassment from priests, mobs and government prosecutors. But in the mid-1940’s the struggle for liberty to preach there came to a head. By this time the Church had its tool, Duplessis, in the political saddle. Could he stop the preaching of the Christian witnesses of Jehovah? Could he keep the open Bible out of the hands of the Catholic population of Quebec?

“War Without Mercy”

In 1944 the evangelical activity of Jehovah’s witnesses began to be expanded in the province of Quebec. The same old pattern of petty prosecutions resumed, charges of distributing circulars, peddling or ringing doorbells were laid in Montreal, Verdun, Lachine and Quebec City.

Jehovah’s witnesses were not easily turned aside from their God-given duty to preach “this good news of the kingdom.” Cases were defended and their preaching continued. The battle was stepped up during 1945 by a series of riots inspired by the Catholic clergy. These riots arose primarily at Châteauguay and Lachine. Resultant countrywide publicity focused attention on the growing religious conflict in Quebec.

By the end of 1945 there were 400 cases pending in the courts. The authorities hoped by delays and harassment to stop the activity of Jehovah’s people and prevent a clear legal decision that would open the way to appeal.

In the autumn of 1946 there were 800 charges dragging through the courts. There were so many cases against Jehovah’s witnesses that the police, judges and courts could not handle them all. The situation was becoming critical.

The public had the right to know about the Duplessis reign of terror. In November 1946 Jehovah’s witnesses released a fiery tract denouncing their persecution by the church-state powers in Quebec.

The distribution of this indictment and a follow-up tract was a bitter blow to Duplessis. Threats, fulminations and pronouncement of “war without mercy on Jehovah’s witnesses” were his reaction. To the 800 pending cases, 843 more charges were added in four months. However, the prosecutors now switched from simple bylaw charges to serious criminal indictments for seditious libel and conspiracy. No effort was made by the authorities to deny the facts outlined in the leaflets. They said in effect: ‘It is seditious for you to tell even the truth about how bad this situation really is.’

Pressures Intensify

Continuing with their Christian commission, Jehovah’s witnesses found pressures intensified. Mobs formed in the streets against Witnesses calling at the doors.

Because of their faith, children were expelled from school or dragged into court as juvenile delinquents. Family men lost their jobs, business licenses were canceled. Police and mobs invaded places of worship and broke up meetings.

Respectable Christian girls were arrested, stripped and held in filthy jails with prostitutes, thieves and dope fiends. Some were arrested while merely walking along the street or going shopping. Many leaflets had to be distributed at night to avoid false arrests for exercising this constitutional right.

Janet MacDonald, a faithful missionary who shared in this work, says: “Daytime and nighttime the leaflets were distributed. We flew around the countryside over the cold winter snows, often with the police in hot pursuit. In the middle of the night a carload of Witnesses would dash into a village with a supply of leaflets. Each of us would run to the assigned houses, deliver the leaflets, dash back to the car and away we went! While the police were searching that village, we would be on to another.”

In his book The Chief, Leslie Roberts said of Duplessis’ war: “Provincial police squads brought in Witnesses literally by the hundreds as they stood quietly on street corners handing out their fiery tracts. In the city of Quebec, a man named Laurier Saumur became the star ‘repeater’ . . . arrested and charged on one hundred and three separate occasions during the ‘war.’”

Jehovah’s witnesses fought their way to five key victories in the Supreme Court of Canada between 1949 and 1959 and thus blunted the vicious church-state attack. These test cases in the Supreme Court laid down governing principles that successfully disposed of the many hundreds of other cases.

The last two major cases were won in 1959. One was a personal action brought against Maurice Duplessis by one of Jehovah’s witnesses who had operated a restaurant in Montreal. His liquor license was canceled because he provided bail for many accused witnesses of Jehovah. The Supreme Court of Canada made Duplessis personally liable for the damages. Three months after the judgment was paid, Duplessis was dead.

Value of Decisions Recognized

The value of these decisions and of the courageous stand of Jehovah’s witnesses has been warmly recognized by leading constitutional authorities in Canada. In his book on Federalism and the French Canadian, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, now Prime Minister of Canada, stated: “In the province of Quebec Jehovah’s witnesses . . . have been mocked, persecuted, and hated by our entire society; but they have managed by legal means to fight church, government, nation, police and public opinion.”

Professor Frank Scott of McGill University, in his book Civil Liberty and Canadian Federalism, discusses the case of Lamb v. Benoit: “The Lamb case is merely another example of police illegality, but it is part of the dismal picture that has too often been exposed in Quebec in recent years. Miss Lamb, another Jehovah’s witness, was illegally arrested, held over the weekend without any charge being laid against her, not allowed to telephone a lawyer, and then offered her freedom on condition she sign a document releasing the police from all responsibility for the way they had treated her. When reading such a story one wonders how many other innocent victims have been similarly treated by the police but have not had the courage and the backing to push the matter through to final victory​—in this instance 12 ¹⁄₂ years after the arrest had taken place. We should be grateful that we have in this country some victims of state oppression who stand up for their rights. Their victory is the victory of us all.”

The victories of Jehovah’s witnesses in the Supreme Court of Canada opened a new era for the exercise of civil liberties and freedom of the press in Quebec. Censorship had been declared unconstitutional. No longer were public speakers and writers fearful of the heavy hand of a government prosecutor being used to halt the legitimate flow of information.