Defending the Charge of Sedition

In 1947, I assisted Mr. Stein in our first sedition case to be tried, that of Aimé Boucher. Aimé had distributed some tracts near his home. At Aimé’s trial we proved that Quebec’s Burning Hate contained no falsehoods but that it only used strong language to complain about atrocities against Jehovah’s Witnesses. We showed that no charges had ever been laid against those who had committed these atrocities. Aimé had been convicted simply for publicizing them. The prosecution’s position came down to this: It had become a crime to tell the truth!

The Quebec courts had relied upon a vague, 350-year-old definition of “sedition,” which suggested that anyone criticizing the government could be convicted of a crime. Duplessis too relied on that definition in order to suppress criticism of his regime. But in 1950 the Supreme Court of Canada accepted our submission that in a modern democracy, “sedition” requires incitement to violence or insurrection against the government. Quebec’s Burning Hate contained no such incitements and was therefore a lawful form of free speech. With this one momentous decision, all 123 sedition cases evaporated! I saw firsthand how Jehovah gave the victory.

[Pictures on page 21]

Aimé Boucher