People)

Visit our People in the SCM’s History page

---

Early roots

from Alberta Online Encyclopedia
LINK

Putting the justice into faith since 1921…

The ideals of charity and the evangelism have a special appeal to young adults. Most missionaries are in their late teens or early twenties when they are sent to their mission field. 1858 Records of the Cambridge University Church Missionary Union reports regular meetings to pray for missionaries around the world.

The records of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) in Canada go back as far as 1871, when a small group of men and women met together in Toronto for prayer. The desire for social reform and evangelization of the poor resulted to the formation in 1886 of the Student Volunteer Movement in New York, a protestant student movement with an appeal across North America “to evangelize the world in one generation.” For many young people this meant to offer their active services in overseas missions. In 1891 the movement counted 6200 volunteers in 350 institutions, of which 320 were active overseas.
.
In 1921 the Canadian Student Christian Movement split from the more conservative SVM, and gained the reputation for bold social action. Their enduring motto “putting the justice into faith since 1921” reflects that what to the SCM is most essential and at the time necessitated the split.

The SCM looked at Canada’s political leaders who acted out of a Christian conviction, such as the Rev. J.S. Woodsworth who spoke to the SCM conference of 1929 at Jasper Park. Present was Stanley Knowles, then 21, who became first a leader in the SCM before being ordained, like Woodsworth, as a minister in the United Church of Canada. Knowles became later a founding member of the New Democratic Party. Other Canadians who attribute much of their spiritual formation as young adults to the SCM are The Right Reverend Lois Wilson, former moderator of the United Church of Canada and Canadian Senator and president of the World Council of Churches, The Right Reverend Ted Scott, former Archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Margaret Laurence, author.

In 1928 the work of the YMCA in Canadian universities was taken over by the Student Christian Movement of Canada. During the depression of the thirties and the war years of the 1940s, the SCM was active on the edge of society. Engaging issues of justice, peace and minority rights, the SCM offered expression to the same missionary impulse which motivated the missionaries of the 19th century.

---

SCM forms, breaking off from YMCA

From, Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada 1914-28

[The YMCA] had not been happy at the loss of their student movements.
In fact, the decision to separate completely had taken them somewhat by
surprise. […]

The editor of the Guardian quoted one advocate of the SCM as describing
the YMCA as ‘a creature of the business men and used by them.’ […]

The separation of the student movements into the SCM, formally
accomplished at the Guelph national conference in 1920, was a condition of the full emergence of a social gospel in the SCM and the free discovery by students of the tasks Jesus laid on them for their time.

---

Poisoning the student mind

Poisoning the Student Mind?: The Student Christian Movement at the University of Toronto, 1920-1965

[ LINK ]

St. John’s 1997
New Series, Vol. 8 / Nouvelle Série, Vol. 8
CATHERINE GIDNEY

Historians have documented the interlocking nature of student culture and religious life in nineteenth-century higher education; in contrast, after World War I religion has generally been ignored, or portrayed as disappearing from the academy and broader life. An investigation of the Student Christian Movement, however, suggests that by combining liberal theology with left-wing politics it became an influential religious force on campus well into the twentieth century. Reflecting a fairly
homogeneous student population, supported by faculty and the administration, and articulating the temper of the times, the SCM served as the public voice of religion on campus. Only in the 1950s, as new social phenomena emerged, such as divisions among Protestants, the rise of agnosticism, and the creation of secular political organisations, did the SCM begin to lose its cultural authority on campus.

---

Leadership “most denounced” activists in Canada

The Age of Dissent
BY MARGARET WEBB

THE 1920s in Toronto
[ LINK ]

James Endicott called himself “probably the most denounced public
person in Canada” […]

The approach stuck with Endicott, who helped found the *STUDENT
CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT* (SCM). According to historian Horn, the SCM had just enough support from prominent Canadians to “maintain an aura of respectability,” although it spiced religious study with political action, taking up the causes of labour, racial equality and peace.

---

Leaders of political youth movement

The Student and Youth Movements in Canada During the 1930s
Paul Axelrod
Professor, Division of Social Science
York University, Toronto

[ LINK ]

Like the United States, Canada had a lively student and youth movement during the 1930s. Its leading organizational instruments were the STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT, the Canadian Student Assembly, and the Canadian Youth Congress. Socialist youth, linked to the newly formed Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (1933), and communist activists, primarily through the Young Communist League, campaigned for peace, social justice
and social change.

---

Oppose pro-war Remembrance Day

75 Things You Didn�t Know about University of Toronto

RESEARCH BY CHARLES LEVI
[ LINK ]

War and Peace: In 1935, the STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT (SCM) advocated a uniform-free Remembrance Day ceremony, to emphasize peace in the future rather than past wars. Their service attracted a full house at the Hart House Theatre while, steps away, a large group, including soldiers in uniform, attended a ceremony at Soldiers’ Tower.

---

The Student and Youth Movements in Canada During the 1930s

Paul Axelrod
Professor, Division of Social Science
York University, Toronto

Like the United States, Canada had a lively student and youth movement during the 1930s. Its leading organizational instruments were the Student Christian Movement, the Canadian Student Assembly, and the Canadian Youth Congress. Socialist youth, linked to the newly formed Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (1933), and communist activists, primarily through the Young Communist League, campaigned for peace, social justice and social change.

Campus activism, however, was clearly a minority interest. Some five to ten percent of university students participated in one or more of the above organizations, while only about three percent of the young people in Canada actually attended university in the 1930s, less than one-third of the American participation rate, but higher than that in Britain and Germany. University youth either came from the middle class or aspired to it, and progressive or radical politics did not engage many of them. Indeed, there were dangers in being politically active. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police regularly conducted surveillance of university campuses, frequently in cooperation with university administrations, and left-wing students, especially those associated with communists, or even with causes that communists supported, were targeted. Openly challenging capitalism or British foreign policy could get students and professors into trouble with university authorities, politicians, and the police.

Peace was the one issue that did resonate among significant numbers of university students, and many were sympathetic to campaigns for disarmament during the 1930s. Most Canadians had family or friends who had been casualties of World War I; the painful memories lingered, and activists who organized petition campaigns and peace vigils had some success. However, pacifism on campus all but vanished when World War II erupted. Canada joined the war effort in September 1939, one week after Britain, and university students, by all accounts patriotically supported the cause. Eventually, so did Canadian communists, further diminishing the spirit of opposition. In any event, Defence of Canada regulations made it illegal to speak out against the war and most critics of government policy, on and off campus, kept their ideas to themselves.

---

Student Cooperatives in the Depression

from The Cooperative Movement
by North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO)

The Great Depression of the 1930’s brought many student cooperatives into existence in both Canada and the United States. This period of economic hardship encouraged people to think in new directions and a wave of new co-ops was started. If one event can be seen as the birthplace of student cooperative movement it was a lecture by an internationally-renown Japanese labor, cooperative, and peace activist, Toyohiko Kagawa. Kagawa spoke at a Student Christian Movement conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. Students from Ann Arbor and Toronto went to this conference and returned home to start student housing cooperatives that thrive even today. Other student activists saw him speak elsewhere and where similarly inspired.

---

Socialist work camps

1940s: From “Love’s Gay Fool: Autobiography of Jon Alan Lee.

[ LINK ]

These were no ordinary young socialists. They were university-educated.
They lived in a communal house, where they shared belongings and wages
in true communalist fashion. Strangest of all, most were also Christian
believers.

Their fellowship was called Howland House, and it was organized by
members of the STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT. The SCM is a nation-wide
organization of young adults, mostly at universities. Its Christian doctrine
is modernistic, its secular ethic leftist. Some have called the SCM
�socialists at prayer.� Traditional churchmen have attacked the SCM for
�poisoning the student mind� � which merely led SCMers to compose their
anthem:

“The SCM has found its true vocation
In poisoning the student mind…”

[…]

The SCM began to organize work camps in Canada following the Second
World War. […]

SCM wage pools were both early Christianity at work, and one of the few
Canadian instances of successful application of the Marxist doctrine:
“From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.”

[…]

Experienced campers joked that SCM really stood for “Society for
Courtship and Marriage.” Numerous courtships began in SCM work camps. What
sounder way to choose a mate than falling in love with a fellow camper
who was witnessed at the worst of times as well as the best?

---

Future Anglican Primate heads SCM

Archbishop Ted Scott dies in car accident

MARITES N. SISON
ANGLICAN JOURNAL
June 22, 2004
[ LINK ]

[…]

But Ted Scott saw it as a way to translate his faith into action. His
association with the Student Christian Movement (SCM), where he served
as general secretary, had a profound impact on the choices he made in
life. “Quite frankly,” he was once quoted, “I probably would not be in
the church if it were not for SCM. It gave me the right to ask questions
and to explore.”

---

Police surveillance for anti-nuclear stance

Nuclear Warheads in Canada

[ LINK ]

The Pinetree Line
February 13, 2001

The (cold war) paranoia was extensive, and resulted in many and varied
breaches of personal privacy and security. For instance, “F” Division
RCMP officers in Saskatoon, in following-up a La Macaza protest report,
gained access to the central records office of the University of
Saskatchewan at Saskatoon. They then built up their own file on a man whose
name is erased from the reports, but who was identified as being active
in the STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT from 1959 to 1964. The RCMP officer
had infiltrated the campus, and knew the person by sight, having
attended some of the same meetings. This religious studies student in
Saskatchewan was considered a threat to the security of the Liberal
Governments’ continued deployment of nuclear weapons.

---

SCM organizes inter-church justice conference

from National Catholic Reporter
February 28, 2000
[ LINK ]

… After the second assembly of the World Council of Churches at Evanston, Ill., in 1954, the Student Christian Movement of Canada (SCM) organized a Christmas conference for theological students of the various non-Roman denominations. Roman Catholics were “unable” to attend although they were invited.

The Second Vatican Council, however, created a new atmosphere in Catholic circles. A group of theology students in Toronto decided to resurrect the Canadian Theological Student Conference.

Due to their efforts, the first ecumenical conference of Canadian theological students to include Roman Catholics was held in Toronto, at Christmas 1963.

---

Destroying the structures: Vietnam war

Canada’s most resilient activist rallies students
MARCH 28TH - 2003
By Justin G. Sadler
The Brunswickan

[ LINK ]

The ’60s were characterized by a political turbulence brought about by
the Vietnam War and the controversies that were, of course, inherent to
it. More importantly however, for the purposes of this article, it was
a decade of unrest on university campuses across Canada.

Tom Murphy was a student activist at UNB from ‘65 to ‘69, and now
teaches Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. He remains a
committed activist in the London area. […]

Murphy, then a Brunswickan columnist and fourth year sociology student
in 1968, had just been elected national president of the STUDENT
CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT of Canada. In an interview featured in The Brunswickan on
Sept. 17, 1968, Murphy said, “[I] will have to do everything possible
to liberate the university student. We must destroy that structure that
inhibits him from thinking. That requires radical action. Part of my
job is to create the conditions for such actions.”

---

Anti-Vietnam war protests

Young Socialist Forum, November-December 1965
Thousands Protest Vietnam War

Socialist History Project
[ LINK ]

by Gail Anderson (1965)

Tens of thousands of people in the United States, and across the world
came out into the streets on the weekend of Oct. 15-16 to oppose the
American war against Vietnam. They came in response to an appeal issued
by the Berkeley Vietnam Day committee for an international united
protest on those two days.

The appeal met with a vigorous response in Canada, where Canadians are
beginning to realize, under the impact of the waves of protest in the
U.S., the extent of the Canadian government’s involvement in Vietnam.

In Montreal, students from McGill and Sir George Williams campuses
marched to Confederation Square in a demonstration sponsored by the campus
New Democratic Youth, SUPA, the McGill STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT and
Friends of SNCC.

---

SCM sparks free speech controversy

Academic Freedom

Michiel Horn
[ LINK ]

History of Intellectual Culture, 2004
Volume 4, No. 1

(The following is the Keynote Address delivered at the Meeting of
Western Canadian Deans of Arts and Science, Victoria, British Columbia, 19
March 2004.)

At Acadia University, a Baptist institution in the Annapolis Valley, a
struggle broke out in 1965 between the Board of Governors and the
Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces as to who should control the
institution. Key issues with implications for academic freedom were
whether it was appropriate for the university to employ non-Christian
professors, and what, on the subject of religion, were the appropriate limits
on professorial free speech. An incident that disturbed some members of
the Baptist Convention was a debate at Acadia in early 1965, sponsored
by the STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT, on the �Necessity of Religion,� in
the course of which two faculty members had reportedly said that in its
current form religion did more harm than good.

---

The death of the SCM?

THE END OF AN ERA…
The Decline and Fall of Liberal Protestantism

Commentary
By David W. Virtue

[ LINK ]

On American and European campuses the old STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
(SCM), with its liberal bent, found itself confronted with newly formed
student Evangelical organizations, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship
and later Campus Crusade for Christ. In the face of thoughtful
Evangelicalism, SCM died.

---

SCM invites Columbian guerrila leader to Canada

The New Jerusalem

[ LINK ]

The UofT communists and the Student Christian Movement (an old ally)

---

from the Pine Tree Line / Ren L’Ecuyer

[ LINK TO ARTICLE” ]

Throughout the summer of 1964 protesters staged demonstrations and sit-ins at the main and side gates of the La Macaza Bomarc site. On 24 June 1964, approximately 90 peace marchers sat down and blocked the main gate. On 6 August 1964, a peace demonstration and vigil at the main gate, called “Operation Hiroshima Day”, was carried out by ban-the-bomb groups from across the country and from the USA. Later, “Operation Labour Day” was a week long ban-the-bomb demo held during the first week of September.

But nuclear weapons were important to the Government, and both the civilian and military authorities feared and distrusted those who disagreed with their nuclear policies and the nuclear deployments. The RCMP were therefore called out to provide both security at the various nuclear bases, and to spy on the people and groups involved in peaceful and constitutionally-guaranteed protest: a right which Canadian soldiers had gone to war to protect three times in the previous fifty years. Freedom is indivisible, but this concept was lost on the government and its security forces.

While the RCMP were rarely involved in simple base security, they were the office of primary interest when it came to monitoring citizens’ constitutionally-guaranteed legal dissent. The files of the RCMP security branch were transferred to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) when the new agency took over from the RCMP in the early 1980s, and after a few years, these old files were transferred to the National Archives, but kept under the control of CSIS. There are massive RCMP files on protests, protesters, and anti-nuclear organizing across the country held by the National Archives.

The released files deal with the activities of the RCMP at La Macaza and in other Canadian locations, and are representative of the state of RCMP interest at all nuclear sites such as North Bay, Comox, Chatham, and Bagotville. The standard practice was to take as many photographs as possible and then try to identify the persons protesting. One officer even set up what he referred to as a “discreet observation post” near the Supreme Court in order to take down license plate numbers and possibly photograph people gathering to drive to La Macaza for a demonstration. The RCMP was also involved in collecting anti-nuclear literature from both open and covert sources, and this information made its way into the files. Some documents belonging to a person or group opposed to the North Bay Bomarc nuclear weapons were copied by the RCMP North Bay Commander, Inspector HF Law, using a “Robot camera… Kodak Tri X Film, time 1/25 second, distance 2’2” and setting F.16”. Whether Inspector Law was in the offices of the anti-nuclear group legally is questionable.

Files show that the RCMP gathered information on the “unwashed, uncut and uncouth” peace demonstrators, and disseminated it to various RCMP detachments across the country. If a car was observed at a demonstration, the license plate number was recorded, searched, and the information forwarded to the RCMP detachment nearest the owners home. The purpose of forwarding the information was so that the local detachment could ensure “that a close watch will be maintained for any indication of such an occurrence”, i.e., the development of anti-nuclear organizers, activists, and organizations. Although there was no indication that people were doing anything that under even the broadest interpretation of Canadian laws could be considered less-than-legal, the government had those who disagreed with the nuclear policy closely monitored by the national internal security forces.

The paranoia was extensive, and resulted in many and varied breaches of personal privacy and security. For instance, “F” Division RCMP officers in Saskatoon, in following-up a La Macaza protest report, gained access to the central records office of the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon. They then built up their own file on a man whose name is erased from the reports, but who was identified as being active in the Student Christian Movement from 1959 to 1964. The RCMP officer had infiltrated the campus, and knew the person by sight, having attended some of the same meetings. This religious studies student in Saskatchewan was considered a threat to the security of the Liberal Governments’ continued deployment of nuclear weapons.

The depth of the paranoia is clear from the manner in which they treated even common information. A message from the RCMP officer at La Macaza to “A” division Ottawa dealing with an ongoing demonstration was classified as Secret and sent through a secure line after being enciphered.

From University of Saskatchewan archives

ca. 1927

Membership card for the Student Christian Movement. The SCM began life as the on-campus chapter of the YMCA in December 1909 and the YWCA in 1912. The original organizations were gender-segregated, and primarily featured bible study sessions and later wiener roasts, sing songs and toboggan parties. The two organizations joined in 1927-28 as the Student Christian Movement, holding the usual study groups, sing-songs, student services, conferences, and an annual bazaar.

Note that today, SCM has no membership list

from Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada
by Tom Warner
University of Toronto Press.

[ LINK TO EXCERPT ]

THE FIRST gay organizations in Canada were founded in the early 1960’s, well over a decade after the Mattachine Society appeared in the U.S. Vancouver’s Association for Social Knowledge and Ottawa’s Committee of Social Hygiene were earnest, closeted, rather cautious, and of limited effectiveness. In those days, occasional letters to the newspapers by the redoubtable James Egan provided virtually the only pro-gay material seen by the general public. Egan had urged gays to organize and, as a student at the University of Toronto, I tried to heed the call. It was easier said than done.

One of my early organizing attempts had been based at The Inn of the Unmuzzled Ox, a campus coffeehouse run by the politically liberal Student Christian Movement (SCM). The small discussion group I started never really got off the ground. In Toronto in this era, gays and lesbians remained closeted and fearful.

Letters to the Editor
The Ubyssey (Vancouver)
November 3, 1961

[ LINK TO ARTICLE with highlights; LINK TO PDF ]

What is SCM ?

Dear Sir:
In response to the article in Tuesday’s paper, I would like to make a few comments.

First, I agree - the SCM is not as outgoing as it could be. Why? Because we are lazy, apathetic, self- satisfied, sinners, hopeless in ourselves. I’m afraid our only hope is Jesus Christ. It costs 10,000 dollars a year to run this flophouse, chaplains and all. Any other reasonable outfit would have closed down years ago, don’t you agree? Nevertheless here we are, a fellowship of “repentant” and “non-repentant” sinners.

Of course, the words, Christ, sinner, repentant, have no meaning whatsoever to the “natural man”, and never will. What is a natural man? He is one who might have asked himself, “What is the meaning in life?” “What about my existence?”, or “What or who are we?” Ants on an anthill? Flies on a dung heap? But he has not been able to say, “Christ is Lord”, having thoroughly investigated Christianity objectively and subjectively.

Get this! A “natural man” has no. responsibilities at all - he does not even have to think, as a matter of fact; if he does not want anything to do with the words God and Faith, I would say he has been cursed with a brain.

Scream, yell, rant, rave, what can I do? Let’s get together and talk, come to the Agnostics Group in Hut L-4 on Mondays at noon or anywhere is fine with me. Where are you? What is your name? I’ll go wherever you are or you can come to me, but PLEASE, HOW CAN I FIND YOU? Who knows, you might convert me.

Yours truly,
A CHRISTIAN.

Cozy club

Dear Sir:
The SCM has been called medieval - that at Hallowe’en with apocalypse-size Russian firecrackers . WELL!

Any more atheists who are willing to stand up and be counted, like Bruce Mistier in his letter to the editor in last Tuesday’s Ubyssey? Come on, get us Christians out of our cozy clubrooms. We are still dozing in a time when the
basis of all human values, life itself, is being threatened.

Maybe you can be prophets. Is the SCM not doing anything then? Oh yes, some are trying hard to put life and vigor in our program. Some work hard to ge students to start thinking; but that’s not easy, you know! They get mad
at those who sit and relax . Many Marys, few Marthas?

Yes, we know our Bible - a little, anyway. We discuss it. We even talk about Christ - not that He stirs us to action. We are too busy arguing about Him. Ingmar Bergman stirs us a little more. He gets some of us to see his movies.
All right then, atheists: where can we find you? Are you crying alone in the Christian wilderness, Bruce?

Mind you, we found a few agnostics. Yes sir, they meet with a few Christians. The latter are protected by Chaplain Shaver, or are the Agonstics? Anyway
they did not run away in disgust, yet. Come on atheists, out of your eggshells! Come on Christians, out of your shelters! Let us meet! Where? When? Anywhere! Everywhere! Anytime! Let’s argue about religion, politics and many other things - that’s SCM tradition, you know.

Yours truly,
HANK T. DYKMAN,
Theology II,
President UBC-SCM .

The Ubyssey (Vancouver)
February 28, 1931

[ LINK TO ARTICLE with highlights; LINK TO PDF ]

The need for a worldwide outlook in Christian life today was the theme
of the S. C. M. service held at Chown United Church, Sunday evening .
This service concluded International week in which students throughuot the world remember their international fellowship.

Rev. A. E. Whitehouse spoke on “The Knowledge of the Mystic,” dwelling particularly on racial relations. Katharine Hockin, Eric Kelly and Fred Jakeway took part in the service, representing the S. C. M. Choir members presented student hymns.

In the afternoon Dr. Scott led a discussion group on worship, while a
further period of hymn singing at the home of Katharine Hockin ollowed
the service. Dr. Albert Kotschnig of the International Student Service is expected as leader for the next S. C. M. Camp,
March 7-8.

The discussion will centre around international problems with which Dr. Kotschnig is particularly fitted to deal, since he comes direct from Geneva. Other local leadership is also being arranged. This will be the only camp until the end of April.

Chance for Missionary Work says UBC President MacKenzie

The Ubyssey (Vancouver)
January 21, 1949

[ LINK TO ARTICLE highlighted section; LINK TO PDF ]

UBC Students Christian Movement [sic] members were stunned today by charges that their organization is the “first choice for Red infiltration.”

Charge appeared in the editorial in a downtown newspaper following an analysis of the LPP University Student Conference by an eastern periodical. [LPP was the Labour Progressive Party, renamed from the banned Communist Party].

The editorial quotes the eastern publication as stating, “Aside from the CCF, it was felt that the body with which the greatest degree of unity could be achieved, especially on the peace issue, was the Student Christian Movement. This body includes a large number of genuine left wingers…”

Replying to the charges SCM member Tom Walden said, “Some of our members may have strong Communist leanings but there is no evidence that the SCM is being used.” Sometimes both the Communists and the SCM are going in the same direction but for different reasons.”

Wilmot Bruell, active SCM member and former secretary of an IWA local, said, “I’ve seen Communists at work in unions and I’d know Communist activity when I see it. There is no Communist activity in the SCM on this campus.”

President Norman A. MacKenzie, who helped in drafting the original SCM constitution, said, “Senior executives of the organization have never been colored by Communism.”

“If there are Communists in the SCM on this campus it is evidence that the club has vitality and importance. It is a challenge to fight them. It is an opportunity for members to do “missionary work” among the Communists and convert them to Christianity.” [???!]

“SCM sets up group to study Jap problem [sic]”
THE UBYSSEY (Vancouver)
Saturday, October 27, 1945

[ LINK TO ARTICLE highlighted in document; LINK TO PDF]

This article reports that the national SCM, and the local unit in Vancouver, opposed the proposed deportation of Japanese-Canadians from Canada during World War II. The Japanese were also imprisoned in ‘internment camps’, a move SCM also opposed -WebEditor

FOLLOWING THE ACTION of the National Council of the Student Christian Movement of Canada at its annual meeting in September, the Executive of the SCM at UBC has set up a committee to consider the proposals being made to
the Government in connection with the treatment of Canadians of Japanese origin.

The brief also urges that the government consider the conditions of perplexity and despair, and of prospects of immediate insecurity in Canada, under which many
Japanese Canadians expressed the wish to be sent to Japan; and that
the government refrain from expatriating [i.e. deporting] on that basis Canadian citizens who now declare their desire to remain in Canada.

TOO MUCH AT STAKE

The committee here agrees that there is too much at stake in the hasty action being proposed in some quarters, and is bringing together the relevant information in consultation with other clubs on the campus.

On Tuesday, Oct . 30, at 12.30, a General Meeting of SCM members will hear the facts of the case and be asked to make representations to the Dominion Government.

The executive of the local SCM endorses the action of the Toronto movement in asking that the removal of the Japanese from Canada be more carefully considered before such action is taken. As was pointed out, it is a question not only of the treatment of a number of individuals, but also of the status of Canadian citizenship and of the rights of racial minorities in Canada. It feels that it would be a disastrous precedent to deal arbitrarily with so large a group of Canadian citizens before the public is informed.

from the Ubyssey (Vancouver)
December 2, 1920

[ LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE (highlighted in yellow) ]

The Student Y.M.C.A. and the Student
Y.W.C.A. will be represented at the all -
Canadian conference at Guelph, Ontario ,
which will be held during the comin g
Christmas holidays. This decision has
been reached by the governing executive s
of these organizations . The funds for
expenses of sending these delegates i s
being raised by personal subscriptio n
among the members and friends of each
of the associations.
The Guelph conference will be in ses-
sion for four days. It is the outcome of
a generally expressed desire on the par t
of many summer conferences to have a
Canadian Christian student organization.
For this purpose, it will organize th e
Canadian Student Christian Movement.
Copies of the proposed constitution have
been received, and will be studied before
the delegates of these associations leave
for the East.

SCM was heavily involved in the Canadian movement against the Vietnam war in the 1960s and 70s.

Young Socialist Forum
November-December 1965
by Gail Anderson

[ LINK TO ARTICLE ]

Tens of thousands of people in the United States, and across the world came out into the streets on the weekend of Oct. 15-16 to oppose the American war against Vietnam. They came in response to an appeal issued by the Berkeley Vietnam Day committee for an international united protest on those two days.

The appeal met with a vigorous response in Canada, where Canadians are beginning to realize, under the impact of the waves of protest in the U.S., the extent of the Canadian government�s involvement in Vietnam.

The largest Canadian demonstration was in Toronto, where over a thousand from campus and community answered the Berkeley appeal. Initially, several Toronto anti-war groups, including YSF, united in the Toronto International Vietnam Day Committee to organize for the protest weekend. Unity was only partially achieved, however. Campus groups, led by the U. of T. Student Union for Peace Action did not join the TIVDC rally at City Hall, but assembled separately. Both demonstrations attacked Canada�s large and little-realized role in Vietnam.

The demonstrations then joined several hundred Americans, from a number of groups in western New York State in an Assembly of Unrepresented People in Exile before the U.S. consulate. The Americans had come into this symbolic exile to dramatize the difficulties they face in presenting their opposition to the Vietnam war to their countrymen. Six organizations representing a wide range of political tendencies on both sides of the border read symbolic “Declarations of Peace,” putting forward their positions on the Vietnam war.

In Montreal, 200 students from McGill and Sir George Williams campuses marched to Confederation Square in a demonstration sponsored by the campus New Democratic Youth, SUPA, the McGill Student Christian Movement and Friends of SNCC. They were addressed by an American anti-war activist and by Cheddi Jagan, former Prime Minister of British Guiana.

Dissent
by Margaret Webb
from University of Toronto Magazine
2002

[ LINK TO ARTICLE ]

During the 1940s, there were links between SCM the University of Toronto Labour-Progressive Party (LPP) club (the party was so named because of a federal edict that prevented the club from calling itself the Communist Party) - notably through SCM member Stephen Endicott who was also president of the LPP.

U of T forced the SCM students to disassociate themselves from the university when they picketed the Imperial Optical Company in support of workers trying to unionize. Sydney Hermant, a member of the university’s board of governors, owned the company. Endicott, now a senior scholar in the department of history at York University, recalls that the students still managed to stall a trolley car in front of the Hermant building (at Victoria and Dundas) and pull it off the tracks.

In 1947, the SCM took part in a demonstration at Queen’s Park to protest potentially escalating student fees. Though they marshalled the support of 10 student groups, only 125 people showed up.

While studying at Emmanuel College to enter the ministry, James Endicott attended Bible-study sessions in the basement of Victoria College, led by a rather unorthodox chemistry professor, Dr. H.B. Sharman. By son Stephen’s account, Sharman pressed the group to challenge religious doctrine and to discover the will to do right even if “in opposition to the traditions and great institutions of the day” and “no matter what the cost.”

The approach stuck with Endicott, who helped found the Student Christian Movement (SCM). According to historian Horn, the SCM had just enough support from prominent Canadians to “maintain an aura of respectability,” although it spiced religious study with political action, taking up the causes of labour, racial equality and peace.