In prewar days, Quebec's Fascist National Unity Party claimed 80,000 members and openly talked about a march on Ottawa to seize the government. N.U.P. folded when its leader, Adrien Arcand, was interned during the war. But N.U.P. is not dead; recently some 850 members held a rally in Montreal. Time Correspondent Stuart Keate visited Leader Arcand in his home at Lanoraie, near Montreal, last week wired this report:
Arcand, now 48, is a lean, brooding six-footer with an ascetic face and a pencil-line mustache. When I called, he was wearing a pale green woolen sport shirt, brown tie, brown trousers and shoes. In a corner of his small living room were his typewriter and a table piled with pamphlets and books. In another corner was a radio-phonograph with a fair-sized collection of classical records. This room opens into a combined bedroom and studio. On the wall was a large painting of Arcand in a brown shirt. A crucifix was beside the bed.
Signs & Symbols. Since he got out of internment in 1945, Arcand has made a living by doing French-English translations ("for friends") and by painting portraits. He thinks his internment may have helped him by giving him the aura of a martyr. He admits that he is only biding his time.
When I asked him how many party members he has, he was evasive. He did say they pay 25¢ a month dues, and call him Chef or Chief. He added: "It is like the army. You have your officers, and when the time comes you enlist your men. I have a keen and loyal staff of officers around me. My biggest problem is to keep them inactive. Every time I visit Montreal, I get the same question: 'Chief, when are we going to start?' " He hinted that the N.U.P. would "start" early next year. The party still has its old emblem—a torch, surrounded by maple leaves and topped by a Canadian beaver—and its motto: Serviam (I shall serve). When N.U.P. comes into the open, blue shirts presumably will again be the uniform. This time there will be no swastika shoulder patches.
Cause&Cure. As violently anti-Semitic as he is antiCommunist, Arcand wants harsh laws against both Jews and Commies. The Jews he blames for all the world's ills, says that they started both World Wars and that he would ship them all to Madagascar if he could. That gets him onto another race: "Within the century there will be 120 million Negroes in the U.S. What will happen to the white man?"
I asked him, before I left, why reporters were given the bounce at the party's most recent meeting. He said: "Because it was private." If he ever came to power in Canada, he said, there would be special laws designed to curb the press. "We have sanitary health laws to guard against food poisoning. Why not a law against . . . poisonous ideologies?"