Chuck Crate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Chuck" Crate (1916-1992) was a Canadian fascist and leader of the Canadian Union of Fascists.

He was born and grew up in northern Ontario, moving into a working class district of Toronto in 1927. The poverty and unemployment brought by the Great Depression turned the young Crate into a radical, sympathizing with the fascist movement of Europe. He began to associate himself with expatriate members of the British Union of Fascists, who directed him to the Canadian Fascist Party, based in Winnipeg. After being associated for only a short while with the nascent party, Crate became its leader in 1933 at the young age of 17.

Over the next decade, Crate and the party, now renamed the Canadian Union of Fascists, would make electoral appeals to both English and French Canadians. However, the union would never command enough electoral support among the Canadian public to equal its British counterpart or displace the Parti national social chrétien of Adrien Arcand as the major fascist party of Canada.

After Canada's declaration of war against Nazi Germany, the union was dissolved and its members were asked to work for a negotiated peace with the Axis powers. Crate escaped a charge of treason handed down by the government and joined the Royal Canadian Navy. He was based in Great Britain, and attempted to become associated with British fascists, but this was made impossible through the efforts of British counterintelligence. He met his future wife in England and would bring her back to Canada after World War II ended. They would have two daughters.

Crate would continue to involve himself in local and national politics until his death, his last cause being the defence of Eastern European immigrants who had been accused of war crimes. He died in 1992 at the age of 76.