Section 98

Section 98 (s. 98) of the Criminal Code of Canada was a law enacted after the Winnipeg general strike of 1919 banning "unlawful associations."

[1] Section 98 read: Any association...whose professed purpose...is to bring about any governmental, industrial or economic change within Canada by use of force, violence or physical injury to person or property, or by threats of such injury, or which teaches, advocates, advises or defends the use of force, violence, terrorism, or physical injury to person or property...in order to accomplish such change, or for any other such purpose..., or which shall by any means prosecute or pursue such purpose...or shall so teach, advocate, advise or defend, shall be an unlawful association.

It was used throughout the 1920s and early half of the 1930s to harass Communists, other left parties and organizations, and labour unions generally.

As a result of public opposition, the Communists were released early from jail and Prime Minister Mackenzie King's government repealed the law in 1936.

Opposition to Section 98 was an important campaign for crystallizing an early civil rights movement within an otherwise fractured left wing in Canada.