Established in 1935-1936, the Jewish Labour Committee (JLC) of Canada was a prominent, socialist-leaning organization formed to combat Nazism, fascism, and antisemitism. Representing Jewish trade unionists, it fought for human rights, aided Holocaust refugees, and spearheaded anti-discrimination legislation in Canadian workplaces and housing during the 1940s and 50s.

The JLC was a front-runner in the push for anti-discrimination legislation in Ontario. Kalmen Kaplansky, a Polish-born Jew and the JLC executive director for combating racial discrimination in the labour movement, was instrumental in the formation of the Joint Labour Committees to Combat Racial Discrimination in Toronto, Windsor, Montreal, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. Those committees held annual conferences which promoted tolerance among unionized workers.

By 1959, the JLC had a large network of rights associations. It enjoyed such success by 1960, that Frank Scott, co-founder of the NDP party, remarked that he knew “of no single body in the whole of Canada doing as much continuous and consistent work for civil liberties.” [Clément 2008]

JLC activists pushed the Quebec government to pass a bill of rights. In Halifax, in 1961, they helped create an indigenous organization to develop, with them, a program of social action related to such problems as the fight for fair compensation for the impoverished black residents of Africville, who were being forcibly relocated by the municipal government. The Africville campaign and the JLC’s work in organizing Aboriginal people (particularly in Ontario) were grounded in its desire to help empower minorities to fight discrimination and defend their interests.

Over the course of the 70’s and beyond, as Human Rights organizations strengthened and Parliament passed the Canadian Human Rights Act (1977), the work of the JLC was actualized, succeeding in ensuring widespread implementation within the Canadian labour movement of the human rights principles for which it fought.

The current CJLC was established in September 2024 in response to concern among Canada’s Jewish union members regarding a dangerous rise of antisemitism within the Canadian union movement and honours the principles and successes of its predecessor organization.