ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Political extremist, fascist agitator, marginal crank? Adrien Arcand, the Montreal-based journalist and publicist, was one of mid-twentieth-century Canada's most notorious antisemites. Known as the "Canadian Führer," Arcand has long been viewed, in scholarship and public memory, as the leading exemplar of Quebec antisemitism from the 1930s through the 1950s, and one of the greatest ontological threats to Jewish life in Canada in those decades.
But what do we actually know about Arcand's influence? Tyler Wentzell, a historian of far-right extremism in Canada, takes up this question in a forum published in the fall 2025 volume of Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes. In "Rethinking Adrien Arcand in Historical Context," Wentzell looks specifically at Arcand's reception in English-language newspapers from 1929-1940; his collaborators in the forum, the historians Pierre Anctil and Simon-Pierre Lacasse, examine the Montreal Yiddish press and postwar Quebec's Catholic hierarchy, respectively.
In this episode, Wentzell sits down with Jonathan Slater to discuss one of the forum's guiding questions: What does a history of Arcand that looks beyond his inflammatory words and activities, to how he was received (and challenged) in French-Catholic, Jewish, and English Canadian communities, tell us about the history of hate in Canada and the ways in which diverse groups have found solidarity in confronting extremism?
OUR GUEST
Tyler Wentzell is an assistant professor of defence studies at the Canadian Forces College. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He completed his JD (law degree) and SJD (doctoral degree in law) at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He is a licensed barrister and solicitor in the province of Ontario and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Wentzell is the author of two books on the international communist movement and Soviet influence operations during the Great Depression: Not for King or Country: Edward Cecil-Smith, the Communist Party of Canada and the Spanish Civil War (University of Toronto Press, 2020) and the forthcoming Comrades and Scoundrels: William Krehm and the League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party (University of Toronto Press, 2027). His work has been published in The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and The Literary Review of Canada, and peer-reviewed journals such as Labour/Le Travail, Criminal Law Quarterly, Canadian Military History and Canadian Jewish Studies. Wentzell has been an infantry officer in the Canadian Armed Forces since 2002.
RECOMMENDED READING
"Rethinking Adrien Arcand in Historical Context," Tyler Wentzell, Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes
EPISODE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Host: Jonathan Slater
Producer/Editor: Theadora Draper
Music: J.K. Bradley
Executive Producers: Joshua Tapper and David S. Koffman
Tête-à-tête: Conversations in Canadian Jewish Studies is made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Aid to Scholarly Journals program and the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies and J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry, both at York University.