Book Launch: A Communist for the RCMP by Dennis Gruending

Saturday, September 21, 3:00-5:00 pm

On September 21st, l’Euguélionne is welcoming author Dennis Gruending for a reading and Q&A about his new book A Communist for the RCMP. The discussion will be moderated by author Merrily Weisbord !

About the Book

For decades until well into the 1970s, the RCMP recruited informants to spy on Canadians, especially anyone who could be considered left-wing or ‘progressive’: communists, feminists, gays rights activists, unionists, judges, lawyers, university professor and students, indigenous activists, members of the clergy, peace activists, and Quebecois separatists. A Communist for the RCMP: The Uncovered Story of a Social Movement Informant is the story of Frank Hadesbeck who was paid by the RCMP to infiltrate such groups from 1941 to 1978. 

Defying every warning given to him by his RCMP handlers, Hadesbeck kept secret notes. Using these notes, author Dennis Gruending recounts how the RCMP spied upon thousands of Canadians. Hadesbeck’s life and career are in the past, but RCMP surveillance continues in new guises. As Canada’s petroleum industry doubles down on its extraction plans in the oil sands and elsewhere, the RCMP and other state agencies provide support, routinely branding Indigenous land defenders and their allies in the environmental movement as potential terrorists. A Communist for the RCMP provides an inside account of Hadesbeck’s career and illustrates how the RCMP uses surveillance of activists to enforce the status quo.