Abram Albert Heaps (1885-1954)

MP (1926), MP (1926-1930), MP (1936-1940).

Born in Leeds, England on 24 December 1885, of Polish-Jewish descent, he came to Canada in 1910 and to Winnipeg in 1911. He married Bessie Morris, 6 July 1913, with whom he had two sons.

Heaps was a member of the Social Democratic Party and a pacifist, opposing conscription in 1917 with F. J. Dixon and John Queen. He served on the Winnipeg City Council from 1917 to 1925. During the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 he supervised the commissariat for the strike committee, and in council advocated banning all parades. He was arrested on 17 June 1919, and he conducted his own defence against charges of seditious libel. He was found innocent on all counts on 28 March 1920, after a masterful address to the jury. He then started an insurance agency for Great-West Life Incorporated, from which he resigned in 1925 when he was elected to the House of Commons from Winnipeg North over the Liberal candidate, Hon. E. J. MacMurray, late Solicitor-General, and the Conservative candidate, Dr. Blake, ex-M.P. He later became a CCF MP.

In 1926 he confronted Arthur Meighen in the House over government policy at the time of the Winnipeg General Strike. Heaps was on friendly terms with R. B. Bennett and Mackenzie King but was cordially hated by Meighen and Tim Buck, the leader of the Communist Party of Canada. With J. S. Woodsworth, he helped to introduce the Old Age Pension in Canada, in 1927. He served in the Commons as an unofficial critic on economic policy until 1940, when he retired.

More information:

Profiles in Dissent: The Shaping of Radical Thought in the Canadian West, by Harry and Mildred Gutkin (1997), pages 299-342.

The Rebel in the House: The Life and Times of A. A. Heaps, M.P. by Leo Heaps (1970).

Sources:

Profile revised: 8 August 2009

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