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Litterick was born in Glasgow , Scotland . He received an education at Clydebrooke and Glasgow, and became a member of the British Socialist Party at age sixteen (his father was also a lifelong Socialist ). He was jailed for his role in a rent riot at Clydebank in 1920 , and joined the newly-formed Communist Party Of Great Britain the same year. Litterick moved to Canada in 1925 and initially worked as a miner in Alberta and British Columbia . In 1926 , he became the district secretary of the Communist Party Of British Columbia . He moved to Montreal in 1930 , and became an organizer for the ''Workers Unity League'' (a communist-led organization which sought to bring industrial unions into Canada). When Communist Party leader Tim Buck was arrested in 1931 , Litterick moved to Toronto to take over some of his responsibilities. In 1934 , Litterick was selected as Provincial Secretary of the Communist Party Of Manitoba . He was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the Provincial Election Of 1936 , during a period of increased popularity for the party. His campaign focused on eliminating the province's 2% wage tax. Litterick placed second on first-preference votes in the riding of Winnipeg , which elected ten members via preferential balloting. He was declared elected on the second count, after receiving numerous transfer votes from first-place candidate Lewis St. George Stubbs . Litterick regarded himself as an ally of Stubbs, a popular left-wing judge and Independent candidate. Litterick's primary support base was in Winnipeg's working-class north end, and he received considerable support from the city's Jewish community (his wife, Molly, was Jewish). Litterick was not a major figure in the national Communist Party. He delivered a speech entitled "Whither Manitoba" in 1937 , which was subsequently issued as a pamphlet; beyond this, he did not play a significant public role in the party's national activities. Because of his loyalty to Moscow , Litterick expressed contradictory views on Canada's involvement in World War II in late 1939 . On September 9 , he urged both Premier John Bracken and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to give full support to Poland against Nazi Germany 's invasion. After Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler signed a Non-aggression Pact on October 7 , Litterick was required to retract this position, and oppose the war as an Imperialist venture. He was expelled from the Manitoba legislature in 1940 , after the Communist Party was declared an illegal organization. He had already gone into hiding, apparently the subject of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police manhunt. Litterick's whereabouts after 1940 are a mystery. He appears in a photograph of Canada's wartime Communist Party leaders, apparently taken in Montreal in 1942 . Beyond this, there are no definitive reports of his activities after going into hiding. Rumours have long circulated that he was killed as a traitor by other Communist Party members, and his body left in British Columbia's Fraser River . In the 1980s , longtime New Democratic Party MP David Orlikow concluded that Litterick was actually a spy for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police . These reports have never been verified. |
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