[book cover] My Past Is Now

My Past Is Now Further Memoirs of a Labour Lawyer

John Stanton, with a preface by Bryan D. Palmer

In this further volume of autobiography, BC labour and human rights lawyer John Stanton returns to his career in the law. After reviewing his childhood, education, and early political experiences in Vancouver, during the Depression years, he discusses some of his most important cases. These include: the defence of Fergus McKean, a BC communist leader who was interned during World War II; an exceptional criminal libel suit prosecution in Cold War BC; and an account of his relations with the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers. A must for all interested in labour and the left in Canada.

Table of Contents

  1. Abbreviations
  2. Preface
  3. Chapter 1. My Early Life
  4. Chapter 2. A Political Education Begins
  5. Chapter 3. Changing Times in Canada
  6. Chapter 4. The Coe Case (1940), The McKean Case (1941)
  7. Chapter 5. A Case of Criminal Libel
  8. Chapter 6. Danny and the Man from Headless Valley
  9. Chapter 7. An American Aggressor
  10. Chapter 8. The Sell- Out of Mine-Mill
  11. Chapter 9. Again the Family
  12. Chapter 10. Rights and Freedoms
  13. Sources
  14. Index