Sous-fonds SF137 - Lorne and Edith Pierce collection. Eugene A. Forsey sous-fonds

Eugene Alfred Forsey was born in Grand Bank, Newfoundland on May 29th, 1904. A Rhodes scholar, Forsey was educated at McGill and Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics. He worked for the Canadian Labour Congress and became well known for his socialist politics; paradoxically, he was also close to Conservative Arthur Meighen, whose views on the King-Byng Affair, Forsey found compatible. He published one influential study, The Royal Power of Dissolution of Parliament (1943), but he is best known for his innumerable debates and acerbic articles and letters on public affairs.
Forsey twice ran as a CCF candidate, but he refused to join the New Democratic Party because of its policy of Deux Nations. Appointed to the Senate, Forsey sat as a Liberal 1970-79 but left the party in 1982 after disagreements over constitutional amendments. Forsey also published Trade Unions in Canada: 1812-1902(1982) and, with J.A. Richardson and G.S. Kealey, Perspectives on the Atlantic-Canada Labour Movement and the Working Class Experience (1985). He was appointed to the Privy Council of Canada in 1985 and was made Companion of the Order of Canada in 1989. He died at Victoria, British Columbia on February 20th, 1991.