Obituaries : Lucien Cardin; Ex-Canadian Justice Minister Sparked Crisis

Lucien Cardin, who precipitated a parliamentary crisis in the 1960s as justice minister in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson when he claimed that an East German woman working as a spy had compromised an opposition Conservative Party official, died at his home after a long battle with cancer. He was 69.

Cardin, who died Monday, had been a judge of the Tax Court of Canada since 1983.

First elected to Parliament as a Liberal member from Quebec in 1952, Cardin was reelected several times before deciding not to run in the 1968 general election.

Held Number of Posts

After the Liberals under Pearson formed a government in 1963, Cardin was appointed associate defense minister, then public works minister and finally justice minister.

His troubles as justice minister began in 1965 when he confirmed on television that Victor Spencer, a Vancouver postal clerk, had been spying for the Soviet Union.

Spencer had admitted to spying and was fired by the post office without a pension. He was not prosecuted because he was dying of cancer.

The opposition in Parliament contended that Spencer should not have been fired without being prosecuted. Cardin defended the government’s position but, to save his government, Pearson had to agree to an opposition demand for an investigation into the loss of Spencer’s pension.

Embarrassing Case

The scandal expanded when Cardin, under opposition attack for the Liberals’ handling of security cases, replied in March 1966, that the opposition had also been tainted. Cardin then mentioned an embarrassing case involving the Conservatives in which Pearson had asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for all files on members of Parliament in which security was involved.

As a result, Cardin said he had been briefed on Gerda Munsinger, a German call girl and suspected Soviet agent who was considered a security problem because of an affair with Pierre Sevigny. Sevigny was associate defense minister from 1958 to 1960 in the Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

Pearson had discussed the Munsinger affair privately with Diefenbaker, but Cardin’s blurted reference in Parliament was the first public disclosure.

Sevigny, who Munsinger said she knew quite well, branded Cardin a “cheap despicable little man.”

Cardin resigned as justice minister in 1967, was a member of an immigration appeal board from 1970 to 1972 and then served on the tax review board that eventually became the Tax Court of Canada.