F.R. Scott

Francis Reginald Scott commonly known as Frank Scott or F. R. Scott, was a lawyer, Canadian poet, intellectual, and constitutional scholar. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and its successor, the New Democratic Party. He won Canada's top literary prize, the Governor General's Award, twice, once for poetry and once for non-fiction.

Scott was born on August 1, 1899, in Quebec City, the sixth of seven children. His father was Frederick George Scott, "an Anglican priest, minor poet and staunch advocate of the civilizing tradition of imperial Britain, who instilled in his son a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order." He witnessed the riots in the city during the Conscription Crisis of 1917.

Completing his undergraduate studies at Bishop's University, in Lennoxville, Quebec, Scott went to Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar and was influenced by the Christian socialist ideas of R. H. Tawney and the Student Christian Movement.

Scott returned to Canada, settled in Montreal and studied law at McGill University, eventually joining the law faculty as a professor. While at McGill, Scott became a member of the Montreal Group of modernist poets, a circle that also included Leon Edel, John Glassco, and A. J. M. Smith. Scott and Smith became lifelong friends. Scott contributed to the McGill Daily Literary Supplement, which Smith edited; when that folded in 1925, he and Smith founded and edited the McGill Fortnightly Review. 

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation delegation attending the September 1944 Conference of Commonwealth Labour Parties in London, England. Pictured from Left to right: Clarie Gillis, MP for Cape Breton South; David Lewis, National Secretary; M. J. Coldwell, National Leader, MP for Rosetown—Biggar; Percy E. Wright, MP for Melfort; and Frank Scott, National Chairman.

The Great Depression greatly disturbed Scott; he and the historian Frank Underhill founded the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) to advocate socialist solutions in a Canadian context. Through the LSR, Scott became an influential figure in the Canadian socialist movement. He was a founding member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and a contributor to that party's Regina Manifesto. He also edited a book advocating Social Planning for Canada (1935). In 1943, he co-authored Make This Your Canada, spelling out the CCF national programme, with David Lewis. Scott was elected national chairman of the CCF in 1942, and would serve until 1950.

In March 1942 Scott co-founded a literary magazine, Preview, with the Montreal poet Patrick Anderson. Like the earlier Montreal Group publications, "Preview's orientation was cosmopolitan; its members looked largely towards the English poets of the 1930s for inspiration."

In 1950–1951 Scott cofounded Recherches sociales, a study group concerned with the French–English relationship. He began translating French-Canadian poetry.

In 1952 he served as a United Nations technical assistance resident representative in Burma, helping to build a socialist state in that country.

During the 1950s, Scott was an active opponent of the Duplessis regime in Quebec and went to court to fight the Padlock Law. He also represented Frank Roncarrelli, a Jehovah's Witness, in Roncarelli v Duplessis all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, a battle that Maurice Duplessis lost.

Scott began translating French-Canadian poetry, publishing Anne Hébert and Saint-Denys Garneau in 1962. He edited Poems of French Canada (1977), which won the Canada Council prize for translation.

Scott served as dean of law at McGill University from 1961 to 1964 and served on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. In 1970 he was offered a seat in the Senate of Canada by Pierre Trudeau but declined the appointment. He did, however, support Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis that same year.

Scott opposed Quebec's Bill 22 and Bill 101 which established the province within its jurisdiction as an officially unilingual province within an officially bilingual country.

Following his death on January 30, 1985, Scott was interred in Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal.