View source for David Croll

{{Short description|Canadian politician}}
{{for|the Australian physician and military officer|David Gifford Croll}}
{{Use Canadian English|date=September 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{more citations needed|date=December 2012}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = [[The Honourable]]
| name                = David Croll
| honorific-suffix    = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|PC|QC|size=100%}}
| image               = 
| imagesize           = 
| office              = [[Senate of Canada|Senator]]
| constituency        = Toronto—Spadina, Ontario
| appointed           = [[Louis St. Laurent]]
| term_start          = 1955
| term_end            = 1991
| parliament2         = Canadian
| riding2             = [[Spadina (electoral district)|Spadina]]
| predecessor2        = [[Samuel Factor (Canadian politician)|Samuel Factor]]
| successor2          = [[Charles Edward Rea]]
| term_start2         = 1945
| term_end2           = 1955
| office3             = [[Member of Provincial Parliament (Ontario)|Ontario MPP]]
| term_start3         = 1934
| term_end3           = 1943
| predecessor3        = [[Frank Worthington Wilson]] ([[Windsor East]])
| successor3          = [[William Charles Riggs]]
| constituency3       = [[Windsor—Walkerville (provincial electoral district)|Windsor—Walkerville]]
| office4             = 18th & 21st [[List of mayors of Windsor, Ontario|Mayor]]
| constituency4       = [[Windsor, Ontario]]
| term_start4         = 1931
| term_end4           = 1934
| predecessor4        = [[Cecil E. Jackson]]
| successor4          = [[George Bennett (Ontario politician)|George Bennett]]
| constituency5       = [[Windsor, Ontario]]
| term_start5         = 1939
| term_end5           = 1940
| predecessor5        = [[Ernest S. Wigle]]
| successor5          = [[Arthur Reaume]]
| birth_name          = Davud Avrum Croll
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1900|03|12}}
| birth_place         = Moscow, Russia
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1991|06|11|1900|03|12}}
| death_place         = [[Ottawa|Ottawa, Ontario]], Canada
| resting_place       = [[Beth Tzedec Memorial Park]]
| nationality         = 
| spouse              = 
| party               = [[Liberal Party of Canada|Liberal]]
| otherparty          = [[Ontario Liberal Party]]
| cabinet             = '''Provincial''':<br />Minister of Labour (1935–1937)<br />Minister of Municipal Affairs (1934–1937)<br />Minister of Public Welfare (1934–1937)
| committees          = '''Federal''':<br />Chair, Special Committee on Retirement Age Policies<br />Chair, Special Committee on Poverty<br />Chair, Special Committee on Aging
| relations           = 
| children            = 
| residence           = 
| alma_mater          = 
| occupation          = 
| profession          = 
}}
'''David Arnold Croll''', {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|PC|QC}} (born '''Davud Avrum Croll'''; March 12, 1900 – June 11, 1991) was a [[Canadian]] politician. He served as the mayor of [[Windsor, Ontario]] twice. He entered provincial politics in the 1930s, and served as minister of public works and municipal affairs in the [[Mitch Hepburn]] government.<ref name="Star Obit">{{cite news|title= Senator Croll, 91, champion of the poor|newspaper = The Toronto Star|date= 1991-06-12|author= Canadian Press|location= Toronto|page= A20}}</ref> He won election to the [[House of Commons of Canada]] in 1945. In 1955 he was appointed to the [[Senate of Canada]], becoming the first [[Judaism|Jewish]] Senator. He served as a senator until his death, on June 11, 1991, a few hours after what would be his last senate sitting.<ref name="Star Obit" />

==Early life==
Croll was born in [[Moscow]], [[Russia]] and was brought to Canada with his family as a young boy, at which point his name was anglicized. Croll became a lawyer and entered politics serving as [[mayor]] of [[Windsor, Ontario]] from 1931 to 1934 during the worst days of the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="Star Obit" /> He made his reputation as a social reformer when he insisted the city go into deficit in order to provide relief programs for the unemployed and destitute.

==Provincial politics==
Croll won a seat in the [[Legislative Assembly of Ontario]] as a [[Ontario Liberal Party|Liberal]] [[Member of the Legislative Assembly]] (MLA) for [[Windsor—Walkerville (provincial electoral district)|Windsor—Walkerville]] in the [[1934 Ontario general election|1934 election]] that brought the Liberals to power under the leadership of [[Mitchell Hepburn]]. Croll became Canada's first [[Jewish]] [[cabinet (government)|cabinet]] minister when he became Minister of Public Welfare. He later also added the portfolios of Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister of Labour. He and [[Attorney-General]] [[Arthur Roebuck]] broke with Hepburn over the Premier's opposition to the [[United Auto Workers]] strike against [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]] in [[Oshawa]] in 1937, and resigned from cabinet saying "I would rather walk with the workers than ride with General Motors."  He remained a provincial Liberal backbencher until 1943, as well as serving again as Mayor of Windsor.

==Military service==
He served in the [[Canadian Army]] during the [[Second World War]], enlisting as a [[Private (rank)|Private]] in the [[Essex Scottish Regiment]] and rising in rank to [[lieutenant-colonel]].

[[File:David Croll photo in The Glengarry News 1940-08-23.png|thumb|News clipping of David Croll in England in 1940]]

==Federal politics==
He was recruited by the [[Liberal Party of Canada]] to contest the [[Toronto]] riding of [[Spadina (electoral district)|Spadina]] in the [[1945 Canadian federal election|1945 federal election]].<ref name="Star Obit" /> The Liberals feared that [[Tim Buck]], leader of the [[communist]] [[Labor-Progressive Party]] was poised to win the riding. The popular Croll was seen as the only Liberal who could defeat him. After Croll was nominated, Buck instead ran in a neighbouring riding, leaving [[Sam Carr]] to be the LPP's candidate. Croll handily won a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, becoming Spadina's [[Member of Parliament (Canada)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) and [[Tory]] Toronto's sole Liberal MP. He was re-elected in the [[1949 Canadian federal election|1949]] and [[1953 Canadian federal election|1953 elections]].

Despite being regarded as one of the most talented Liberal MPs and, until 1950, the only Liberal MP from Toronto, Croll was never summoned to the [[Canadian Cabinet]] where he would have become the first Jewish federal cabinet minister.<ref name="Grafstein speech 2005">
{{cite web 
 | last1       = Grafstein, Q.C.
 | first1      = Senator Jerry S.
 | author-link1 = Jerry Grafstein
 | title       = The Life and Times of the Late Senator David Croll
 | url         = http://www.beth-tzedec.org/home.do?ch=content&cid=4718
 | publisher   = Beth Tzedec Congregation
 | access-date  = 2014-07-22
 | archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20060708080037/http://www.beth-tzedec.org/home.do?ch=content&cid=4718
 | archive-date=2006-07-08
 | location    = Toronto
 | year        = 2005
}}
</ref> Instead, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1955, becoming Canada's first Jewish senator. In the early 1950s, Croll drew attention when he attacked the early release of Nazi war criminals.<ref name="Senate appointment">
{{cite news
 | author1    = Chronicle Staff
 | title      = Senator Croll
 | url        = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HvJOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e0wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3545%2C4675813
 | access-date = 2014-07-22
 | work       = The Canadian Jewish Chronicle
 | date       = 1955-08-05
 | location   = Montreal
 | page       = 3
}}
</ref><blockquote>"We are still dealing with a people who are undemocratic and unrepentant, who consider themselves unfortunate and whose chief objective at present is to figure out the winning side and get on it. Fears of the rearming of Germany were not allayed when we read of the reappearance on the present scene of left-over and warmed-up Nazi generals and some of the manifestations of Fascism. Ex-German generals, former Nazi leaders and war criminals are starting to roll off the Allied amnesty assembly lines."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=Jewish Members in Canadian Parliament Attack U.S. Clemency to Nazi War Criminals |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-members-in-canadian-parliament-attack-u-s-clemency-to-nazi-war-criminals |access-date=2023-12-14 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}</ref></blockquote>

Croll was the author of the influential 1971 "Report of the Special Senate Committee on Poverty" which began with the words "the poor do not choose poverty. It is at once their affliction and our national shame. The children of the poor (and there are many) are the most helpless victims of all, and find even less hope in a society where welfare systems from the very beginning destroys their chances of a better life." The report moved the [[Pierre Trudeau|Trudeau]] government to triple family allowances in 1973 and institute the Child Tax Credit in 1978. Aside from his work on poverty, he was also responsible for Senate reports on aging. In 1990 in recognition of his contributions, he was sworn into the [[Queen's Privy Council for Canada]], an honour usually given only to federal cabinet ministers.

[[File:Former Rochdale College.JPG|thumb|Former Rochdale College renamed by Metro Housing Corporation in 1978 as the Senator David A. Croll Apartments.]]

He remained an active senator until his death, even taking his seat in the "Red Chamber" a few hours before his death. He died of [[heart failure]] in the [[Château Laurier]] Hotel, a few hours after attending an afternoon senate session on June 11, 1991.<ref name="Star Obit" /> At the time, he was the oldest serving senator, as he was appointed at a time when appointments to the senate were for life.<ref name="Speirs Article">
{{cite news
 | last        = Speirs
 | first       = Rosemary
 | title       = Senator David Croll remembered as being 'a voice of the people'
 | newspaper   = The Toronto Star
 | date        = 1991-06-14
 | location    = Toronto
 | page        = A4
}}
</ref>

In his honour, the Senator David A. Croll Apartments, a seniors' residence in Toronto was named after him.<ref name=Renaming>
{{cite news
 | author1 = Star Staff
 | title   = New image for Rochdale: Re-naming after Sen. David Croll
 | work    = The Toronto Star
 | date    = 1978-04-29
 | page    = A8
}}
</ref> The irony is that the building was originally the focus of Toronto's late 1960s youth counterculture, infamous [[Rochdale College]], built by Campus Co-operative Student Residences (Campus Co-op) in 1968 as a student co-operative residence.<ref name="Rochdale Renamed">{{cite news|last1= Goodspeed|first1= Peter|title= The rebirth of Rochdale: Seniors start moving into former hippie haven|work= The Toronto Star|date= 1979-12-04|page= A7}}</ref> The building was selected, as a pilot project, for installing Canada's first rooftop [[Cogeneration|combined heat and power system]].

== Archives ==
There is a David Arnold Croll [[fonds]] at [[Library and Archives Canada]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Finding aid to David Croll fonds, Library and Archives Canada|url=http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000318.pdf|access-date=2002-06-18}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
* {{Canadian Parliament links|ID=10124}}
* {{Ontario MPP biography|id=david-arnold-croll}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.albertasenator.ca/flashblocks/data/BT%20Poverty/Croll%20Report%201971.pdf|author=Special Senate Committee on Poverty|date=2010-01-20|title=Poverty in Canada – Report of the Special Senate Committee on Poverty|access-date=2018-03-18}}
* [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/article/david-croll David Croll] at [[Canadian Encyclopedia]]

{{Hepburn Ministry}}
{{Mayors of Windsor, Ontario}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Croll, David}}
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1991 deaths]]
[[Category:Lawyers in Ontario]]
[[Category:Canadian people of Russian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Canadian King's Counsel]]
[[Category:Canadian senators from Ontario]]
[[Category:Liberal Party of Canada MPs]]
[[Category:Ontario Liberal Party MPPs]]
[[Category:Liberal Party of Canada senators]]
[[Category:Mayors of Windsor, Ontario]]
[[Category:Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario]]
[[Category:Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada]]
[[Category:Members of the Executive Council of Ontario]]
[[Category:People from Mogilev]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian lawyers]]
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[[Category:Canadian Army officers of World War II]]
[[Category:White Russian emigrants to Canada]]
[[Category:Essex Scottish Regiment]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario]]
[[Category:20th-century mayors of places in Ontario]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the House of Commons of Canada]]
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