Editing Jacob Penner (section)

===Wartime internment===
[[File:TotalWarCommittee-ad-420924.jpg|thumb|right|300px|September 1942 ad for a public program of the "Communist-Labor Total War Committee" advocating speedy opening of a second front in Europe, featuring a speech by Jacob Penner.]]

During [[World War II]], Penner became the first Canadian Communist interned for security reasons, being arrested on June 11, 1940 under Regulation 21 of the [[Defence of Canada Regulations]].<ref name=Pen185>Penner, ''Canadian Communism,'' pg. 185.</ref> This allowed for the Minister of Justice, in this case [[Ernest Lapointe]], to order the arrest and detention of individuals deemed dangerous to public safety as prisoners of war.<ref name=Remanded>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4798421/penner_and_naviziwsky_remanded_in/ "Penner and Naviziwsky Remanded in Custody,"] ''Winnipeg Tribune,'' vol. 51, no. 160 (July 4, 1940), pg. 13.</ref> Penner was just beginning his third term of office as an elected member of the Winnipeg City Council at the time of his arrest.<ref name=Pen185 />

Arrested together with [[John Naviziwsky]] as "active and dangerous Communists,"<ref name=Remanded /> Penner was interred in a camp for political prisoners located at [[Kananaskis, Alberta (community)|Kananaskis, Alberta]], outside of [[Calgary]].<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4798180/alderman_penner_dr_schneider_are/ "Alderman Penner, Dr. Schneider Are Taken Into Police Custody,"] ''Winnipeg Tribune,'' vol. 51, no. 141 (June 12, 1940), pp. 1, 5.</ref> The pair were held at the Kananaskis internment camp with several hundred Germans suspected of [[Nazi]] sympathies.<ref name=Remanded />

Penner was unseated from the Winnipeg City Council as a result of his incarceration in a concentration camp, only to be replaced in a by-election by former Communist member of the Winnipeg City Council [[Martin "Joe" Forkin]], who ran of necessity as an "Independent."<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4798486/former_communist_mj_forkin_elected_to/ "Picked Up in Passing,"] ''Lethbridge [AB] Herald,'' vol. 34, no. 85 (July 19, 1941), pg. 4.</ref>

Following [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] entry into the war on the side of the British Empire, France, and the United States in the summer of 1941, Penner's incarceration became a ''cause célèbre,'' with Winnipeg politicians from across the political spectrum advocating for his pardon, culminating in Penner's release in July 1942.<ref name=Pen185 /> Following his release, Penner joined his Communist Party associates in advocating publicly for the immediate opening of a second front in Europe to take military pressure off the Soviet Union, which was fighting for its survival in the aftermath of Nazi Germany's [[Operation Barbarossa]].