page_title: Canoe River train crash
section_title: Hiring of counsel, arrest
hierarchical_section_title: Canoe River train crash / Prosecution / Hiring of counsel, arrest
caption_attribution_description: English: John Diefenbaker as a new Member of Parliament, May 1940.
context_page_description: The Canoe River train crash occurred on November 21, 1950, near Valemount in eastern British Columbia, Canada, when a westbound troop train and the eastbound Canadian National Railway Continental Limited collided head-on. The collision killed 21 people: 17 Canadian soldiers en route to the Korean War and the two-man locomotive crew of each train.
  The post-crash investigation found that the order given to the troop train differed from the intended message. Crucial words were missing, causing the troop train to proceed on its way rather than halt on a siding, resulting in the collision. A telegraph operator, Alfred John "Jack" Atherton, was charged with manslaughter; the Crown alleged that he was negligent in passing an incomplete message. His family hired his Member of Parliament, John Diefenbaker, as defence counsel. Diefenbaker joined the British Columbia bar to take the case, and obtained Atherton's acquittal.
  After the accident, the CNR installed block signals on the stretch of track on which the crash occurred. The railway later realigned the main line in that area, eliminating a sharp curve that prevented crews from seeing oncoming trains.
context_section_description: In anticipation of charges being laid against his son, Atherton's father approached Member of Parliament and King's Counsel John Diefenbaker in December 1950 and sought to retain him as defence counsel. The Athertons were Diefenbaker's constituents; their hometown, Zealandia, Saskatchewan, was in his riding, Lake Centre. Diefenbaker declined the case, stating that Parliament had first call on his time, that his wife Edna was seriously ill with leukemia, and that he was not admitted as a lawyer in British Columbia. As Edna Diefenbaker was well known as an influence over her husband, in desperation Alfred Atherton Sr. talked his way into her Saskatoon hospital room.
  In his memoirs, Diefenbaker did not mention the elder Atherton's initial approach but wrote that he was in Australia at a parliamentary conference at the time of the Canoe River crash. An Australian lawyer pointed out the case to Diefenbaker; he thought it interesting but noted that he was not a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. Diefenbaker wrote that he planned to meet Edna in Hawaii on his way back from Australia. Instead she wired him, requesting that he meet her in Vancouver.
  Diefenbaker related that he found his wife in a Saskatoon hospital, in the final stages of the illness that would kill her (she died on February 7, 1951). She told him that Jack Atherton had been to see her and that the soldiers' deaths were from being transported in wooden train cars. "Everyone in the CNR is running away from responsibility for what appears to have been a grievous disregard for human lives." John Diefenbaker objected that the bar examination in British Columbia was notoriously difficult and that the application fee was $1,500. Edna Diefenbaker informed her husband, "I told him you'd take it", and eventually her husband gave in.
  Atherton was arrested for manslaughter on January 9, 1951, in Saskatoon and was taken to Prince George by the RCMP. After his dismissal by the CNR, Atherton was staying with his parents at Zealandia, where his father was CNR station agent. The manslaughter charge concerned the death of Henry Proskunik, fireman aboard the troop train. Bail was set at $5,000, and Magistrate P.J. Moran required any sureties to appear before him, making it difficult for Atherton's connections in Saskatchewan to obtain his release. Atherton was released from custody on January 24, as Prince George furniture store owner Alex Moffat and local CNR employee William Reynolds each posted sureties valued at $2,500.
  After his wife's death in February 1951, Diefenbaker travelled to Vancouver in early March to take the British Columbia bar examination, which the Prince George Citizen called "a formality which will cost him $1500". (Failure to pass the bar would effectively disqualify Diefenbaker from the Atherton case because he would have to wait for reexamination, and the preliminary hearing was set for mid-March.)  He paid his fee and was then given an oral examination by the bar secretary, which in full was:
  "Are there contracts required by statute to be in writing?"
  "Yes."
  "Name one of them."
  
  "A land contract." 
  Diefenbaker was then congratulated for being the first applicant to pass the British Columbia bar exam with a perfect score.
caption: John Diefenbaker, seen soon after his election to the House of Commons, 1940.
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