David Arnold Croll, (born Davud Avrum Croll; March 12, 1900 – June 11, 1991) was a Canadian politician. He served twice as the mayor of Windsor, Ontario. He entered provincial politics in the 1930s, and served as minister of public works and municipal affairs in the Mitch Hepburn government. He won election to the House of Commons in 1945. In 1955 he was appointed to the Senate, becoming the first 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. Instead, he was appointed to the Senate 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.<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."</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 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.

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.

In his honour, the Senator David A. Croll Apartments, a seniors' residence in Toronto was named after him. 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. The building was selected, as a pilot project, for installing Canada's first rooftop combined heat and power system.

Archives

There is a David Arnold Croll fonds at Library and Archives Canada.

References

  • David Croll at Canadian Encyclopedia