Consistent with its decision in the Barnette case, and on the same day, in Taylor v. State of Mississippi,d the Supreme Court of the United States held that Jehovah’s Witnesses could not validly be charged with sedition for explaining their reasons for refraining from saluting the flag and for teaching that all nations are on the losing side because they are in opposition to God’s Kingdom. These decisions also set the scene for subsequent favorable rulings in other courts in cases involving Witness parents whose children had refused to salute the flag in school, as well as in issues involving employment and child custody. The tide had definitely turned.e

Meanwhile, the Society selected two test cases for appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. One of these, Aimé Boucher v. His Majesty The King, dealt with the charge of sedition that had repeatedly been laid against the Witnesses.

The Boucher case was based on the part that Aimé Boucher, a mild-tempered farmer, had in distributing the tract Quebec’s Burning Hate. Was it seditious for him to make known the mob violence directed against Witnesses in Quebec, the disregard for law on the part of officials who dealt with them, and evidence that the Catholic bishop and others of the Catholic clergy were instigating it?

In analyzing the tract that was distributed, one of the justices of the Supreme Court said: “The document was headed ‘Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada;’ it consisted first of an invocation to calmness and reason in appraising the matters to be dealt with in support of the heading; then of general references to vindictive persecution accorded in Quebec to the Witnesses as brethren in Christ; a detailed narrative of specific incidents of persecution; and a concluding appeal to the people of the province, in protest against mob rule and gestapo tactics, that, through the study of God’s Word and obedience to its commands, there might be brought about a ‘bounteous crop of the good fruits of love for Him and Christ and human freedom.’”

The decision of the Court nullified the conviction of Aimé Boucher, but three of the five justices merely ordered a new trial. Would that result in an impartial decision in the lower courts? Application was made by counsel for Jehovah’s Witnesses for the Supreme Court itself to rehear the case. Amazingly, this was granted. While the application was pending, the number of judges on the Court was increased, and one of the original judges changed his mind. The result in December 1950 was a 5-to-4 decision fully acquitting Brother Boucher.

At first, this decision was defied by both the solicitor general and the premier (who was also attorney general) of the province of Quebec, but gradually it was enforced through the courts. Thus the charge of sedition that had repeatedly been raised against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada was effectively buried.