Speaker: Susan Goldenberg, NYHS Director

The kidnapping in 1934 of John Sackville Labatt, president of the big internationally well-known Labatt’s beer company, of London, Ontario, set several firsts in Canadian history. Labatt was the first important Canadian to be kidnapped, the first to be kidnapped for a high ransom, equivalent to $3 million today. It was the first kidnapping in Canada to come to trial. Kidnapping is a very serious, nasty crime and a wrong man was convicted.

But there was also bizarre humour which made it a very unusual kidnapping.