"Enemy Aliens": The Internment of Japanese, Italian and German Canadians

Approaching this lesson

This lesson looks at how the Canadian government treated some of its own residents, many of them citizens, as enemies during the war, mainly because of their origins. It is a story of injustice, and also of community strength and a long fight for redress that changed Canadian law.

Hook: a family photo album

Imagine your family has fished off the British Columbia coast for two generations. Your parents were born in Canada. Then, in a few months in 1942, your boat is seized, you are given 24 hours to pack one suitcase each, your family is split up, and your home is later sold without your permission. This happened to thousands of Japanese Canadian families. How could this happen in a democracy at war against dictatorships?

The War Measures Act and "enemy aliens"

When the war began, the government used the War Measures Act and the Defence of Canada Regulations. Cabinet could arrest and intern people without trial, ban organizations and seize property.

• German Canadians: people suspected of Nazi sympathies were interned, as were others caught up in broad suspicion. Several hundred German Canadians were interned.
• Italian Canadians: after Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940, Italian Canadians had to register as enemy aliens, and about 600 Italian Canadian men were interned, many at Petawawa, Ontario, often with little or no evidence against them. Families lost their main income and faced suspicion in their communities. In May 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized in the House of Commons.
• Others interned included Communists, some Quebec politicians who opposed the war (such as Montreal mayor Camillien Houde, who urged men not to register), fascist leader Adrien Arcand, and about 2,300 men sent from Britain, most of them Jewish refugees (Lesson 11).

Japanese Canadians: uprooted and dispossessed

In 1941 more than 22,000 people of Japanese origin lived in Canada, almost all of them in British Columbia. Most were Canadian citizens, and many were born here. They had long faced racism: they could not vote in BC, and were kept out of many jobs.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and Hong Kong (December 8, local time), anti-Japanese pressure from BC politicians, newspapers and groups grew. Senior RCMP and military officers told the government that Japanese Canadians were not a significant threat, and no Japanese Canadian was ever charged with sabotage or spying. The government acted anyway.

• About 1,200 fishing boats were seized.
• On February 24, 1942, Order-in-Council P.C. 1486 allowed the removal of all people of Japanese origin from a "protected area" about 160 km (100 miles) inland from the Pacific coast.
• About 21,000 people (more than 90% of Japanese Canadians in BC) were uprooted. Many were first held in livestock buildings at Hastings Park in Vancouver.
• Families were sent to crowded camps in BC's interior (such as Slocan, New Denver, Kaslo, Greenwood, Sandon and Tashme), to sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba, or, for men, to road camps. Men who protested were sent to prisoner-of-war camps in Ontario.
• In January 1943, the government began selling their homes, farms, businesses and belongings without consent, and used the money to pay for their detention.

After the war: exile and dispersal

The injustice did not end in 1945. Japanese Canadians were forced to choose: move east of the Rockies or be sent to Japan. In 1946, nearly 4,000 people were sent to Japan, including about 1,300 children under 16, many born in Canada. Protests from churches, civil liberties groups and others stopped further deportations. Japanese Canadians won the federal vote in 1948, and the last restrictions, including on returning to the coast, were lifted in 1949. By then, most communities on the coast had been destroyed.

Redress

For decades, Japanese Canadians worked for acknowledgement. The National Association of Japanese Canadians led a redress campaign in the 1980s. On September 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologized in the House of Commons and announced the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement: $21,000 for each eligible survivor, funds for the community, and the creation of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. That same year, the War Measures Act was repealed and replaced by the Emergencies Act, which has stronger protections for rights.

Joy Kogawa's novel Obasan (1981), based on her family's experience, helped many Canadians learn this history.