Japanese Internment Camps In Canada

It is thought by many that internment camps came about due to the racist attitudes held by Canadians towards Japanese Canadians. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this racism came to the forefront in a big way. The Canadian government passed the "Order in council PC 1486", which expanded the power of the Minister of Justice to remove any and all persons within a one hundred mile radius of the B.C. coast. This was part of the War Measures Act.

On March 4th, 1942, the B.C. Security Commission was established, and 22, 00 Japanese Canadians were given twenty four hours to pack before they were seperated from their families, incarcerated, and interned.

There were several different kinds of camps. There were POW camps in Angler and Petawawa; Road camps at Hope, Revelstroke, and Blue River; Self-Supporting camps at Lillooet, Bridge River, Minto City, McGillvray Falls, and Christina Lake; and finally there were actual Internment Camps at Tashme, Greenwood, Slocan Creek, Lemon Creek, Popoff, Bay Farm, Rosebery, New Denver, Sandon, and Kaslo.

The Japanese Canadians were initially sent to a temporary facility in Vancouver called Hastings Park Race Track. Eventually, men would be seperated from their families and forced to work as crews building roads and railroads, as well as on sugar beet farms. The women, children, and elderly were sent to internment camps in the interior of British Columbia.

There were 1161 internees that paid for relocation and the leasing of farms in the desolate "self-supporting" camps, as the atmosphere was less restrictive and punitive. However, these Japanese Canadians were sill considered "enemies" by the government.

There were about 945 men at the road camps. Men who complained about being seperated from their families, as well as those who violated cerfew, were sent to the POW camps in Ontario. There were forced to wear shirts with red targts on their backs. These were nearly 700 men sent to these POW camps.

Japanese Canadians suffered impoverishment in much the same ways as Jews in Germany did before the war began. They had their property, businesses, cars, and boats confiscated by the government, and then sold at an extremely low price. They even had to pay admnistrative costs for the sale of their stolen property.

Unlike their American counterparts, Japanese Canadians were prevented from joining the military until after 1945. Despite their incarceration and bad treatment, the Japanese Canadians still volunteered to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.

In 1945, the War Measures Act was extended by the Canadian government, forcing Japanese Canadians to be deported back to Japan--a country many of them had never even seen, having been born in Canada. Also, up until 1949, it was illegal for the deported Japanese Canadians to return to Vancouver, despite the fact that the war had ended.

After internment, the Japanese Canadians were forced to start their lives over again, as their properties had been sold, and their economic resources were gone.

The Prime Minister of Canada passed a redress and issued an apology in 1988 for the injustices Japanese Canadians suffered. However, $21000 hardly seems enough to compensate for years lost to incarceration, confiscated property, seperation of families, and the terrible psychological scars left by internment.