& - Friday, July 10, 1987 - North Shore News

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Canada was not at war
with other Canadians

Dear Editor:

I have been patiently waiting for
someone to reply to Mr. Ron
Smith of Bowen !sland’s open let-
ter to Mr. Mulroney re: the Japa-
nese-Canadians’ claims for repara-
tion for their unjust and pre-
judicial detainment from 194]-
1949 under the War Measures Act.

Sir, | must first explain that 1
am a WASP, for all that means in
Canada of mised races and
religions. But first a Jittle
background to the situation,

December 8, 1941 Japan bomb-
ed Pearl Harbor. Immediately the
fishing boats of the Canadian-
Japaaese were impounded, and a
dawn-to-dusk curfew was imposed
on “every person of the Japanese
race’’,

On Jan. 14, 1942, the gov-
erument ordered the incarceration
of all male nationals between the
ages of i8 and 45. Some 1,300 men
were transported to work the road
camps in Rainbow, Lucerne,
Jasper and Yellowhead on Feb. 23.

On Feb. 25, Prime Minister
William Lyon Mackenzie King an-
nounced in the House of Com-
mons that al! Japanese-Canadians
would be forcibly removed ‘to
safeguard the defences of the
Pacific Coast of Canada.”’

Without regard for citizenship,
birthright ot individual merit —
including service in the Canadian
army during WWI — and without
benefit of investigation or trial, the
entire Jupanese-Canadian com-
munity in B.C. was presumed to
threaten the security of the nation.

Suddenly, for this visible minor-
ity, Canada became a police state.
Armed and with unlimited powers
of the War Measures Act, RCMP
officers entered homes without
warrant, day and night, giving
families only hours to collect a few
belongings before departure for
parts unknown.

Families were herded into the
livestock buildings in Vancouver's
Hastings Park and housed in
animal pens for months, waiting
shipment to detention camps in the
interior of B.C. Husbands and
wives were forcibly separated and
those who defied orders were sent
to prisoner-of-war camps at Angler
and Petawa in Ontario.

Four thousand people were sent
to fill the labor shortages on the
sugar-beet fields of Alberta,
Manitoba and Ontario. Those re-
maining in the detention camps
were made to pay rent on the
meagre accommodations provided.

Their fishing boats, 5,260 hec-

tares of agricultural land in the
Fraser Valley, homes, and even
children's toys were confiscated
and sold at fire sale prices in public
auctions, the money never to be
seen by the owners, but going to
government coffers.

Restrictions to the Japanese-
Canadians continued long after the
war was over. And until Jan. 23,
i947, Japanese-Canadians were
required to carry registration cards
bearing a serial number, thumb-
print and photograph. On April 1,
1949, Tapanese-Canadians again
received the right to vote —- four
years after the end of the war.
Permission to re-enter Canadian
society, is this the ‘‘compensation
to the Japanese satisfaction’’ that
you refer to, Mr. Smith?

In August, 1944, Mackenzie
King was forced to admit, ‘lt is a
fact no person of Japanese race
born in Canada has been charged
with any act of sabotage or
disloyalty during the vears of
war.”

Therefore, { ask Mr. Smith if he
was wrongfully detained, and a cit-
izen of Canada, would he not seek
some compensation for the fnan-
cial loss, and the social degrada-
tion suffered?

Margaret Nakahara, N. Vancouver,

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