Reparations: Japanese and Ukrainian Internment
Background
Imagine one day you were informed that you
had to gather whatever belongings you could carry and that you had to leave
your family and home? You were being sent away by order of the government and
that you were not told when you would be returning home? This was the uncertain
fate faced by thousands of Japanese and Ukrainian Canadians.
It is no secret that both the Japanese
Canadians and Ukrainian Canadians were placed in internment camps during both
world wars. Both of these groups were placed in internment camps against their
own will, arguably because of the racist attitudes that many Canadians held
against them
Ukrainian
Canadian Internment
Canada’s first internment operation
occurred during the First World War (1914-1920), as a result of the “War
Measures Act,” enacted by the council of the government on August 14th,
1915.
In 1914, there were approximately 170,000
Ukrainians living in Canada, the majority coming from Western Ukraine. Because
they originated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their citizenship was not
Canadian. It was either Austrian or Austro-Hungarian.
8,579 Ukrainian Canadians were interned in
concentration camps. 5000 of these Ukrainians had immigrated to Canada with the
hopes of escaping the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the remaining
were already Canadian citizens.
Most Ukrainian Canadians were obviously not
interned; however, the free Ukrainians were forced to register themselves as
“enemy aliens.” By doing so they lost their right to vote and were restricted
from serving in the Canadian military. They were treated like outsiders.
The Ukrainians who interned were mostly
unemployed or very poor prior to their internment, and obviously did not even
pose a military threat to Canada.The interned Ukrainians were used as forced labor
workers and worked on developing Canadian infrastructures such as the steels
mills in Ontario and Nova Scotia, mines in British Columbia, Ontario and Nova
Scotia, and the logging industry in Northern Ontario and Quebec.
Because of the success of these internment
programs, Ukrainian Canadians were forced to work approximately two years after
the war ended. The average length of internment was 1.5 years. The estimated
losses for interned Ukrainian Canadians is somewhere between $21.6-$32.5
million dollars (in 1991).
The cause and reason for Ukrainian internment is
very difficult to determine. The official explanation was that they were a
security threat. The internment clearly showcases anti-immigrant feelings held
by the majority population at that time. It is also argued that the economic
benefits of forced labor highly benefited the Canadian government and Canada as a
whole. It is possible that we will never know why it was specifically the
Ukrainians that were chosen.
