Canada
War Measures Act of 1914 and Internment of Canadians as "Enemy Aliens"
Internment camp in Banff, Alberta.
Upon Great Britain's declaration of war on Germany, the Borden Conservative government enacted the War Measures Act, in August 1914. The law's sweeping powers allowed the government to suspend or limit civil liberties and provided it the right to incarcerate "enemy aliens."
The term "enemy alien" referred to the citizens of states legally at war with Canada living in Canada during the war.
From 1914 to 1920, Canada interned 8,579 persons as so-called enemy aliens across the country in 24 receiving stations and internment camps. Of that number, 3,138 were classified as prisoners of war, while the others were civilians. The majority of those detained were of Ukrainian descent, targeted because Ukraine was then split between Russia (an ally) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an enemy of the British Empire. Some of the internees were Canadian-born and others were naturalized British subjects, although most were recent immigrants.
Most internees were young unemployed single men apprehended while trying to cross the border into the U.S. to look for jobs -- attempting to leave Canada was illegal. Eighty-one women and 156 children were interned as they had decided to follow their menfolk into the only two camps that accepted families, in Vernon, BC (mainly Germans) and in Spirit Lake near Amos Quebec (mainly Ukrainians).
Internment camp in Fernie, BC.
Besides those placed in internment camps, another 80,000 "enemy aliens," mostly Ukrainians, were forced to carry identity papers and to report regularly to local police offices. They were treated by the government as social pariahs, and many lost their jobs.
|
|
The internment camps were often located in remote rural areas, including in Banff, Jasper, Mount Revelstoke and Yoho national parks in Western Canada. Internees had much of their wealth confiscated. Many of them were used as forced labour on large projects, including the development of Banff National Park and numerous mining and logging operations. They constructed roads, cleared land and built bridges.
Between 1916-17, during a severe shortage of farm labour, nearly all internees were paroled and placed in the custody of local farmers and paid at current wages. Other parolees were sent as paid workers to railway gangs and mines. Parolees were still required to report regularly to police authorities.
Federal and provincial governments and private concerns benefited from their labour and from the confiscation of what little wealth they had, a portion of which was left in the Bank of Canada at the end of the internment operations on June 20, 1920.
A small number of internees, including men considered to be "dangerous foreigners," labour radicals, or particularly troublesome internees, were deported to their countries of origin after the war, largely from the Kapuskasing camp in Ontario, which was the last to be shut down.
Of those interned, 109 died of various diseases and injuries sustained in the camp, six were killed while trying to escape, and some -- according to a military report -- went insane or committed suicide as a result of their confinement.
Internment camp in Petawawa,
Ontario.
(Canadian War Museum, Calgary Herald, Wikipedia)
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 52 - November 11, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54525.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca