Canada and Japan were on bad terms since they were on opposing sides during World War One. So, by World War Two, that tension became started causing racism. For example, during WWI and WWII, many Canadians of Japanese descent were placed in the internment camps. This caused great animosity between the two nations as you could imagine. Canada was very worried about their Japanese population, so they took other measures like shutting down Japanese news outlets, and denouncing them as axis propaganda. Within days of the Pearl Harbour attack (December 7th, 1941), Canadian Pacific Railways fired all its Japanese workers, and most other Canadian industries followed suit. Japanese fishermen in British Columbia were ordered to stay in port, and 1,200 fishing boats were seized by the Canadian navy. This is a rather corrupt part of Canada’s history because they would take Fourth generation Japanese families into internment camps so they could seize their property and sell it to pay for ammunition, boats, vehicles and housing. They were also made in order to take in Italian families for the same reason of being able to keep up in the war.
They also had these internment camp up for labour, because many factories were experiencing strikes due to the massive demand for the war, and workers knew that they were vital, and the unions helped feed the flames. At these labour camps, they farmed beets and sugar. They are also responsible for a major part of the construction of Canada’s railways and they produced many bullets. WWII internment camps are also responsible for the construction of the Banff National Park. In WWI, the vast majority of prisoners were German, Austrian, Hungarian or Turkish. Out of the total of 8,579 men (at 24 camps across Canada), 5,954 were of Austrian or Hungarian origin, which included 5,000 Ukrainians. 2,009 were Germans; 205 were Turks and 99 were Bulgarian. Now, here is another corrupt point for Canada. You were only allowed to take these people and put them into internment camps on the base of “reasonable grounds.” What is reasonable grounds you ask? Well it can be for espionage, or being fascist… or Canada needs money, bullets and guns so they put German ,Austrian ,Hungarian and Turkish families into camps for labour and estate to sell. In World War Two here were over 30000 prisoners. To be fair thought the vast majority of prisoners were fascist and were guilty of espionage.
At the beginning of World War One there was 24 camps, by the end of World War Two there 40 camps. Over 700 Germans were captured from east Asia. The major camps were Kanaskis in Alberta, Petawawa in Ontario and Fredericton in New Brunswick. In some cases disloyal Jews would also be interned. For the quality of life new internees would be vaccinated due to the conditions and there was waiting lines for everything. There were lines for showers, food, bathrooms and much more. Each mess hall would hold between 200 and 300 prisoners. During a low point some prisoners would sleep in animal stalls. There would be a census twice a day and frequent shakedowns to search for radios and cameras. However because of the massive amounts of Canadians in internment camps they needed to humanize them more because after the war they would be released and they didn’t want the people to renter society with mental trauma of negative information about the camps. Adults were allowed to play baseball to raise morale and kids played soccer. There were barbers there as well and they would shave everyone’s head to prevent the spreading of lice. These camps were not very nice though and conditions were rough, after the war was the largest exodus in Canadian history with over 25 000 Japanese people leaving the country after the war.
The division of men and women in this time period meant that women were forced to wait long periods of time to have children and get married. This lengthened the amount of time that single women had to be independent, and this impacted the Japanese-Canadian community after internment, by creating more independent women, both of which disrupted the pre-internment way of life. Younger children were unfortunately forced, against their will, to step up and take on more responsibilities when their fathers were taken away, because In that time period, that was the only option that the people had. Accounts from children living inside internment camps recall the impact not having a father. One girl recalls how her sister went from being a pampered eldest child to being a head of household in their father’s absence. This was disruptive to a typical family structure because not only was a minor in charge of the household, but it was also a woman. Transitions such as these, gave women a much greater power within the family structure, which was good, and gave children more adult-like responsibilities.