80 Years Later, Remembering the Treatment of Japanese Canadians and African Americans After the Attack

 Pearl Harbor: 80 Years Later, Remembering the Treatment of Japanese Canadians and African Americans After the Attack

JAYNE MACAULAY | DECEMBER 7TH, 2021

In a 2012 interview, 89-year-old Frank Moritsugu of Toronto pointed out that no other ethnic groups, including German and Italian, were mass evacuated. Under the Act, homes, fishing boats and personal property of Japanese Canadians were seized and sold for a pittance. Family members were often separated and sent to work or family camps within the province or to farms in Alberta, Manitoba or Ontario.

But the real motivation for the order was racism, especially in British Columbia. Influential politicians from the province had pressed the senior government to act. Since 1895, Canadians of Chinese, East Indian and Japanese heritage had not been allowed to vote in the province — a situation that also denied them a federal vote and kept them out of certain professions.