During WWII, America’s friendly neighbor to the north, wasn’t.
January 14, 1942: Canada ordered the removal of Japanese men between the ages of 18 and 45 from a 100-mile “protected area” along the British Columbia coast.
It was only the beginning.
After Pearl Harbor and Canada’s declaration of war on Japan the following day, Japanese Canadians faced a wave of suspicion and hostility similar to what Japanese Americans experienced in the United States: public hysteria, racial profiling, confiscation of property, and forced removal to hastily built camps.
But to their credit, Canada went even further.
Citizens, And What Little That Meant
Nearly 80 percent of the 29,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in British Columbia were Canadian citizens, not foreign nationals. Citizenship did not protect them.
Families were systematically broken apart. Husbands were separated from wives. Fathers from their own families. In some cases, mothers from her children. Thousands were deported to Japan — including Canadian-born citizens who had never lived there.
Unlike in the United States, Japanese Canadians were not allowed to prove their loyalty through military service. With rare exceptions of roughly 200 men permitted to serve as interpreters in intelligence units, most were barred entirely. Some who volunteered were discharged, only to later discover they were still prohibited from returning home or reclaiming their rights.
Seven Years of Exile
In the United States, mass incarceration officially lasted from 1942 to 1945. In Canada, exclusion and detention stretched from 1942 to 1949 — more than double the duration.
Homes, fishing boats, businesses, and personal property were seized and sold by the government. Entire communities were erased. When the war ended, many Japanese Canadians were still forbidden from returning to the coast where they had lived for generations.
Rebuilding was not just difficult. For many, it was impossible. In total, 27,000 people were detained without charge or trial, more than 90 percent of all people of Japanese ancestry in Canada at the time.
The Thinking Behind the Policy
The racial logic driving these policies was not hidden.
It was recorded.
Glenn Willoughby McPherson, a young bureaucrat who established and directed the Vancouver Office of the Custodian, once said that “the only way the Yellow Race can obtain their place in the sun is by winning the war.” He believed skin color determined loyalty. He also oversaw the forced sale of Japanese Canadian–owned properties.
The day Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945, William Lyon Mackenzie King, the prime minister who approved mass incarceration, wrote in his diary that it was “fortunate” the atomic bomb had been used on Japan rather than on “the white races of Europe.” The camps, the deportations, the family separations — none of it was accidental.
Redress, A Month After America
Canada would eventually acknowledge the injustice. In September of 1988, survivors began receiving $21,000 in redress, along with a formal apology — $1,000 more than the $20,000 approved in the United States under the Civil Liberties Act a month earlier.
Citizenship was also restored to Japanese Canadians who had been stripped of it and deported.
But by then, many families had already been destroyed. Many never returned home. And many never lived to hear the apology at all.
The camps did not end when the war did.
For Japanese Canadians, the punishment lasted much longer.
