Canadian Apology Analysis

The core of the Japanese experience in Canada lies in the shameful and almost undemocratic suspension of human rights that the Canadian government committed during World War II. As a result, thousands of Japanese were uprooted to be imprisoned in internment camps miles away from their homes. While only a small percentage of the Japanese living in Canada were actually nationals of Japan, those who were Canadian born were, without any concrete evidence, continuously being associated with a country that was nothing but foreign to them. Branded as “enemy aliens”, the Japanese Canadians soon came to the realization that their beloved nation harboured so much hate and anti-Asian sentiments that Canada was becoming just as foreign to them as

The apology given in Parliament to Canadians of Japanese descent for sending them to internment camps during World War II.

Canada is presently known for welcoming many racial groups into the country. However, the Canadian government is not always giving out warm welcomes to different ethnicities. During World War Two, the country rejects many Japanese and Italians who are already Canadian. The treatment of the Japanese and Italians in the Second World War is very unjust. The two groups face being put into internment camps against their own will, the government separates families and force men to work on farms with little pay. The government of Canada also mistreat the Japanese and Italian Canadians because they are full of fear and superstition.

Canada today is known for the pride it carries for being multi-cultural, inclusive and combination of many cultural, races and religious backgrounds, but for decades in the past Aboriginal children were abducted from their homes unwillingly to go to these Residential School enforced by Canadian government and laws. The goal of the government at the time was to destroy Aboriginal people and their existence overall. Fast forward in 2008 the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a public apology to Aboriginals regarding their role in residential schools as he quotes “We are sorry. The treatment of children in Indian residential school is a sad chapter of our history” ("Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Statement Of Apology"). Although many Aboriginals considered this a historical day and had a sense of relief “the apology was necessary but insufficient... Apologies once given, are only meaningful for the action that follows” ("Harper Apologizes For Residential School Abuse"). The official apology to Aboriginal Canadians who suffered in the residential school system for policies and actions of the government in the past have been explored in “A Sorry State” article by author Mitch Miyagawa. Sitting government apologizes for past government is appropriate to the mistreatment that occurred to interned, excluded and systematically neglected people, the accountability for past mass atrocity and human rights abuse and democracy for the victims, as well as acknowledging what

As a nation, Canada is known to the rest of the world for being thoughtful, polite, and generally very accepting of all ethnicities and people. However, the treatment of Canada’s Indigenous population, Japanese Canadians, African American and Indigenous slaves seems to suggest otherwise. Canada's dark past may not be talked about often, but there are three main events that targeted specific ethnic groups which still affect those people today. Residential Schools led to major negative cultural consequences, as well as psychological and sociological effects. Japanese-Canadian Internment Camps were used to strip Japanese Canadians of their rights because of the World War II bombing of Pearl Harbor. And finally, for two centuries slavery was legal in New France, and in Lower Canada under British rule. Human beings were being held captive and were owned by many people, including governors, bishops, military officers, priests, and blacksmiths. All of these terrible consequences can be accredited to Canada’s imperialistic policies.

The Japanese living in Canada during World War II (WWII) faced one of the harshest and inhumane living conditions in Canadian history. One unidentified woman remembers, “it was terrible, unbelievable. They kept us in the stalls where they put the cattle and horses.” Before WWII, the Japanese were targeted for their culture. An example is the Anti-Asiatic League that was created to limit the number of Japanese men that could immigrate to Canada. Canadians did not want the potential competitors in farming and fishing. 22,000 Japanese Canadians were interned during WWII, even though 14,000 had been Canadian born citizens. This was because the Japanese had bombed Canada’s ally, the United States. With this in mind, the Canadians viewed the

No one would ever think that an apology and a meager amount of money would be sufficient enough to pay back for taking away freedom and rights for several years. Apparently, it appears as Canadian government did. During World War II, Japanese immigrants and Japanese Canadians were denied of their rights as humans and Canadian citizens, and were forced to live in internment camps (Baldwin, 2011). Although the Canadian government has realized its wrong doings to Japanese Canadians and has made attempts for reparation, the formal apologies and

The Canadians had no right in putting Japanese Canadians into internment camps. The first reason is that most of the Japanese Canadians were born in Canada and had little to no connection to Japan. This meant that they were not able to spy for the Japanese whom were an enemy with Canada at the time. It also meant that the Japanese Canadians were unable to help Japan strategize an attack against Canada due to the fact that they were unaware of what Japan had been up to. Another reason is that, the Japanese Canadians were fighting against their own ethnicity to serve Canada. They risked their lives fighting a war against Japan because they believed that they were Canadian. Finally, the Japanese had no suspicious activity going on indicating that

Starting in the late 19th century, Japanese immigrants began moving to British Columbia, looking for a better and more promising future for themselves and their families. However, less than a century later, their lives were changed forever after they received news that the Canadian government announced war on Japan on December 7, 1941 after the attacks on Pearl Harbor (Hickman and Fukawa 5). The attacks caused the government to begin fearing that Japanese Canadian citizens may eventually pose a threat to their nation. Due to pressures in the west, the government decided to take action. They began a 7 year long process of discrimination in 1942, by relocating thousands of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia to Internment Camps. While the

With the start of the war, the government put some time restrictions on Japanese people for being in public, Japanese fishermen were ban from Canadian waters. The government also introduced the War Measure Act in order to remove all people of Japanese origin from coast of British Columbia into internment camps in the interior parts of B.C. (Porter & Uyeyama, 1984). Those who showed even a mild resistance to this policy were sent to Prisoners of War Camps in Petawawa and Anglerin in Ontario (Sugiman, 2004, p. 54). In the internment camps people were forced to live in shacks that were hastily prepared (Sugiman, 2004, p. 54), faced daily hardships (Sugiman, 2004, p. 63), and some Japanese women were subjected to sexual harassment by RCMP guards (Sugiman, 2004, p.64). In addition, while Japanese Canadians were at the internment camps, the federal government sold all their properties such as homes and fishing boats, for less than half of their price (Porter & Uyeyama, 1984). Thus, even though many of these people were neutralized Canadians and Canadian born, the federal government failed to recognize their loyalty to Canada as Canadians, simply because of the way they looked, and treated them as enemy aliens and betrayed them during the

During the Internment of Japanese Canadians, people were treated differently in society due to their ethnic background. Firstly, it is shown/demonstarted by the actions of Prime Minister William Lyon along with, Mackenzie King who had ordered to detain/take away people's young and innocent lives from their homes and take them to Hastings Park. Leaving, the Japanese Canadians clueless , with no explanation to what is being happened. As a result of that , the governments used the “War Measure Act” to be allowed to remove them from their “own property,farms, business” (Marsh, 2012)and also forced “more than 8,000” (Marsh, 2012) Japanese Canadians through Hastings Park “where women and children were housed in the Livestock Buildings”. On the

During the beginning of WWII, there were a lot of Japanese Canadians living in Canada, all of which were either second-generation Canadians, Japanese people who had taken Canadian citizenship or those who were still Japanese nationals. These Japanese Canadians mainly inhabited British Columbia and smaller villages in the coastal regions of the west coast. Prior to their internment, Japanese Canadians suffered great prejudice, discrimination and racism. White people were fearful that they would lose their dominance due to competition in industries such as fishing, farming, markets and even in education. The Canadian Government created laws stating that Japanese Canadians were not allowed to vote, they also had fishing and farming permits denied, which were supposed to motivate them to move back to Japan. On top of that, White people also feared that Japan would attempt to expand into Canada and take it’s natural resources due to Japan’s expansionist policies that existed at the time. On December 7th, 1941, Japanese Air Forces attacked the US forces at Pearl Harbor, pulling the US into the second world war. On the same day, 50,000 Japanese troops attacked Hong Kong, which was a British Colony at the time. After events the events at Pearl Harbour, anyone living in Canada of Japanese immigration or descent would be considered an “enemy alien”. Around this time, Japan also launched attacks on the Philippines and Malaya, the victories in these

Japanese Canadians during World War 2 were deeply affected, all over the world but, received the harshest punishment in Canada. With families, having to leave their homes, and all their land and get shipped to interment camps, where they were treated poorly and not seen as individuals but seen as japanese, by the colour of their skin. I believe that many ethnic groups all over the world have received a form of discrimination or mistreatment that has abolished some of their heritage and identity. Apologies have been given out but, have have not been giving for the right reasons instead given for the sake of saying we have apologized. The author develops the idea that when a social group or ethnic group have experienced hardships and social scrutiny, this effect them deeply leading, to future hatred and searching for answers.

After pearl harbour, Canadians started discriminating against the Japanese. The government took action in British Columbia using internment camps. Outside of British Columbia, there were problems with racist people. The government didn’t allow the Japanese to go back home, after leaving internment camps. The treatment of Japanese Canadians during WWII was unjustified, and unfair because of internment, the racism, and their deportation.

After hearing the story, I was petrified, he said that: “In 1942 about 2200 Japanese immigrants and Japanese Canadians in British Columbia had lost everything. We were sent to internment camps for no reason. Our only crime was that they had Japanese ancestry and they were suspected of being loyal to their homeland of Japan. The fear was that if the Japanese invaded the west coast of America, where there was a large Japanese population, that they would be loyal to Japan instead of the United States. However, this fear was not founded on any hard evidence. We were put in the camps based only on our race”. These people are horrible, why would they think such pathetic thing and make all of us suffer. I never knew that people were having amazing