Canada’s Japanese War Internees Await Justice : 40 Years Afterward, Government Still Hasn’t Apologized or Compensated Camp Victims

At the onset of World War II, the United States put nearly all Japanese-Americans in jail-likE camps on the West Coast. Canada did the same thing with citizens and residents of Japanese descent. But the similarities end there.

Although both countries operated out of the same wartime hysteria and anti-Asian bias, the hardships, deprivations, degradation and loss of property suffered by Japanese-Canadians were far more severe than what was experienced by Japanese-Americans.

Thousands of Japanese-Canadians were forcibly deported. None was allowed to serve in the Canadian armed forces, and those who were serving when the war broke out were discharged. The civil liberties of Japanese-Canadians were suspended for seven years.

Delay in Justice

And just as the two nations treated their citizens of Japanese descent differently during the war, they have continued to treat them differently in the decades since the fighting stopped. Successive Canadian governments have failed to come to grips with the issue of redressing what nearly all officials acknowledge was a severe injustice.

So, more than 40 years after the end of the war, the 15,000 Canadians who remain alive from the group that was rounded up without charges or trial and sent to internment camps or work farms are still waiting. They aren’t waiting for their land back--they have given up on that--but for acknowledgement of the wrong that was done them, an apology and some form of compensation.

Canadian governments refused all these demands until last year, when tentative negotiations were begun. But those talks with the National Assn. of Japanese-Canadians have broken down, and the government has decided to impose a settlement on its own, which has opened a new battle with troubling ramifications.

Shadow of Racism

It is a battle that has caused splits in the Japanese-Canadian community, raised the shadow of racism and given the whole issue a political tinge that involves the integrity of the current government.

It also calls into question the reality of Canada’s self-image of a compassionate society free of the violent racial conflicts that afflict other countries, a place where ethnic groups can maintain their own identity and still be an integral part of the national community.

In the United States, nearly 120,000 citizens and residents of Japanese descent living on the West Coast were forced into internment camps immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941. In many instances, their property was seized.

U.S. Treatment Differed

However, most of the internees were released after three years and allowed to return to their homes and recover some of their property. Japanese-Americans also were allowed to enlist in the military, where they won wide acclaim for their battlefield achievements.

For the nearly 22,000 Japanese living in Canada, nearly all in British Columbia, at the outset of the war, the government’s reaction to Pearl Harbor was far worse.

In February, 1942, all of them were declared enemy aliens and divested of their civil rights. They were either shipped to camps east of the Rocky Mountains or were forced to work on agriculture projects in Manitoba and Ontario provinces. They were even forced to pay for their own rent and upkeep in the camps.

Barred From Military

No Japanese-Canadians were allowed to enlist in the military, and the few who were already in the service were forcibly discharged. All their property was seized by the government and was sold or confiscated.

None of them were allowed to leave the camps and work farms during the war.

In fact, in the months after the war’s end, the government conducted a “loyalty” survey of the camps. To prove his loyalty, a Japanese-Canadian had to “volunteer” not to return to British Columbia. For the 10,000 who declined, the penalty was Draconian: They were stripped of their citizenship and ordered to be deported to Japan, even though most had been born in Canada.

More than 4,000 were actually shipped to Japan before the United Nations said such action was a war crime. Any attempt to return to British Columbia was made a crime punishable by a year at hard labor.

Deprived of Vote

Parliament deprived those remaining of their federal vote (Japanese-Canadians had not been allowed to vote in local British Columbia elections even before the war), and anyone of Japanese origin had to carry a special registration card.

Even though government agencies never found any instance of disloyalty by internees--as Prime Minister William Mackenzie King acknowledged in 1944--Parliament did not revoke the banishment order until 1947. It was not until April, 1949, that the citizenship, civil liberties and voting rights of Japanese-Canadians were restored and their exclusion from the West Coast ended.

However, no property was returned to Japanese-Canadians, and no move was made to compensate them for their financial losses--let alone for the deprivation of their liberty.

Payments Considered

In the United States, the 1948 Evacuation Claims Act allowed Japanese-Americans to claim partial compensation for the property that had been seized, and about $37 million was paid. Congress is considering legislation that would call for individual payments of $20,000 to about 66,000 survivors of the relocation process. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford formally apologized to Japanese-Americans for the loss of their civil rights.

Furthermore, a U.S. appeals court decision last January cleared the way for Japanese-Americans to sue the federal government for all the damages resulting from their internment. One plaintiff said the total damages could reach $24 billion.

But Japanese-Canadians are prevented from bringing similar suits because the internment and related actions were taken under the War Powers Act, the emergency legislation giving the government virtually dictatorial powers.

Trudeau Criticized

This has left the question to Parliament, which largely ignored it until 1984, when Brian Mulroney, then leader of the opposition, strongly criticized Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for refusing even to acknowledge that an injustice had been done.

Trudeau argued that it was improper to apologize for the actions of past governments and that to do so, particularly if it involved financial compensation, would open the door to claims from various other groups whose members felt they had been unjustly treated, not only during the war but all through history.

Mulroney promised that if his Progressive Conservative Party came to power, the government would apologize. “I can assure you we would be compensating Japanese-Canadians,” he said.

Talks Break Down

Mulroney repeated this assurance after his party won the 1984 general election and he became prime minister. But it has been under his administration that the efforts to reach an agreement with the National Assn. of Japanese Canadians, which officially speaks for the nearly 50,000 Canadians of Japanese extraction, have broken down.

According to Otto Jelinek, minister for multiculturalism, the government is willing to apologize and acknowledge mistreatment and to amend the War Powers Act to guarantee that such actions cannot happen again.

But he has refused to consider any individual compensation. He said he might consider a relatively inexpensive government grant for something like an educational foundation. Meeting recently with reporters, Jelinek refused to use the word compensation, preferring the term redress package.

Program Called Inadequate

Arthur Miki, a Winnipeg elementary school principal and president of the National Assn. of Japanese Canadians, has rejected this approach as inadequate and condescending. He demands compensation and that he be consulted on the wording of the apology.

Jelinek said recently that Miki “has been dragging his feet” by not proposing a figure for compensation. He said the government does not believe that most survivors want individual payments. Besides, he said, any payment equal to the current value of the confiscated property would be far too expensive and could not be paid.

He also said that consultations with other, non-Japanese ethnic groups indicate that there is opposition to individual or large payments to the survivors.

Compensation Studied

Miki, 49, who was exiled with his parents and grandparents to a sugar-beet farm in Manitoba in 1942, said the national association has ordered an independent study of the compensation issue and cannot set a compensation figure until the study is complete, probably in April.

He charged Jelinek with bad faith in saying that the association will want billions of dollars in compensation and that the payments should go to individuals.

“Compensation should be directed to the community,” Miki said in an interview, “but individual payments could be part of the whole. But that is not a condition.”

‘Slap in the Face’

By consulting with other groups, particularly non-Japanese ethnic organizations, Miki said: “Jelinek gave us a slap in the face. . . . At one time, the government said, ‘A group of people don’t support this.’ In other words, racists. That’s really catering to the racists.”

There is some basis for worry. Several newspapers recently received letters from veterans’ groups protesting that if the Japanese receive compensation, then Canadians who suffered in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps should be compensated too.

One veteran, who asked for anonymity, said in an interview that it is unimportant that the Japanese-Canadians were citizens and legal residents of Canada.

‘Plenty of Spies’

“I don’t care what they tell you,” he said. “There were plenty of spies and agents. They were using those fishing boats to signal the Japs.”

Jelinek disavowed any political or racial motivation. He said that his statements about survivors’ attitudes are based largely on the stand of another Japanese-Canadian group, the Japanese CANADIAN National Redress Assn. of Survivors, a small group of mostly aged survivors who oppose any individual compensation.

Jack Oki, 65, the co-chairman of the Toronto-based National Redress Assn., said he is ashamed of the younger Japanese-Canadians who demand money. Instead, he said, there should be an acknowledgement, if not an apology.

Education Urged

He urged that a well-endowed foundation should be established to finance educational efforts about the internment and to help groups of all ethnic backgrounds fight discrimination.

“You can’t put a price tag on human rights,” he said in an interview. “Those left who had property would rather retain their pride than ask for money.”

Oki also raised the possibility that a push for compensation “might spark a racial reaction” by other groups. “There is still plenty of anti-Japanese sentiment” in Canada, he said.

Political Football

One thing that Oki and Miki do agree on is that the issue has become a political football, used by both the government party and the opposition Liberals.

Miki said Mulroney has refused to meet with him because he is “too busy.” But Miki thinks the real reason for the government’s cool position is political, “a fear of alienating other groups and losing political support.”

Miki says there is no way to fight the government if it decides to impose its own proposal on the Japanese-Canadian community.

‘Danger Is Still There’

“We’re just not very important politically,” he said. “But I hope they (other Canadians) realize that how this government treats our group is how they will treat other groups. The danger is still there. That is why we have to continue to stand up for our rights.

“We acted with dignity when we were rounded up, and in the end, regardless of what happens now, we will have maintained our dignity. We’re not going to create a legacy that will embarrass our grandchildren.”