Ukrainian Canadian internment

World War 1 era measure

The Ukrainian Canadian internment was part of the confinement of "enemy aliens" in Canada during and for two years after the end of the First World War. It lasted from 1914 to 1920, under the terms of the War Measures Act. Canada was at war with Austria Hungary. Along with Austrian Hungarian prisoners of war, about 8,000 Ukrainian men, women, and children – those of Ukrainian citizenship as well as naturalized Canadians of Ukrainian descent – were kept in twenty four internment camps and related work sites (also known, at the time, as concentration camps). Their savings were confiscated and many had land taken while imprisoned as the land was "abandoned". Some were "paroled" from camps in 1916–17, many were put to work as unpaid workers on farms, mines, and railways, where labour was scarce. Much existing Canadian infrastructure from 1916 1917 was built by this unpaid labour. Another 80,000 were not imprisoned but were registered as "enemy aliens" and obliged to regularly report to the police and were required to carry identifying documents at all times or suffer punitive consequences. The embarrassment and trauma of internment caused many Ukrainians to change their family names, hide their imprisonment and abandon traditions due to fear of negative repercussions – causing PTSD and intergenerational trauma. In addition, some maintain that the Canadian government approved key records to be destroyed in the 1950s, leaving documentation to be based on individual family records and pleas to the local communities where the camps were located.

During the First World War, a growing sentiment against "enemy aliens" had manifested itself amongst Canadians. The British government urged Canada not to act indiscriminately against subject nationalities of the Austro Hungarian Empire who were in fact friendly to the British Empire. However, Ottawa took a hard line. These enemy born citizens were treated as social pariahs, and many lost their employment. Under the 1914 War Measures Act, "aliens of enemy nationality" were compelled to register with authorities. About 70,000 Ukrainians from Austria Hungary fell under this description. 8,579 males and some women and children were interned by the Canadian Government, including 5,954 Austro Hungarians, most of whom were probably ethnic Ukrainians. Most of the 8,600 people interned were young men apprehended while trying to cross the border into the U. S. to look for jobs; attempting to leave Canada was illegal. Most of the interned were poor or unemployed single men, although 81 women and 156 children (mainly Germans in Vernon and Ukrainians at Spirit Lake) had no choice but to accompany their menfolk to two of the camps, in Spirit Lake, near Amos, Quebec, and Vernon, British Columbia. Some of the internees were Canadian born and others were naturalized British subjects, although most were recent immigrants. Citizens of the Russian Empire were generally not interned. Many of these internees were used for forced labour in internment camps. There was a severe shortage of farm labour, so in 1916–17 nearly all of the internees were "paroled". Many parolees went to the custody of local farmers. They were paid at current wage rates, usually 20 cents per hour, with fifty cents a day deducted for room and board. Other parolees were sent as paid workers to railway gangs and mines. The internees turned over all their cash to authorities – $329,000 in total, of which $298,000 was returned to them on release.

Since 1985, the organized Ukrainian Canadian community has sought official acknowledgment for this World War I internment, conducting a campaign that underscored the moral, legal and political obligation to redress the historical wrong. The campaign, spearheaded by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA), included the memorialization of places of internment as historic sites. Currently there are twenty plaques and memorials across Canada commemorating the internment, including two at the locations of former concentration camps in Banff National Park. These have been placed by the UCCLA and its supporters. In 1994 Yurij Luhovy and the National Film Board of Canada released a feature length documentary about the internment operations entitled Freedom Had a Price. While researching for and shooting the film, Yurij discovered never before seen pictures of the camps and donated them to the National Archives of Canada. On November 25, 2005, the Senate of Canada voted unanimously to pass Bill C 331, the 'Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act', closely following the vote of the House of Commons on November 23, 2005, and it received Royal Assent. This act acknowledges that persons of Ukrainian origin were interned in Canada during the First World War and legally obliges the Government of Canada to negotiate "an agreement concerning measures that may be taken to recognize the internment" for educational and commemorative projects. Thought to be the last known survivor of the internment measures, Mary Manko Haskett was only a child of 6 when she was interned with her family at Spirit Lake. She died in July 2007. In 2007 another survivor – Mary Hancharuk, born in the Spirit Lake camp – was found; then aged 92, making her the last known survivor of the internment operations. She died in 2008.

The Ukrainian Canadian campaign for acknowledgement and redress was spearheaded by members of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association from the mid 1980s (at that time within the Ukrainian Canadian Congress). On May 9, 2008, the Canadian government established a $10 million fund. The Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund uses the interest earned on that amount to fund projects that commemorate the experience of thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans interned between 1914–20 and the many others who suffered a suspension of their civil liberties and freedoms. The funds are themselves held in trust by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. On September 12, 2009, the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF) was announced formally with a notice published in The Globe and Mail describing how individuals or groups can apply for funding for commemorative, educational and cultural activities recalling Canada's first national internment operations. One of the first projects funded by CFWWIRF was the documentary Jajo's Secret directed by filmmaker James Motluk and broadcast on OMNI TV in 2009. and on November 26, 2011, opened officially in a ceremony attended by the Honourable Jason Kenney, then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, who referred to the internment operations as "a blight" on Canadian history. The CFWWIRF's Endowment Council made the funding of this interpretive centre one of its top granting priorities, budgeting $400,000 over five years for this project. A permanent exhibit on Canada's first national internment operations was opened at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site in Banff National Park in September 2013 by Kenney, then Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism. On August 22, 2014, one hundred bilingual English French plaques were unveiled to recall the 100th anniversary of the implementation of the 1914 War Measures Act and the start of internment operations across Canada. In 2017 the CFWWIRF supported the installation of a permanent exhibit about Canada's first national internment operations in the Canada History Hall of the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. Funding has also been committed by the CFWWIRF for the unveiling of a major new exhibit in 2021 at the museum dealing with the War Measures Act and civil liberties during the First and Second World Wars and the October Crisis. The 100th anniversary of the end of Canada's first national internment operations was commemorated on Saturday, June 20, 2020 – a notice was published by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (www. ucclf. ca) in the national edition of The Globe and Mail, with the support of the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.

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