Theinternment of Ukrainian Canadians was part of the confinement of "enemy aliens" inCanada during and for two years after the end of theFirst World War. It lasted from 1914 to 1920, under the terms of theWar Measures Act.
Canada was at war withAustria-Hungary. Along with Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, about 8,000 Ukrainian men, women, and children – those Ukrainians of Austro-Hungarian citizenship as well as naturalized British subjects of Ukrainian descent – were kept in twenty-fourinternment camps and related work sites (also known, at the time, asconcentration camps).[1] 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 to 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 – causingPTSD and intergenerational trauma. In addition, some maintain that theGovernment of Canada 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.[2]
During theFirst 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 ofAustria-Hungary who were in fact friendly to theBritish Empire.[3] However, Ottawa took a hard line. These enemy-born citizens were treated as social pariahs, and many lost their employment. Under the 1914War 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 theGovernment of Canada, including 5,954 Austro-Hungarians, most of whom were probably ethnicUkrainians.[4] Most of the 8,600 people interned were young men apprehended while trying to cross the borderinto the United States to look for jobs; attempting to leave Canada was illegal.[5] Most of the interned were poor or unemployed single men, although 81 women and 156 children (mainly Germans inVernon and Ukrainians atSpirit Lake) had no choice but to accompany the men to two of the camps, in Spirit Lake, nearAmos, Quebec, and Vernon,British Columbia. Some of the internees were Canadian-born and others were naturalized British subjects,[citation needed] although most were recent immigrants. Citizens of theRussian Empire were generally not interned.
Many of these internees were used forforced labour in internment camps.[7]
There was a severe shortage of farm labour, so in 1916–17 nearly all of the internees were "paroled".[8] 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.[9] The internees turned over all their cash to authorities – $329,000 in total, of which $298,000 was returned to them on release.[10]
Conditions at the camps varied, and theCastle Mountain Internment Camp[11] – where labour contributed to the creation ofBanff National Park[12] – was considered exceptionally harsh and abusive.[13][page needed] The internment continued for two more years after the war had ended, although most Ukrainians were paroled into jobs for private companies by 1917. Even as parolees, they were still required to report regularly to the police authorities. Federal and provincial governments and private concerns benefited from the internees' labour and from the confiscation of what little wealth they had, a portion of which was left in theBank of Canada at the end of the internment operations on June 20, 1920.[14] A small number of internees, including men considered to be "dangerous foreigners",labour radicals, or particularly troublesome internees, were deported to Europe after the war, largely from theKapuskasing camp, which was the last to be shut down.
Of those interned, 109 died of various diseases and injuries sustained in the camp, six were killed while trying to escape, and some – according to Major-General SirWilliam Dillon Otter's final report – went insane or committed suicide[15] as a result of their confinement.
A list of the camps follows:[16]
| Location | Date of opening | Date of closing | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal,Quebec | August 13, 1914 | November 30, 1918 | Immigration Hall |
| Kingston,Ontario | August 18, 1914 | November 3, 1917 | Fort Henry |
| Winnipeg,Manitoba | September 1, 1914 | July 20, 1916 | Fort Osborne Barracks |
| Halifax,Nova Scotia | September 8, 1914 | October 3, 1918 | The Citadel |
| Vernon,British Columbia | September 18, 1914 | February 20, 1920 | Provincial Government Building |
| Nanaimo, British Columbia | September 20, 1914 | September 17, 1915 | Provincial Government Building |
| Brandon, Manitoba | September 22, 1914 | July 29, 1916 | Exhibition Building |
| Lethbridge,Alberta | September 30, 1914 | November 7, 1916 | Exhibition Building |
| Petawawa, Ontario | December 10, 1914 | May 8, 1916 | Militia Camp / Tents |
| Toronto, Ontario | December 14, 1914 | October 2, 1916 | Stanley Barracks |
| Kapuskasing, Ontario | December 14, 1914 | February 24, 1920 | Bunk Houses |
| Niagara Falls, Ontario | December 15, 1915 | August 31, 1918 | The Armoury |
| Beauport, Quebec | December 28, 1914 | June 22, 1916 | The Armoury |
| Spirit Lake, Quebec | January 13, 1915 | January 28, 1917 | Bunk Houses |
| Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario | January 13, 1915 | January 29, 1918 | The Armoury |
| Amherst, Nova Scotia | April 17, 1915 | September 27, 1919 | Malleable Iron Works |
| Monashee–Mara Lake, British Columbia | June 2, 1915 | July 29, 1917 | Tents & Bunk Houses |
| Fernie–Morrissey, British Columbia | June 9, 1915 | October 21, 1918 | Rented Premises |
| Banff–Castle Mountain andCave & Basin, Alberta | July 14, 1915 | July 15, 1917 | Dominion Park Building at Cave & Basin, Tents at Castle Mountain |
| Edgewood, British Columbia | August 19, 1915 | September 23, 1916 | Bunk Houses |
| Revelstoke–Field–Otter, British Columbia | September 6, 1915 | October 23, 1916 | Bunk Houses |
| Jasper, Alberta | February 8, 1916 | August 31, 1916 | Dominion Parks Buildings |
| Munson, Alberta– Eaton,Saskatchewan | October 13, 1918 | March 21, 1919 | Railway Cars |
| Valcartier, Quebec | April 24, 1915 | October 23, 1915 | Militia Camp / Tents |
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.[17] The campaign, spearheaded by theUkrainian 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 theNational Film Board of Canada released a feature-length documentary about the internment operations entitledFreedom Had a Price.[18] While researching for and shooting the film, Luhovy discovered never before seen pictures of the camps and donated them to theNational Archives of Canada.
On November 25, 2005, theSenate of Canada voted unanimously to pass Bill C-331, theInternment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act, closely following the vote of theHouse of Commons on November 23, 2005, and it receivedroyal assent.[19] 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;[20] 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 UCCLA from the mid-1980s (at that time within theUkrainian Canadian Congress). On May 9, 2008, the Government of Canada established a $10 million fund.[21] The Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF) uses the interest earned on that amount to fund projects that commemorate the experience of thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans interned between 1914 and 1920 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 CFWWIRF was announced formally with a notice published inThe 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.[22]
One of the first projects funded by the CFWWIRF was the documentaryJajo's Secret directed byJames Motluk and broadcast onOmni Television in 2009.[23][24] This film tells the story of Motluk's discovery of a parole certificate issued to his late grandfather, Elias, in 1918. More recently the CFWWIRF supported two additional films,The Camps andThat Never Happened, by Ryan Boyko, as well as the preparation of lesson plans and other educational materials suitable for teachers across Canada (available for free on the website of the CFWWIRF).
The Kingston Symposium of the CFWWIRF's Endowment Council was held in Kingston, Ontario on June 17–20, 2010, bringing together community activists, descendants, academics and artists to discuss ways and means for commemorating Canada's first national internment operations.[25]
Construction of the Spirit Lake Camp Interpretive Centre was launched in July 2010[26] and on November 26, 2011, opened officially in a ceremony attended by the HonourableJason Kenney, thenMinister 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 theCave 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.[27]
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On August 22, 2014, one hundredbilingual English-French plaques were unveiled to recall the 100th anniversary of the implementation of the 1914War Measures Act and the start of internment operations across Canada.[28]
In 2017, the CFWWIRF supported the installation of a permanent exhibit about Canada's first national internment operations in the Canada History Hall of theCanadian Museum of History inGatineau,Quebec. Funding has also been committed by the CFWWIRF for the unveiling of a major new exhibit in 2021 at the museum dealing with theWar Measures Act and civil liberties during the First World War, theSecond World War and theOctober Crisis.
The 100th anniversary of the end of Canada's first national internment operations was commemorated on June 20, 2020 – a notice was published by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation in the national edition ofThe Globe and Mail, with the support of the Endowment Council of the CFWWIRF.[29]
