20. Parole
By 1916 Canada was again short of labour. The war stimulated the economy and demanded more production from companies. At the same time, the men that would have had jobs were in the army. The federal government decided that the men in internment camps could be used to do the work and paroled many Austrian internees to individuals and corporations. This meant that it freed the prisoners on the condition that they work for the particular company or individual for at least six months.
In those days, the working conditions in the primary industries such as mining. railway and lumbering companies were very harsh. That is why regular workers did not stay in the isolated work camps for long periods. To make sure that the paroled internees stayed, the company supervisors often kept their registration cards. Since “enemy aliens” could not travel or get another job without the registration card, they stayed and put up with any conditions that the “boss” meted out to them.
The work was usually far from home and family. The companies agreed on a normal wage before getting the parolees from the internment camps. However, many did not stick to this agreement and either paid the men much less or overcharged them for supplies, lodging and food. Once they paroled the workers, Internment Operations had no control over them or their work conditions.
21. Disenfranchisement
The Wartimes Elections Act was passed in September 1917. This act stripped of their rights as citizens those British subjects who had been born in enemy countries and naturalized after March 1902. Thus, most Ukrainian Canadians lost their right to vote until the act lapsed in August 1919.
Canadians were tired of the war and discouraged with the mounting casualties. Their readiness to join the army fell. By the summer of 1916, Canada could not supply the soldiers that it had promised to Great Britain. It was short by more than 100,000 men. The Conservative government, under Borden, considered conscription. Enlisted men, veterans, their families, and generally the urban middle class British Canadians, supported compulsory military service. French Canadians, farmers, unions and immigrants in western Canada opposed it.
To win the federal election of December 1917, Borden had to overcome the Liberal opposition to conscription. The Wartime Elections Act took the vote away from the Liberals’ main support in the West – the naturalized immigrants. Many of these citizens had been British subjects for as long as 15 years. At the same time, Borden ensured support for conscription and for the Conservatives, by giving the vote to women who were close relatives of servicemen. Only women with sons or husbands overseas were eligible for this first women’s suffrage (right to vote) in Canada.
22. Scapegoats
“It was not the mass armies of 1914-18 that were new, or even the horrifying death tolls. Relatively, the wars of Napoleon a century before had taken as many lives. What was new was the remarkable proportion of sick and wounded who survived.” (Desmond Morton, Winning the Second Battle)
Only a few months into the war, the wounded soldiers started to return home. They found a nation not prepared to cope with their disabilities and not ready to compensate them for their losses. Instead of a hero’s welcome, they found unemployment and poverty. The disillusioned men turned their frustrations on their favourite scapegoat – the “enemy alien”.
From 1916, returned soldiers often harassed “foreigners” or “aliens”. They would drag them out of their work places, demand to see their registration cards and take them to the registrars insisting on internment of all “enemy aliens”. They would also pressure employers to fire all “aliens” and give the jobs to the former soldiers. Sometimes veterans vandalized businesses owned by immigrants from hostile countries.
In l917, the veterans successfully pressured the government to disenfranchise all British citizens born in enemy countries. They also called for confiscating their property and withholding from them patents for homesteads.
Sometimes their anger was directed at Canadian veterans of a non-British background as “enemy aliens”. If one looked “foreign”, one was the enemy.
23. Labour Activists
By 1918 Canada included radicals and socialists in the definition of “enemy aliens”. Although the war was ending, the arrests of those active in the labour movements were increasing. Among them were many members of the Ukrainian Socialist Democratic Party. The internment camps at Vernon and Kapuskasing were still operating sixteen months after the declaration of peace. They were not closed until February 1920.
Throughout Europe and North America, workers and farm labourers had asserted their rights since the turn of the century. These included fair wages, security and decent living standards. This budding assertiveness of the worker had been one reason that Canadian industry had turned to the Eastern European worker for labour in 1915. Canadian business leaders had not wanted to import the organized worker from Great Britain. The peasant from Galicia and the Mediterranean, they had reasoned, would work for low wages and in the worst conditions.
No one could continue to shield Canada from organized labour and liberalism. Solidarity of workers was coalescing. They even grudgingly accepted the “foreigners”, mostly because of their great numbers.
The Bolshevik Revolution, which took place in Russia in 1917, encouraged world labour leaders in their demands for recognition and fair play. In Canada, rapid growth in the cost of living and low wages resulted in labour mounted strikes. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was the largest.
The organizers of the Winnipeg General Strike, who were of British and American origin, were arrested and tried. In addition, member of other ethnocultural groups, such as Ukrainians, Finns and Jews, were also arrested. They were interned without trial. This action taken by the government was supported by business leaders, industrialists, veterans and other “patriots”.
Canadians had to deal with significant social issues that changing industry and postwar economy brought. The majority population felt justified in focusing its fear and hate on the “foreigner”. This was now a second internment wave and a different group of internees was identified as “radical aliens” and “dangerous foreigners”.
24. Impact
For Ukrainian immigrants, who had been caught in Canada’s first internment operations, the immediate loss was emotional, financial, medical and social. For the Ukrainian Canadians as a community, it took generations to get over the feeling of deep injustice, humiliation, denial and fear. As for Canada, the episode has been buried in obscure records. For decades, it received, at best, a cursory mention in history books and courses. Even today most Canadians are not aware of this part of their own history.
As an episode in Canadian history, Canada’s first internment operations and their social context needs to be recorded, admitted and communicated to the new generations of Canadians. It is only by studying the past that we can guide the future.
19. Recreation
Time that prisoners spent on recreation and education varied from camp to camp. In the permanent camps, such as Castle Mountain and Kapuskasing, the prisoners were hard at work for ten to twelve hours a day. Therefore, there was less amusement than in detention camps such as Brandon and Fort Henry. As a group, the Ukrainians seem to have favoured crafts, reading, courses, card games and music over sports and gymnastics.
-
‣Home
