The internment of more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians or Nikkei Kanadajin, during World War II was the greatest mass movement in the history of the modern nation of Canada. Over 75% of the nearly 23,000 people of Japanese descent who lived in Canada, were naturalized or native-born citizens. Regardless, the Japanese were targets of racial violence, especially in British Columbia where the majority had made their home.
When Canada declared war on Japan in December 1941, the majority of the non-Japanese population of British Columbia, including municipal government offices, local newspapers and business called for the internment of the Japanese. Early in 1942 the government bowed to pressure and began the internment of Japanese nationals and Canadian citizens.
Unlike the United States, where families were generally kept together, Canada initially sent its male evacuees to road camps in the British Columbia (B.C.) interior, to sugar beet projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario, while women and children were moved to six inland B.C. towns created or revived to house the relocated populace. There the living conditions were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees.
By 1949, four years after Japan had surrendered, the majority of Nikkei were allowed to return to British Columbia. However, since their property had long before been confiscated or sold, many resettled in other parts of Canada.
