Canadian textbook describes internment (06/27/99)

Canadian textbook describes internment

TORONTO - Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1919 are described in a special chapter titled "Enemy Aliens" included in "World Affairs: Defining Canada's Role," edited by Don Quinlan for The Oxford University Press Canada, a textbook intended for use in Canadian high schools.

The focus of the section is on The War Measures Act of 1914, which was used to intern thousands of men, and some women and children, in 24 concentration camps. Prisoners were forced to do heavy labor and even had their wealth and property looted. Some of that wealth remains in Ottawa's coffers to this day. Since the mid-1980s Canada's Ukrainian community has requested that Ottawa acknowledge this injustice and offer restitution by providing funding for educational purposes.

Commenting on the book, the UCCLA's director of research, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, noted: "This is a welcome addition to the materials that are now available on Canada's first national internment operations. Regrettably, in editing this section, all references to the nationality of the majority of the internees, that is, to the fact that these were Ukrainian Canadians were deleted." However, the series editor, Don Quinlan, has told the UCCLA that the omission will be clearly corrected in the next edition. "Both of the photographs included in the section show Ukrainian internees, at Cave and Basin in Banff National Park, and women and children prisoners at Spirit Lake, in northern Quebec," Dr. Luciuk added.

"The simple fact that the Canada's first national internment operations are now being included in Canadian high school textbooks, and that, in due course, we can expect unambiguous references to the nationality of the majority of the victims of these needless measures, is good news," he said. "It certainly validates our years of effort to have this once relatively unremembered episode in Canadian history taught."

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