The following statement was issued on June 20 by Canadian Member of Parliament Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Center, Ontario).
Today we mark the 100th anniversary of the official end of internment operations in Canada during the first world war.
From 1914 to 1920, more than 8,000 civilians, most of them immigrants, were interned as “enemy aliens” in 24 locations across Canada. They were subjected to xenophobia and prejudice, fired from their jobs, deprived of their possessions and civil rights, then forced to work as laborers in some of the most remote regions of Canada. They suffered in the internment camps for years.