A brief overview of Canadian Japanese internment
Following the US order to inter Japanese in Hawaii and mainland US the Canadian government ordered 22,000 Japanese Canadians living on coastal British Columbia to be forcibly removed from their homes and most were interred in Camps throughout the Kootenays and the Okanogan with others interred in Alberta one Ontario. This comprised roughly 90% of all Japanese Canadians living in Canada of which just over 14,000 were born in Canada as first, second and third generation Canadians.
Many of the camps were in poor repair and were poorly insulated against the Canadian winters. Depending on what camp they were interred in some were treated well and received lots of help from civilian populace’s in the areas and other camps internees were living in abject poverty as many camps were setup in literal ghost towns with little in the way of support and logistics and due to the predominant prejudices of the time could be treated poorly by the guards and the civilian populace basically it was a crap shoot as to where you ended up and how you were treated.
Later in the war many restrictions were relaxed and some camps the gates were opened and Japanese Canadians were free to move about in these camps however many Japanese Canadians were still poorly treated.
It was a dark time in Canadian history.