Two Internment Camps in Quebec to Be Remembered

(UCCLA) On September 30, two trilingual bronze plaques will be unveiled, one at the Beauport Armoury at 11 a.m. and the other at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier 1:30 p.m. in Quebec, in remembrance of the use of those two federal installations as internment camps.

The former site was used as a camp between December 28, 1914 and June 22, 1916, the latter from April 24,  1915 to October 23, 1915.

During Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920,  thousands of Europeans were imprisoned  as “enemy aliens” in Canadian concentration camps under the provisions of the War Measures Act.  They were  forced to do heavy labour, had their wealth confiscated, and many also lost the right to vote. A majority of those imprisoned were Ukrainian Canadians.

Since 1994, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and its supporters have erected dozens of commemorative plaques across Canada.

“We are determined to recover the memory of a still relatively unknown episode in Canadian history,” says Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, the UCCLA’s director of research. “Our association, a group of unpaid volunteers, has been working hard for well over a decade now to ensure that what happened to these innocent men, women and children  is not forgotten, particularly as we can all appreciate how important it is to remain vigilant in defence of human liberties and civil rights in periods of international and domestic crisis,” he adds.

Although the government of Canada signed an Agreement in Principle with the Ukrainian Canadian community, in August 2005, and Bill C 331 - The Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, received Royal Assent, in November 2005, none of the funding pledged for commemorative, research and educational initiatives has been provided to date.