The Canadian Home Front During WWII

1. The Canadian Home Front During WWII

2. Women During WWII • Actively involved in Military • 1941 formation of • CWAC • RCAF-Women’s Division • “Wrens” (Women’s Navy) 100 000 women served

3. What Did They Do ??? • Did not serve on the front • Served as • Cooks • Nurses • Pilots • Mechanics • Welders • Radar operators • Ferry Command planes flew from N.A. to G.B. • 500 women died during these flights

4. Women In Canada • Factories operated longer hours • Increase in women in Canadian workforce (WWI ???) • Over 1 million women worked in Canada during WWII • Still paid less than men and benefits taken away after war • Jobs lost when men came home – Right here in Surrey !!!

5. The Female James Bond ??? • Women served as Special Operation Executive (SOE) • Secret Agents • Parachuted into Nazi controlled France to find out information • Served as saboteurs, couriers and radio operators • The Heroines of the SOE • Andree Borrel, Vera Leigh, Diana Rowden • All captured by Nazi secret police and sent to prison camps

6. The Economy • Start of WWII = End of Depression • Economy in war time production • Canadian factories made • Bombs, bullets, ships, aircraft (war supplies) • Total War ??? • War Supply Board by C.D. Howe • Organize Canadian industry to supply front • How Did Canada Pay for the War ??? • Rationing (Part of Total War) • 115 g of coffee, 1kg of meat (per adult person) • Lend Lease Act and Hyde Park • Threat and resolution to Canadian wartime economy

7. Canadian Propaganda • The spread of information to promote a particular cause • NOT TRUTHFUL !!! • Used posters to recruit and to inform citizens to help out war effort.

9. Canadian Training Facilities • British Commonwealth Air Training Plan • Pilots from Commonwealth all trained in Canada • 130 000 air personnel were trained in Canada • A way for Canada to be involved without actually sending troops overseas

10. Camp X • Spy Training Facility • Yes, like James Bond • Sabotage, silent killing • For Canadian, British and US • Oshawa, Ontario • So secret members of government and the military did not know it existed • Sent 500 agents into the field

11. Conscription Crisis • Start of war P.M. King said there would be no conscription • 1940-National Resource Mobilization Act • All men to help in war effort but not overseas • 1942-Need for troops • King held a plebiscite asking Canadians to OK conscription • What was the vote ??? Similar to WWI French Canadians said "NO”, Anglos “YES”

12. Would It Tear The Country Apart? • King tried to convince men in NRMA to go over • No luck, eventually King conscripted 13 000 men to go overseas • Only 2463 reached the front • King managed to avoid a total break in Anglo-Franco relations, but tensions were heightened

13. Enemy Aliens • What are they ??? • Canada banned • Pro-Nazi and Communist parties • Religious Pacifists (Don’t want to go to war) • European refugees • Jews especially (Anti-Semitism) • “None is too many” • “We don’t want to take too many Jews” • Forced to register with government because of fear of sabotage against Canada- 100 000 people

14. The Shame of Canada • Japanese Internment…Why did it happen? • Brief history of Japanese in Canada • B.C. infamous for racism-1907 Race riot • 1928 P.M. King limited the number of Japanese immigrants to 150/year • Not allowed to vote

15. But, then this happened

16. Japanese Internment • Japanese Canadians were held in Concentration Camps…What does that word mean? • After Pearl Harbour and due to racist attitudes there was a fear that Japanese Canadians would rise up and supply Japan with information for a Japanese invasion of Canada!!! • COMPLETELY FALSE…RCMP and Government said there was no threat but both craved to public pressure

17. Internment Begins • 1942-They were stripped of their rights • Fingerprinted, photographed and given an ID number and forced to carry ID card • Just like criminals…except they had committed no crime • Forced to either be deported or relocate away from coast…Housed at Hastings Park before shipped off to B.C. interior • 22 000 Japanese Canadians sent to internment camps-14 000 were born in Canada

18. HASTINGS PARK

19. Japanese Internment • 1943-Custodian of Aliens Act • Took all Japanese Canadian possessions without their permission • Sold at low prices to white people • Money went to pay for internment • Japanese paid for themselves

20. Conditions in the Camp • “They stopped [the train] at the elevators and we were just herded out.” • “ I was in that camp for four years. When it got cold the temperature went down to as much as 60 below. The buildings stood on flat land beside a lake. We lived in huts with no insulation. Even if we had the stove burning the inside of the windows would all be frosted up and white, really white. I had to lie in bed with everything on that I had... at one time there were 720 people there, all men, and a lot of them were old men."

21. Internment Camps in B.C. What Does This Look Like ???

22. The Embarrassment of 1944 • In 1944 a new law passed • Said that the Japanese could be deported from Canada even if they were born in Canada !!!! • 3964 Japanese Canadians were deported of which 2600 were Canadian citizens • 1946 • The war was finally over and Japanese Canadians were released from the internment camps

23. Compensation ??? • 1988 • $21 000 was given by the Canadian government to any detainee still living • WAS THAT ENOUGH ???? • Was there any justifiable reason to put the Japanese in concentration camps or was it a policy based on racism ???