When the Pacific War began, discrimination against Japanese Canadians increased. On February 25, the federal government announced that Japanese Canadians were being moved for reasons of national security. In all, some 27,000 people were detained or arrested without charge or trial, and their property confiscated. During WWII, the government needed to intern Japanese Canadians for various legitimate reasons. The internment camps were established in the interior of British Columbia to remove them from the “safety zone” along the coast to prevent the possibility of sabotage. The Japanese placed in internment camps were used as cheap labor. Men worked on road construction in northern British Columbia. Many families were also transported to work on beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba. The total amount of deaths in the internment camps are recorded to be 267.
