Illiberalism
Doukhobors
• The Doukhobors are a group of Russian language-speaking religious
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dissenters who migrated to Canada in 1899.
Today there are between 30,000 and 40,000 Doukhobors in Canada,
and another 30,000 in Russia.
They had been persecuted in tsarist Russia for their religious beliefs,
which included the conviction that pacifism and non-compliance with
militarism is essential to Christian practice because the law of God is
greater than the laws of a secular state.
These convictions culminated in the 1895 Burning of Arms in Russia,
when Doukhobors destroyed their weapons and refused, despite
tsarist persecutions, to serve in the Russian army.
This protest might have been the first organized pacifist group
protest in modern history.
• The Doukhobors practice a form of Christianity and
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believe that Jesus Christ is a spiritually advanced teacher
and example to others.
They also believe that people are capable of divine
reason and can spiritually develop without the help of
intermediaries.
For them, therefore, there is no need for priests, religious
ceremonies, spiritual symbols or temples of worship,
although there have been leaders among the
Doukhobors who have exercised considerable authority.
• The Doukhobors have at times participated
in communal living and, like the Mennonite,
Quaker and Hutterite groups, in the
practices of pacificism, hard work and
simplicity in all things.
• Initially, Doukhobors were permitted to register
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for individual homesteads but to live communally,
and they received concessions regarding
education and military service.
Frank Oliver, who succeeded Clifford Sifton as
minister of the interior in 1905, interpreted the
Dominion Lands Act more strictly.
When Doukhobors refused to swear an oath of
allegiance - a condition for the final granting of
homestead titles - their homestead entries were
cancelled.
• In 1908 Verigin led most of his followers to
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southern British Columbia, where he bought
land and established a self-contained
community of 6000.
Some Doukhobors split off to their own farms
and became Independents.
A tiny splinter, the radical Sons of Freedom
(founded in 1902 in Saskatchewan), burnt
several schools in a dispute with BC over
education.
Many in this group were later imprisoned for
nude protest parades
Japanese Canadian
Internment
• The Japanese Canadian internment was the forced removal and of more than
22,000 Japanese Canadians during the Second World War by the government of
Canada.
• Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, prominent British
Columbians, including members of municipal government offices, local newspapers
and businesses called for the internment of the Japanese.
• In British Columbia, there were fears that some Japanese who worked in the fishing
industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy, acting as spies on
Canada's military.
• Military and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) authorities felt the public's
fears were unwarranted, but the public opinion quickly pushed the government to
act.
• Canadian Pacific Railway fired all the Japanese workers,
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and most other Canadian companies did the same.
Japanese fishing boats were first confined to port, and
eventually, the Canadian navy seized 1,200 of these
vessels.
Many boats were damaged, and over one hundred sank.
• In January 1942, a "protected" 100-mile (160 km) wide strip up the Pacific coast was
created, and any men of Japanese descent between the ages of 18 and 45 were
removed and taken to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet
projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario.
• Despite the 100-mile quarantine, a few men at the McGillivray Falls, just outside the
quarantine zone, were employed at a logging operation at Devine, near D'Arcy,
British Columbia, which is inside the quarantine zone, while those in the other
Lillooet Country found employment with farms, stores, and the railway.
• Tashme, on Highway 3 just east of Hope, among the most notorious of the camps
for harsh conditions, was just outside of the exclusion zone.
• All others, including Slocan, were in the Kootenay Country in southeastern British
Columbia.
• Most people of the 21,500 Japanese descent who lived in British Columbia were
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naturalized or native-born citizens.
Those unwilling to live in internment camps or relocation centres faced the possibility of
deportation to Japan.
On February 24, 1942 an Order-in-Council passed under the War Measures Act giving
the federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin.”
In early March, all ethnic Japanese people were ordered out of the protected area, and
a daytime-only curfew was imposed on them.
Some of those brought inland were kept in animal stalls for the Pacific National
Exhibition at Hastings Park, in Vancouver for months.
They were then moved to ten camps in or near inland British Columbia towns,
sometimes separating husbands from their wives and families.
However, four of those camps in the Lillooet area and another at Christina Lake were
formally "self-supporting projects" (also called "relocation centres") which housed
selected middle and upper class families and others not deemed as much a threat to
public safety.
• Officially, those living in "relocation camps" were not legally interned - they could leave,
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so long as they had permission - however, they were not legally allowed to work or
attend school outside the camps.
Since the majority of Japanese Canadians had little property aside from their
(confiscated) houses, these restrictions left most with no opportunity to survive outside
the camps.
• "It is the government’s plan to get these people out of
B.C. as fast as possible. It is my personal intention,
as long as I remain in public life, to see they never
come back here. Let our slogan be for British
Columbia: No Japs from the Rockies to the seas.'”
 Ian Mackenzie, MP
• In 1943, the Canadian "Custodian of Aliens" began to sell the possessions of Japanese
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Canadians without the owners' permission.
The Custodian of Aliens held auctions for these items, ranging from farm land and houses to
people's clothing. They were sold quickly at prices below market value.
Funds raised went towards the fees of realtors and auctioneers, and storage/handling
charges, and Japanese owners rarely received much income from the sales.
Unlike official prisoners of war who, according to Geneva Convention, didn't have to pay their
living expenses, Japanese internees did.
• After the victory over Japan, the federal government moved to evacuate Japanese
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Canadians from British Columbia all together.
Evacuees were given the choice between deportation to Japan or transfer to areas
east of the Rocky Mountains. The majority opted to remain in Canada, and moved to
Ontario, Québec and the Prairie provinces.
Following public protest, the order-in-council that authorized the forced deportation was
challenged on the basis that the forced deportation of the Japanese was a crime
against humanity and that a citizen could not be deported from their own country.
The Prime Minister referred the matter to the Supreme Court.
In a five to two decision, the Court held that the law was valid.
Three of the five found that the order was entirely valid.
The other two found that the provision including both women and children as threats to
national security was invalid.
In 1947 the deportation order was repealed, after 4,000 Japanese Canadians had
already left the country.
On April 1, 1949, Japanese Canadians regained their freedom to live anywhere in
Canada.
October Crisis
FLQ
• The October Crisis was a series of dramatic
events triggered by two terrorist kidnappings of
government officials by members of the Front de
libération du Québec (FLQ) in the province of
Quebec, Canada, in October 1970, which
ultimately resulted in a brief invocation of the War
Measures Act by Prime Minister Pierre E.
Trudeau and the deployment of the national army
in Quebec and in the national capital Ottawa.
• From 1963 to 1970 the Quebec nationalist group Front de libération
du Québec (FLQ) had exploded over 95 bombs.
• While mailboxes, particularly in the affluent and predominantly
Anglophone city of Westmount, were common targets, the largest
single bombing was of the Montreal Stock Exchange on February 13,
1969, which caused extensive damage and injured 27 people.
• Other targets included Montreal City Hall, RCMP recruitment offices,
railroad tracks, and army installations.
• FLQ members, in a strategic move, had stolen several tons of
dynamite from military and industrial sites. Financed by bank
robberies, they threatened the public through their official
communication organ, known as La Cognée, that more attacks were
to come.
Timeline
• October 5: Montreal, Quebec: Members of the "Liberation
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Cell" of the FLQ kidnap British Trade Commissioner
James Cross.
This was followed by a communiqué to the authorities
that contained the kidnappers' demands, which included
the exchange of Cross for "political prisoners", a number
of convicted or detained FLQ terrorists, and the CBC
broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto.
The terms of the ransom note were the same as those
found in June for the planned kidnapping of the U.S.
consul.
At the time, the police did not connect the two.
• October 8: Broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto in all French- and
English-speaking media outlets in Quebec.
• October 10: Montreal, Quebec: Members of the Chenier Cell
approach the home of the Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour of the
province of Quebec, Pierre Laporte, while he was playing football
with his nephew. Members of the "Chenier cell" of the FLQ kidnap
Laporte.
• October 11: The CBC broadcasts a letter from captivity from Pierre
Laporte to the Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa.
• October 13: Prime Minister Trudeau is interviewed by the CBC in
respect of the military presence. In a combative interview, Trudeau
asks the reporter what he would do in his place, and when asked
how far he would go replies "Just watch me".
• October 15: Quebec City: The Government of Quebec, solely
responsible for law and order, formally requisitions the intervention of
the Canadian army in "aid of the civil power", as is its right alone
under the National Defence Act.
• All three opposition parties, including the Parti Québécois rise in the
National Assembly and agree with the decision.
• On the same day, separatist groups are permitted to speak at the
Université de Montréal and Robert Lemieux organizes 3,000 student
rally in Paul Sauve Arena to show support for the FLQ; labour leader
Michel Chartrand announces that popular support for FLQ is rising
and "We are going to win because there are more boys ready to
shoot members of Parliament than there are policemen."
• The rally frightens many Canadians, who view it as a possible
prelude to outright insurrection in Quebec;
• October 16: Premier Bourassa formally requests that the
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government of Canada grant the government of Quebec
"emergency powers" that allow them to "apprehend and
keep in custody" individuals.
This resulted in the implementation of the War Measures
Act, which allowed the suspension of habeas corpus,
giving wide-reaching powers of arrest to police.
The City of Montreal had already made such a request
the day before.
These measures came into effect at 4:00 a.m. Prime
Minister Trudeau made a broadcast announcing the
imposition of the War Measures Act.
• The provisions took effect at 4:00 a.m., and
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soon, hundreds of suspected FLQ members and
sympathizers were rousted out of bed and
hauled into custody.
At the time, opinion polls in Quebec and the rest
of Canada showed overwhelming support for the
War Measures Act.
Since then, however, the government's use of
the War Measures Act in peacetime has been a
subject of debate in Canada as it gave police
sweeping powers of arrest and detention.
• Outside Quebec, mainly in the Ottawa area, the
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federal government deployed troops under its
own authority to guard federal offices and
employees.
The combination of the increased powers of
arrest granted by the War Measures Act and the
military deployment requisitioned and controlled
by the government of Quebec, gave every
appearance that martial law had been imposed.
• A significant difference, however, is that the
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military remained in a support role to the civil
authorities (in this case, Quebec authorities) and
never had a judicial role.
Nevertheless, the sight of tanks on the lawns of
the federal parliament was disconcerting to many
Canadians.
Moreover, police officials sometimes abused their
powers and detained without cause prominent
artists and intellectuals associated with the
sovereignty movement