100 plaques mark 100th anniversary of War Measures Act

One hundred plaques — including one in Kamloops and 13 other B.C. cities — were unveiled across Canada to mark the 100th anniversary of the federal War Measures Act.

The act resulted in thousands of European-Canadians being interned in camps between 1914 and 1920.

To commemorate the anniversary, and to recognize the many families that were affected by the internment operations, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation launched Project CTO. (Cto means “one hundred” in Ukrainian.)

The project received financial support from the UCCLF and the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.

Friday at 11 a.m. local time, 100 plaques were unveiled across Canada, moving from east to west, from coast to coast and creating a “wave” of recognition.

Fourteen plaques will to be unveiled in B.C. communities including Kamloops, Enderby, Fernie, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo (2), New Westminster, Revelstoke, Surrey, Vancouver, Vernon (3) and Victoria.

They will be located in Ukrainian, Croatian, Serbian, German and Hungarian churches and cultural centres, as well as in local and regional museums and other public venues.

More than 8,000 people — Ukrainians and other Europeans constituted the majority of the civilian internees — were sent to live in crude internment camps with poor living conditions where they were used for forced labour.

They were also subjected to other federally state-sanctioned censures including losing the right to vote and having what little wealth they had confiscated.

Women and children were held in two camps − one in Vernon, the other in Spirit Lake (now called Lac Beauchamp), Quebec.