Mary was born in Montreal. She was a child-survivor of the Spirit Lake internment camp. Instead of dwelling on her family’s suffering, she wondered whether Japanese, Italian and German Canadians would have been mistreated during the Second World War, or some Quebecois in 1970, if people had only remembered Canada’s first national internment operations. They didn’t. So wrongs done once were done again, then again.
Despite indifference, ignorance, even hostility, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association installed commemorative plaques and statues at most of Canada’s 24 internment sites, while calling on Ottawa for acknowledgment and redress.
