The Liberal government of World War Two was far more repressive than the Conservative government had been in World War One. King and his cabinet were responsible for censoring 325 newspapers and periodicals in the first years of the war (compared to a total of 184 under Borden). Wartime propaganda was promoted through the National Film Board and the Wartime Information Board. More than thirty political, social, religious and ethnic organizations were banned and internment camps housed approximately 2 423 Canadians during the war. Habeas corpus and many of the rights designed to protect citizens from arbitrary state action were suspended. One of the most notable legacies of the war was the forcible relocation of 22 000 men, women and children of Japanese descent from the Pacific coast to the interior. Under “wartime powers, these citizens were forcibly relocated to camps in the interior, had their property confiscated, and were seriously threatened with mass deportation to Japan (including Canadian-born among them) at war’s end. All of this was done without proof of a single case of espionage or sabotage by a Japanese Canadian.” [Source: Whitaker and Marcuse]

Soon after the war, Igor Gouzenko defected from the Soviet embassy in Ottawa and set off a series of events which led to the espionage commission of 1946 and a major debate about civil liberties and the state across the country (see Gouzenko Affair).

Further Reading

• Ramsay Cook, "Canadian Civil Liberties in Wartime," (MA Thesis, Queen’s University, 1955).
• Ross Lambertson, Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Activists, 1930-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005).