Thanks very much, Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Joining me today are Ümit Kiziltan, from the Citizenship and Multiculturalism Branch of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Sandy MacDonald, Director, Historical Recognition Programs.
I am pleased to join you today to speak to an issue that concerns one of this country's largest cultural groups. I have some brief opening remarks and then I will be happy to take your questions.
According to the 2006 census, Canada has over 1.4 million Canadians of Italian descent. This community has made an enormous contribution to the building of our nation. However, during the Second World War, some 632 people of Italian origin were interned as enemy aliens of Canada, almost all of them at an internment camp in Petawawa, Ontario. Others were also interned in various other camps and penitentiaries.
At that time the government had legitimate security concerns about the operations of foreign governments in Canada. That is the historical context of the actions at that time, which we should not dismiss. We should give full consideration to that historical security context.
That being said, it's clear now in retrospect, decades later, that what occurred during the internment involved, in many cases, the violation of people's due process rights. It caused great anxiety that continues to this day among many Canadians of Italian origin.
In some cases the grounds for internment were spurious and based on race and suspicion rather than evidence. For example, 24-year-old Benny Ferry was an Italian-born Canadian who was arrested in June 1940 and held at Petawawa. But 11 months later the authorities recognized their mistake. They released him and within a few months, as a model, loyal Canadian citizen, he had volunteered for the Canadian Army. There were numerous cases like this--a year or less of internment followed by release.
I acknowledge the sincere efforts of our colleague Mr. Pacetti to address this historical experience in this bill. I acknowledge that in this bill he speaks to an issue that has long been a matter of deep concern to Canadians of Italian origin.
I'd like to provide some historical context on the approach and responses of successive Canadian governments to the issue of the internment of Canadians of Italian origin during the Second World War. Then I'll address some comments on the bill itself. While I acknowledge the sincere motivation of Mr. Pacetti, I submit that the bill is deeply flawed, and I will analyze the reasons why I hold that view.
First of all, in the years following the war there was a decision to not recognize the problematic or unjust nature of these detentions. Prime Minister Trudeau, from 1968 to 1984, took the position that what was in the past was in the past, and we should not in any way deal with issues of historical recognition or redress for incidents such as wartime internment, not only for Italian Canadians but also for the Japanese, Canadians of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the first war, and immigration restriction measures. He completely opposed such efforts.
He was succeeded by Prime Minister Mulroney, who took a different approach. He believed that Canada was big enough to learn from its mistakes and should face up to them, which of course he did in 1988 with his apology for the internment of Canadians of Japanese origin. Prime Minister Mulroney also, on November 4, 1990, made an apology on behalf of Canadians and the government to Canadians of Italian origin for what occurred between 1940 and 1943. Let me quote at some length from his statement on that day.
At a luncheon of the National Congress of Italian Canadians he said:
What happened to many Italian Canadians is deeply offensive to the simple notion of respect for human dignity and the presumption of innocence. The brutal injustice was inflicted arbitrarily, not only on individuals suspected of being security risks but also on individuals whose only crime was to being of Italian origin. In fact, many of the arrests were based on membership in Italian Canadian organizations--much like the ones represented here today. None of the 700 internees was ever charged with an offence and no judicial proceedings were launched. It was often, in the simplest terms, an act of prejudice--organized and carried out under law, but prejudice nevertheless.
In 1988 my Government revoked the War Measures Act--so that never again will such injustices be inflicted on innocent and unsuspecting Canadians. By creating the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, we are also saying “never again”. But to say “never again” without explicitly and formally recognizing as well that a wrong has been done is not enough.
Forty-five years of silence about these wrongs is a shameful part of our history. The silence was maintained by Governments who thought the internments were either right or inconsequential. Well, we know that they were neither. They were legally wrong and morally offensive. They showed as well that, when things got tough, the Government of Canada was not above blaming the newcomers with unusual-sounding names, not beyond scapegoating minorities still struggling in many cases to learn English or French. This is a crucial issue and I want to be clear. This kind of behaviour was not then, is not now, and never will be acceptable in a civilized nation that purports to respect the rule of law. On behalf of the government and people of Canada, I offer a full and unqualified apology for the wrongs done to our fellow Canadians of Italian origin during World War II.
Mr. Chairman, that apology was followed between 1993 and 2005 by a government that subsequently refused to provide any commemorative funding to deepen our understanding of the internment experience and to educate future generations about it. In fact, Secretary of State Sheila Finestone wrote to the Italian-Canadian organizations and other groups indicating that the government would not deal with any demands for redress. Similarly, former Heritage Minister Sheila Copps took the same position on behalf of Prime Minister Chrétien.
In October 2005, just before the federal election, however, an agreement in principle was signed to provide $2.5 million in commemorative project funding to four organizations: the National Congress of Italian Canadians, the National Federation of Canadian Italian Business and Professional Associations, the Order Sons of Italy of Canada, and the Fondation communautaire canadienne-italienne du Québec.
When our government took office, we began discussions with those organizations. I was honoured to lead many of those discussions over the course of 2006 and 2007. It was the position of those organizations that the government should transfer funding for $12.5 million to the National Congress of Italian Canadians Foundation, and we explored that in good faith. But first of all, I couldn't understand where they came up with this $12.5 million figure. They claimed it had been a commitment made by the previous Martin government. We looked very closely at all of the books, and we asked our officials to go through all of the public accounts and budget documents and fiscal framework and announcements. We could find no evidence of any such commitment beyond the $2.5 million in the AIP.
When my department officials came back to me, I asked them to review this possibility of an endowment, and here's what they told me. They said:
Endowments are a unique funding mechanism and Treasury Board sets strict criteria for approving their use. Treasury Board requires a business case to be prepared and a clear demonstration to be made that the recipient has the capacity and experience to manage and invest the funds in accordance with the Minister of Finance Investment Management Framework for upfront funding and to comply with the rigorous reporting governance and accountability requirements for foundations.
In May 2008, in exploring all options for delivery of funding under the community historical recognition program, departmental officials requested from the National Congress of Italian Canadians the necessary documents to determine the capacity of the NCIC foundation with respect to the requirements above. The NCIC provided only the foundation's letters patent and bylaws. It did not provide other documents requested, such as the foundation's investment policy, board members, investment committee members, information on activities and achievements, or any financial information.
Officials were, however, able to obtain from department files the 2005 financial statement for the foundation, which showed that it possessed only $521 in assets and had nil revenues for the year. Upon verification with Canada's online federal corporations data, officials also learned that the foundation had not submitted its annual report since at least 2006 and that it had signalled its intent to dissolve in 2004, later revoking it, which provided further indication of the foundation's inactivity. Based on this information, officials concluded that it would not be possible to develop a successful business case demonstrating that the NCIC possessed the required capacity and experience to manage an endowment.
I conveyed this information back to my interlocutors from the four organizations, that the government is obliged to comply with the Treasury Board criteria and the Minister of Finance's management framework and that the foundation simply didn't qualify. Subsequently, because we were unable to come to a consensus with the organizations, our government decided that six decades of inaction with respect to the commemorative dimension of redress for Italian internment was too long and that we had to take action.
Consequently, we designated $5 million of funding within the community historic recognition program to be available exclusively for projects that commemorate and educate Canadians about the Italian Canadian internment during the Second World War. I'm pleased to say that we've already received a number of applications, that the grants and projects to be funded by CHRP will be done on the basis of an advisory committee of eminent Canadians of Italian origin.
Let me close by saying that the CHRP fund that our government has made available, the first moneys ever released by any government in Canadian history to commemorate this experience, is joined by other efforts by our government, including the creation of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with the $25 million endowment by the Mulroney government, including the construction of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the establishment of Pier 21 as a national immigration museum. We believe both of those institutions will acknowledge permanently the sad history of wartime internment measures.
So I submit that the bill is flawed in a number of respects.
First of all, it designates the Minister of Canadian Heritage when it's the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who's now responsible for historical recognition.
It identifies one organization when there were four identified in the agreement in principle, and that excludes the other 33 million Canadians who may individually or through their own organizations want to participate in this funding. I don't think they should be forced to go through one organization. I don't think we should be picking winners and losers.
It speaks of restitution. The other historical recognition files—the Chinese head tax, Japanese internment—don't talk about restitution, because that implies returning real property, which is clearly no longer the case. We no longer have survivors, and no one has proposed that we actually restore real property.
It talks about referring an agreement to Parliament for approval. It doesn't say by what instrument or what kind of approval that would constitute.
It talks about promoting ethnic and racial harmony. I agree, and that's why the previous government created the Race Relations Foundation. That's why we have these other projects, such as the human rights museum. So I think that's redundant.
It speaks of an apology. As I've indicated and quoted at length, the Prime Minister of Canada already made a full apology on behalf of the government and people of Canada—a full and unqualified apology.
And finally, it speaks to the creation of a postage stamp, which is in violation of what I think is a pretty sensible policy for commemorative stamps by Canada Post. I don't think we should be politicizing that. I think a postage stamp on this is a great idea, and I'd be happy to join with Mr. Pacetti and other parliamentarians in writing the advisory committee of Canada Post to recommend a stamp, but I don't think we should make exceptions to the general sensible policy they have in that respect.
So those are my comments on the bill, and I look forward to any questions.
