Governments Past and Present: How Much is Enough?

‘Attempting to calculate everything which should be compensated for is extremely difficult, especially considering that this happened approximately 70 years ago and there are little records of what exactly was taken from each of the 21 000 citizens. One must ask what else the government can today do. It is clear that the greatest way to make an impact is through the education system. With that in mind, if one were to examine the issue of the internment of Japanese Canadians in the textbook that a typical high school’s Canadian History course offers, they might be surprised at the contents. There is one page which summarizes the approximate seven years (1942-1949) in which the Japanese Canadian suffered significantly, titled “Treatment of Japanese Canadians”. There are two more pages which give an excerpt of the novel written by Joy Kogawa describing how Japanese Canadians were treated during the Second World War, and an ad which the Canadian government placed in newspapers in 1988 titled, “Redress for Japanese Canadians Eligibility and Application Information Available Here”. This horrific seven year ordeal was allotted a grand total of three pages in the Canadian History textbook. In this very same textbook, there are two pages which summarize the FLQ terrorist bombings and kidnappings in Quebec during the 1970s. Although an important and serious subject, this crisis only lasted approximately two weeks. The “Treatment of Japanese Canadians” lasted approximately seven years. Is it fair that this seven year period is allotted the same space in the school curriculum as a two week ordeal? In Canada’s education curriculum, the federal government needs to put as much emphasis on their negative actions from the past as their positive actions from the past, it would show more responsibility. By broadening the focus of topics such as the mistreatment of Japanese Canadians in the curriculum, it shows to those who have been affected that this was not right, and it is not going to be overlooked. People do not want to be given money and then have all their past suffering forgotten. They want others to know that the federal government, the individuals supposedly in charge of leading the country and its citizens, made these decisions. The more people that know how wrong these actions were, the more it ensures history will not be allowed to repeat itself.’