Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau has formally apologised in parliament for the internment
of Italo-Canadians during the Second World War, recognising that
hundreds of people were denied a f air trial.
After Italy declared war on Canada in 1940, Ottawa detained over
600 people of Italian origin and declared some 31,000
Italo-Canadians "enemy foreigners".
Trudeau recalled that those so labelled were kept under control,
forced to give fingerprints and to report to local authorities
once a month.
"To those men and women who were taken prisoner in labour camps
or jailed without charges, to the people who are no longer with
us to hear this apology, to the tens of thousands of innocent
Italo-Canadians who were labelled enemy foreigners, to the
children and grandchildren who bore the shame and the wrongs of
the past generation, and to their community - a community that
has given so much to out country - we extend our apologies and
we say that we are sorry," said Trudeau.
He said that fighting the Fascist regime that stood with Nazi
Germany was right but blaming Italo-Canadians who were
respecting gthe law was wrong.
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