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Home>> Issues and Challenges>> Labour and Politics>> Internment |
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Internment | |||
With the outbreak of the Great War, all "enemy aliens" were required to register and report on a regular basis to the nearest police station or government office. Not doing so meant that an immigrant could face imprisonment at an internment camp. These internment camps not only housed those deemed to be a national security threat but was also a prison for any immigrant unfortunate enough to be unemployed or fired from their job in the swelling wartime nationalism.2 Not only did the Drumheller Valley's "enemy alien" coal miners face possible imprisonment because of their birthplace but those naturalized after 1902 were also suddenly disenfranchised under the War Times Elections Act. The Act passed by Prime Minister Robert Borden's conscriptionist Union government was legislated under the belief that the "foreigners" traditionally voted Liberal and thus, could threaten the victory of Borden's government.3 To make conditions even more difficult for any immigrant
eastern European coal miner, the passing of the War Measures Act
enabled the federal government to take any actions it determine
necessary in a time of war. The Drumheller Valley coal miner
never posed any actual threat to national security and the
passing of such legislation was not done in answer to any "enemy
aliens" posing a real threat. It was done mainly as a response
to public pressure.4 This article has been extracted from It's a Miner's Life by
J. E. Russell (East Coulee, Alberta: Atlas Coal Mine
Historical Society, 1995). The
Heritage Community Foundation and the Year of the Coal Miner
Consortium would like to thank the author and the Atlas Coal
Mine Historical Site (a Year of the Coal Miner member) for
permission to reprint this material. |
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