Enemy aliens

Fears that Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, and other “enemy aliens” constituted an internal threat to Canada were part of the country’s mentality during the First World War. Thousands experienced imprisonment, sharing the fate of William Perchaluk, who became one of the 5,954 immigrants from Austria-Hungary who were confined in Canadian receiving stations and internment camps. There they built roads, erected and repaired buildings, and cleared and drained land. Although intended to house unnaturalized enemy aliens who had contravened regulations or were considered security threats, the camps in practice held the destitute and unemployed. Nativist pressure and prejudice were also factors through which individuals, some of them naturalized British subjects, ended up in the camps. As the majority of internees posed no threat to security, by 1916 most had been paroled back into the labour force.