Ian Mackenzie (politician)
Ian Alistair Mackenzie , PC (born July 27, 1890 in Assynt , Scotland , † September 2, 1949 ) was a Canadian politician from British Columbia . After several years of political activity in the province of British Columbia, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1930 and appointed Minister of Pensions and Health . Later he was Minister of Defense and Minister for War Veterans . During the Second World War , Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King made him parliamentary group chairman, but he fell out with his sponsor. Mackenzie advocated a policy directed against Asians, especially the Japanese. This led to internment, expropriation and the expulsion of some of the approximately 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent.
Political career
Mackenzie won a seat as a member of the British Columbia Liberal Party in the Vancouver Center constituency in the election to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in 1920 . In 1930 he was in the cabinet of William Lyon Mackenzie King as Minister of Immigration and Colonization and also as Superintendent of Indian Affairs provided, but the lost Liberal Party of Canada , the general election in 1930 . Mackenzie still received a seat in the House of Commons.
When the Liberals the general election in 1935 won, Mackenzie became the defense minister ( Minister of National Defense ) appointed. Due to a corruption affair, however, he was removed from office at the beginning of the Second World War and given the department for pensions and health. From 1944 he was minister responsible for war veterans. During the war, the prime minister made him chairman of a parliamentary group in the lower house (Government House Leader) in order to relieve himself of numerous obligations.
Anti-Japanese Politics
As early as 1935, Ian Mackenzie threatened Japan because of trade restrictions that Canada would offer a home to 40,000 of his compatriots. He was later of the opinion that "we cannot keep up with them economically, we cannot assimilate them racially, so we have to exclude them from our midst and forbid them to own land".
On February 24, 1942, the Prime Minister ordered the internment of all Canadians with Japanese ancestry. Ian Mackenzie had convinced him that the Japanese in British Columbia were a threat in the face of Japanese aggression. A few days later, the first 2,500 men were held captive in Hastings Park in Vancouver under the supervision of the British Columbia Security Commission established for this purpose . From there they were transferred to camps east of a 200 mile wide safety zone . A total of ten camps were created. These included two prisoner-of-war camps, mainly for men who refused to separate from their families, and five camps that were self-supporting and for which the inmates had to pay. The latter offered less primitive conditions.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Fishing Vessel Disposal Committee sold the fishermen's boats and ships - 16.3% of them worked in the fishing industry - and their land holdings - 18.8% were farmers - were also sold. This country seemed to Mackenzie, who was responsible for the veterans care, very suitable for preventing unrest such as that which had developed after the First World War . The Veterans' Land Act was intended to distribute the Japanese land to the returning soldiers.
Until this law is passed, the Soldier Settlement Board should take advantage of the sudden oversupply of land to purchase the property cheaply. However, it was agreed to freeze land sales for the time being in order to await the passage of the relevant law. Gordon Murchison, convinced by Mackenzie, became the head of the Veterans' Land Act in September 1942 . He tried to buy 60% of the 939 farms that seemed suitable for veteran settlement.
The only competitor for the land was the Department of Labor , which hoped to be able to cover the costs of the warehouse, which was incurred despite the extremely economical equipment, by selling the Japanese property. At the same time, the City Council of Vancouver (City Council) pushed for the sale to make it difficult for the Japanese to return after the war; it was mainly about the Japanese quarter on Powell Street.
The Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property , convinced by Mackenzie, has meanwhile also pleaded for the sale in order to save administrative costs. Representatives of these groups united in the Cabinet Committee on Japanese Questions and on January 23, 1943, the Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property received permission to sell. In the general euphoria about the turn of the war, such as the Battle of Stalingrad , the few critical voices were drowned out. On letters from critics such as Dr. Henry F. Angus, the Prime Minister did not respond.
Only at the end of March 1943 did it become clear that the entire property was actually to be expropriated and sold. The owners hoped to take legal action and founded the Japanese Property Owners' Association . In 1923 you successfully defended yourself against the displacement from the fish industry. But meanwhile the sale continued, only to find in 1947 that an asset of $ 11.5 million had since sold for only $ 5,373,317.64, about half its estimated value. The residents of the camps lost hope of return, and many of the younger ones went to the eastern provinces.
Mackenzie operated the deportation towards the end of the war, although only 30% of Canadians were in favor of deporting the Japanese-born - albeit 80% of those born in Japan. On June 5, 1944, the majority in the Vancouver Council rejected the deportation.
The tide turned in the United States when, in December 1944, the Supreme Court recognized that loyal Americans could not be denied freedom of movement. From January 2, 1945, they could return to the Pacific coast, especially to California . Mackenzie, who rejected the return of the Japanese to British Columbia, started a campaign under the slogan "Not a Japanese from the Rockies to the Sea" (Not a single Japanese from the Rocky Mountains to the sea). The government put considerable pressure on the Japanese to choose either to “return” to Japan or to move to areas east of the Rockies , outside of British Columbia.
After the war ended, the government offered the Japanese, most of whose property had been sold to war veterans, to either go to Japan or to live outside of British Columbia. For various reasons, 6,844 adults registered for deportation to Japan, but 4,527 of them had withdrawn their applications by April 1946. Hunger had ruled Japan since the end of 1945. On December 15, 1945, an agreement was reached in the presence of Mackenzie. All Japanese who wanted to return or who had been anglers interned in the POW camp were to be brought back. All naturalized who did not revoke their application to emigrate before September 2, 1945, all Nisei , Canadian-born Japanese who did not object to deportation, and the wives and minor children of these three groups were to be deported. However, the cabinet refused to deport all Japanese. With an alleged compulsion to act quickly, Parliament has now been duped. Alistair Stewart, Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North, branded the act as official support for racial discrimination.
In January 1946, Ian Mackenzie, who had hoped in vain to become a member of the Imperial Privy Council , fell out with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King . With that he lost the support to which he owed his rise. King, whom Mackenzie had blamed for his failure and whom he had insulted, wanted to drop Mackenzie at the earliest opportunity, especially since he was getting too drunk.
On February 20, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a ruling authorizing the deportation, but not that of the approximately 3,500 "dependents". On February 23, 1946, the Special Cabinet Committee on Repatriation and Relocation delegated the decision to the Privy Council in Mackenzie's absence. At the same time it became known from Humphrey Mitchell, a partisan of Mackenzie, that he had called the Japanese "yellow bastards". King blamed Mackenzie for the deportation disaster. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1946 there was a second wave of deportations to the prairie provinces and Ontario.
In March 1946, John Diefenbaker , who later became prime minister, scourged the procedure with harsh words, because the deportation took place against the will of Parliament, which had been deceived by means of hasty decisions at the turn of the year. Mackenzie still wasn't ready to give in. He claimed that the rest of Canada did not have the right to meddle on intra-British Columbian issues. His partisan Humphrey Mitchell refused to perceive, even after accusations, that the same thing happened to the Japanese in Canada as to the Canadians who had lived in Japan and were captured.
In mid-January 1948, King ruled that Mackenzie's alcoholism was so advanced that he had neglected his office and lost cabinet respect. He dismissed him from the cabinet and immediately appointed him senator . Mackenzie was a member of this until his death.
literature
- Stephanie Bangarth: Voices Raised in Protest: Defending North American Citizens of Japanese Ancestry, 1942-49 , University of British Columbia Press 2008
- Mary Taylor: The Japanese-Canadians in World War II , Ottawa: Oberon Press, 2004
- Peter Ward: White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia , Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002
Web links
- Ian Mackenzie (politician) - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)
- Alexandra Bailey: Japanese Internment During World War II
Remarks
- ↑ This and the following, especially after: Ann Gomer Sunahara: The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War , Ottawa 2000.
- ↑ Patricia Roy: The Oriental question: consolidating a white man's province, 1914-1941 , University of British Columbia Press 2003, p. 171.
- ↑ Quoted from Patricia Roy: The Oriental question: consolidating a white man's province, 1914-1941 , University of British Columbia Press 2003, p. 116.
- ↑ chap. Dispossession, in: Ann Gomer Sunahara: The Politics of Racism , 2000
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mackenzie, Ian |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mackenzie, Ian Alistair (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 27, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Assynt , Scotland |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 2, 1949 |