On October 28, British Columbia (BC) announced that construction has begun in the provincial capital, Victoria, on a memorial park to honour Japanese Canadians in the province who were forcibly relocated, had their land and property confiscated, and were interned during World War II.
The memorial park, being developed in collaboration with the Japanese Canadian Heritage Society (JCLS), is located just south of St. Ann’s Academy National Historic Site in Victoria, within walking distance of the Parliament Buildings and Beacon Hill Park.
The park’s centre piece will be a wall-shaped memorial that will feature the names of approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were forced to leave their homes in British Columbia in the 1940s. Many of them were born in Canada, but the memorial will also include the names of 3,000 people born after the forced removal. A Japanese-style garden will be built around the wall, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2026.
The project is part of a $100 million redress package announced by British Columbia in May 2022. In a statement, British Columbia Attorney General Niki Sharma called the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Canadians “a grave injustice in which the government failed in its duty to protect the rights and dignity of these people,” and said that the construction of the park is an effort to honour the Japanese Canadians who overcame hardship, prevent history from fading, and learn from the past for the future.
“By honouring our Japanese American ancestors, we reconnect their names to the communities they once called home and heal intergenerational wounds,” JCLS CEO Suzanne Tabata said in a statement.