History underlines fragility of human rights
Imagine if — before going to work today — you had to report your whereabouts to the police. What if you had to ask the authorities for permission to go out of town?
You think that couldn’t happen here? It did — if you were categorized as an “enemy alien” during Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920.
After reviewing some 2,000 Alberta court cases from the Great War period, I found a law dating from Sept. 25, 1916, that once affected thousands of people. It required “every alien of enemy nationality residing or being in Canada who has no permanent residence or abode in Canada” to register with the local police and carry and “carefully” preserve a Certificate of Parole form.
Thereafter, monthly reporting was the norm for Ukrainian and European immigrants from parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany. Police permission was required before you left the community in which you lived to move somewhere else, along with an obligation to check in at your destination.
Between Sept. 25, 1916, and Dec. 29, 1919, hundreds of men were found guilty of 17 new offences defined under this legislation, suffering fines of up to $500, six months in jail or both.
In October 1917, for example, Theodor Khruhiak was arrested by Alberta Provincial Police at the Cardiff Collieries and brought to Edmonton for failing to report. He claimed his baby had torn up his registration card, but the presiding magistrate nonetheless found him guilty and fined him $30, plus costs. At a time when most labourers made just over $1 a day, this penalty represented a significant economic hardship.
Joe Zaporozen — despite providing his Certificate of Parole and endorsement document proving he had regularly requested and received permission to travel from Edmonton to Hot Springs, Chipman, and Kahwin — had not asked for leave to go to Hay Lakes. Police magistrate Philip Primrose (who later became Alberta’s lieutenant-governor) sentenced Zaporozen to a month in the Fort Saskatchewan provincial jail.
Edmonton’s Kyryles Zohul has the distinction of being fined $200 plus costs, then jailed for two months. The magistrate added he would serve an additional month if he did not pay the fine.
In January 1919, the Preusse family from Clyde, faced a medical emergency. They went to the local police officer, but learned he would not be home for three more days. Faced with this predicament, the family took their mother to Edmonton to see a doctor. For this, they were charged, pleaded guilty and fined $1 plus costs.
Most men appeared without legal counsel and most cases ended illegally in conviction. The law indicated only those who had “no permanent place of residence or abode in Canada” were required to register and report.
And yet almost every charge sheet I examined indicates the place where the accused was living, some with very specific street addresses. Indeed, only one case out of some 2,000 identified a person with no fixed residence.
Occasionally, judicial decisions were appealed. But appeals of this sort were exceptional and seem to have been made only in the larger centres. I found only one case where a justice of the peace dismissed a charge because the “enemy alien” in question had been homesteading for more than five years.
Did these laws bring the Dominion’s administration of justice into disrepute? In 1919, an Edmonton lawyer, A. E. Popple, offered this poignant opinion in an article published in the Canadian Law Times: “With one or two exceptions, these courts leave very much to be desired. … Very often (what) results is a miscarriage of justice.”
As we today strive to find a balance between the need for protecting our civil liberties while ensuring the security of the state, what happened to Ukrainians and other Europeans 100 years ago this autumn surely reminds us of the need for remaining vigilant in defence of our human rights — which may be more fragile than most of us ever pause to think.