The documentary Facing Injustice: The Relocation of Japanese Canadians to Manitoba, produced by Winnipeg filmmaker, Aaron Floresco, will be shown nationally on CBC TV on September 22, 2018 as part of their Absolutely Canadian series. The film will be screened at 2:30pm Newfoundland Time, 2pm Atlantic Time, 1pm Eastern Time, 12noon Central Time, 11am Mountain Time, and 10am Pacific Time.
In 1942, during the Second World War, Canada’s government forced 22,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes in British Columbia, taking their businesses, their property and their dignity. While many were sent to internment camps, another option allowed Japanese Canadian families to stay together by relocating to sugar beet farms in rural Manitoba. After the wartime restrictions were lifted in the late 1940s, most of those relocated made the move from rural Manitoba to the capital city of Winnipeg, trying their best to forget this humiliating period in their lives.
By the 1970s younger Japanese Canadians, most of whom were sheltered from the reasons behind the move to Manitoba, began learning the truth of their family history. Through interviews and archival photos and footage, Facing Injusticetells the personal stories behind this little-known period of Canadian history, and shows how one community reconciled the past and organized a national redress movement.
The film is also available online HERE
