Civil Service Memoranda: Interdepartmental Correspondence (Japanese Fishing Vessel Disposal Committee

From this file, LOI has digitized one textual record or image.

This file contains correspondence between the Department of Fisheries and the Salmon Canners’ Operating Committee regarding the renewal of fishing licences to Japanese Canadian fishermen in 1942. The Canners’ Committee refutes accusations that they had sent a contingent to Ottawa to ask that licences be renewed. At the centre of the controversy appears to be local businessman and politician Edward Tourtellotte Kenney who wrote the department asserting that he will “make an issue of it” if the renewals are allowed. He claimed that British Columbians had been “pillored to death” [sic] because of their prior willingness to allow “these Japs to penetrate and infiltrate into our commercial life.” Assistant Commissioner George Alexander observed that Kenney’s accusations against the Canner’s Committee appeared to be based on “groundless” rumours. Also in this file are letters enquiring for purchase of Japanese Canadian–owned fishing vessels. The Department refers each writer to the federally operated Japanese Fishing Vessel Disposal Committee. Finally copies of relevant Orders-in-Council are attached: P.C. 251, P.C. 288, and P.C. 946.

The Provincial Government of British Columbia created this archive.

The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

This record was digitized in full.