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Renewal - Call for Redress
In the 1970s, government wartime files were opened to the public. Such access made it possible for the public to review the government’s decisions and actions during the war. In her book, The Politics of Racism, historian revealed what many in the Japanese Canadian community had felt all along – the Japanese in Canada were never a threat to national security. This fact was confirmed by military and RCMP documents. Rather, the government’s wartime actions were based on anti-Asian and racist sentiments of the time. The war was an opportunity for the government to use political means to respond to the “Japanese problem.” The wrongs of the past were being exposed.
The call for redress in Canada was influenced by the actions in the United States in the early 1980s. By 1983, the NAJC had begun to explore redress possibilities.
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