text: Bordering the Pacific Ocean, British Columbia was believed to be easily susceptible to enemy attacks from Japan. Even though both the RCMP and the Department of National Defence lacked proof of any sabotage or espionage, there were fears that Japanese Canadians supported Japan in the war. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, for example, agreed with the view that all Japanese Canadians "would be saboteurs and would help Japan when the moment came." In total, 22,000 Japanese Canadians (14,000 of whom were born in Canada) were interned starting in 1942.
  Widespread internment was authorized on March 4, 1942, with order-in-council 1665 passed under the Defence of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act, which gave the federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin." A  wide strip along the Pacific coast was deemed "protected," and men of Japanese origin between the ages of 18 and 45 were removed. Thereafter, the entire Japanese Canadian population was uprooted from this designated zone. By November 1942, 22,000 people were displaced.
  Sites of forced relocation
  Japanese Canadians on the west coast were forcibly moved to road camps, sugar beet farms, or prisoner-of-war camps. Before being sent off, many of the men and their families were processed through Hastings Park in Vancouver; others were sent immediately for various destinations eastward. Many of the men at the park were separated from their families and sent into the British Columbia Interior or elsewhere in Canada, but most women and children stayed in the park until they were sent to Internment Camps in the interior or decided as a family to join the sugar beet farms in the Prairies.