text: Starting on December 8, 1941, 1,200 Japanese-Canadian-owned fishing vessels were impounded as a "defence measure." On January 14, 1942, the federal government issued an order calling for the removal of male Japanese nationals between 18 and 45 years of age from a designated protected area of  inland from the British Columbia Coast. The federal government also enacted a ban against Japanese-Canadian fishing during the war, banned shortwave radios, and controlled the sale of gasoline and dynamite to Japanese Canadians. Japanese nationals removed from the coast after the January 14 order were sent to road camps around Jasper, Alberta.On February 19, 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called for the removal of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the American coastline. Anne Sunahara, a historian of internment, argues that "the American action sealed the fate of Japanese Canadians." On February 24, the Canadian government issued order in council PC 1486, which allowed for the removal of "all persons of Japanese origin." This order in council granted the minister of justice the broad powers of removing people from any protected area in Canada, but was meant for Japanese Canadians on the Pacific coast in particular. On February 25, the federal government announced that Japanese Canadians were being moved for reasons of national security. In all, 27,000 people were detained without charge or trial, and their property confiscated. Others were deported to Japan.
  Advocacy for Japanese Canadians
  However, not all Canadians believed that Japanese Canadians posed a threat to national security, including select senior officials of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Royal Canadian Navy, and Department of Labour and Fisheries. Notable individuals on the side of the Japanese Canadians included Hugh Llewellyn Keenleyside, Assistant Under-Secretary at External Affairs during the internment of Japanese Canadians. Sunahara argues that Keenleyside was a sympathetic administrator who advocated strongly against the removal of Japanese Canadians from the BC coast. He unsuccessfully tried to remind other government officials of the distinction between Japanese foreign nationals and Canadian citizens in regards to personal and civil rights.