This coming Thursday, May 27, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will deliver a formal apology in the House of Commons for the internment of Italian-Canadians during the Second World War.
After Italy declared war against Canada in 1940, the Canadian government interned hundreds of people of Italian heritage. Tens of thousands of Italian-Canadians were declared “enemy aliens.”
In a press release on May 14, Prime Minister Trudeau explained that “For far too long, the Italian-Canadian community has carried the weight of the unjust policy of internment during the Second World War…. We cannot undo our past failures, but through this apology we hope to help bring closure to those who were harmed, and ensure the lessons we learned are never forgotten.”
On June 10, 1940, Antonio Capobianco arrived at his Montreal home to find two police officers waiting to arrest him. Accused of being an “enemy alien” by the Canadian government, Capobianco became a prisoner of war that very day. He would spend 14 months in the Petawawa internment camp in southern Ontario.
Antonio Capobianco was born in Montreal in 1912. After his internment, he found work selling insurance, and eventually founded his own company, Assurances Capobianco, Inc. He became a well-respected leader of the Italian community of Montreal, as a founding member of Santa Cabrini Hospital and of CIBPA, the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association. Throughout his life, Capobianco actively petitioned the Canadian government to make amends for the internment of Italian Canadians during the Second World War.
Antonio Capobianco passed away in 2006 at the age of 93.
In 2001, Italocanadese editor Agata De Santis interviewed Antonio Capobianco in the very same kitchen where those two police officers were waiting for him on that day in 1940. Below is an excerpt from that interview.
What happened on the day of your arrest?
On June 10, 1940, I arrived home and in this very kitchen there were two provincial police officers waiting for me. They told me, we have an arrest warrant for you. These two people who were in my home to arrest me were actually two colleagues from the Liberal Party! Before coming home that day, I was at the corner of Papineau and St-Zotique, where there was an Italian restaurant. There were three friends outside the restaurant. They told me not to go home because there were people who wanted to arrest me. Me? Impossible, I told them. I did not believe them. The two police officers brought me to the police station. I waited there for three days. After the third day, I was transported to Petawawa. While we were walking from the train station to the camp, there were people there spitting at us, because the newspapers had reported that we traitors, enemies of Canada. The government interned 569 Italians. 236 of us were from Montreal.
After the police came to arrest you, did you family know what happened to you?
No! They arrested me without explaining anything. For three or four months, none of us were allowed to communicate with our families. Our families did not know where we were. Only after about four months, we were allowed to write them. We were the victims at the hands of three traitors: Antonino Spada of Cittadino Canadese, Camillo Vetere, the Fascist Party’s secretary, and Father Bersani. These three, as revenge on their enemies, gave the Mackenzie King government a list of Italian-Canadian fascists. But we were innocent. After 14 months I was released, after having proved to the government that I was born in Canada and that I was the secretary of the local Liberal Party. I was released without conditions.
But after 14 months…
I was interned without explanation for 14 months, and the government had the audacity to send me a bill for $45 for my time at the internment camp. I paid it simply because I did not want any additional problems. Even today, 60 years after the war, our names and our fingerprints are still in Ottawa. We still have not been able to get those fingerprints deleted. We are not considered criminals, but we are considered internees. There is no difference.
What was the situation like when you returned home?
It was grave. After I was freed, my employer did not want to help me. Even if I was released without any conditions attached, I was still an internee, an ex-internee. My bosses did not want any trouble. Even if they knew I was in the right, they did not want to get mixed up in my situation. And then, I was called to serve in the Canadian military! I did not want to enlist, so the federal government came to find me. The Minister of Labour declared me ineligible to serve in the military, and so instead the government sent me to work for the Marconi Company. I did everything I could to refuse this job, and found work selling insurance.
I find it very odd that this particular story in Canada’s history is not taught in school.
The fact is that the Liberal government does not want to admit that happened. The Conservative government under Brian Mulroney did offer an unofficial apology. The Liberals need to go further. We don’t want the government to give us reparations. However, we have asked the government to build old folks homes for seniors of Italian origin, a place where they can go to enjoy their final years. The response? Nothing!
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