The transformation of meaning: Legal discourse and Canadian internment camps

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 227-256

  Conklin, William E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247689164     PISSN: 09528059     EISSN: 15728722     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF01570808     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (77)

1. Regulations of the Minister of Justice Implementing the Evacuation, February 26th 1942; and Order-in-Council 2483, March 27th 1942.
2. Order-in-Council P.C. 365, January 27th 1942.
3. Order-in-Council P.C. 1486, sect. 2, February 24th 1942.
4. This is described in Ann Gomer Sunahara, The Politics of Racism. The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1981), 28-31.
5. Order-in-Council P.C. 1486, February 24th 1942.
6. Order-in-Council P.C. 9591, December 7th 1941; Order-in-Council P.C. 9760, December 16th 1941.
7. Order-in-Council 365, January 27th 1942.
8. Order-in-Council P.C. 946, February 5th 1943. Order-in-Council P.C. 1486, February 25th 1942 authorized the exclusion of "all persons, regardless of their citizenship, from protected areas."
9. Order-in-Council P.C. 1665, March 4th 1942.
10. Order-in-Council P.C. 2483, March 27th 1942; and P.C. 469, January 9th 1943.
11. Cunningham v. Tomey Homma [1903] A.C.151 (P.C).
12. Bill 135, sect. 5.
13. "Notice" authored by the Minister of Justice, 26th February 1942, sect. 8.
14. Order-in-Council P.C. 7335, December 15th 1945.
15. Form letter, March 28th 1945, from the Commissioner of the British Columbia Security Commission.
16. Letter dated Dec. 8th 1942 from Miss. H. Hyodo to "Friends", File 55a, 83.058C, Fonds 505, United Church Archives.
17. Order-in-Council P.C. 7357, December 15th 1945.
18. "Notice" signed by T.B. Pickersgill, Commissioner of Japanese Placement, Vancouver, B.C., dated March 12th 1945.
19. Speech of Prime Minister Mackenzie King in House of Commons, August 4th 1944, as reprinted in Ken Adachi, The Enemy that Never Was. Introduction by Timothy Findley, updated by Roger Daniels (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1991), 441-444.
20. Order-in-Council P.C. 7357, December 15th 1945.
21. On 24th January 1947.
22. See esp. Adachi, supra n.19; Sunahara, The Politics of Racism, supra n.4.
23. A communication of Lt.-General Ken Stuart, Chief of General Staff to Major-General Maurice Pope, Vice-Chief of the General Staff of the Canadian Army in early 1942, as quoted in Yon Shimizu, The Exiles: An Archival History of the World War II Japanese Road Camps in British Columbia and Ontario (Wallaceburg: Shimizu Consulting and Publishing, 1993), 203.
24. At a meeting, January 8-9th 1942. The Minutes are reprinted in Shimizu, supra n.23, at 34-43.
25. As quoted in Adachi, supra n.19, at 44-45.
26. As quoted in Adachi, supra n.19, at 208.
27. As quoted in Patricia E. Roy, J.L. Granastein, Masako Lino, Hiroko Takamura, Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War (Toronto: Univetsity of Toronto Press, 1990), 158.
28. In Re Validity of Orders in Council of 15 December 1945 (P.L. 7355, 7356 and 7357), in relation to Persons of the Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R. 248; aff'd. Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians and Another v. Attorney General for Canada and Another [1947] A.C. 87. In another case, the Exchequer Court held that the Custodian who confiscated and sold all assets owned by the internees was not an agent of the state. As such, a remedy did not lie against the Crown. President Thorson of the court did not render judgment until four years after arguments were heard. See Nakashima et al. v. His Majesty [1947] Ex.C.R. 486.
29. Racism amongst the community and media at large is documented in Adachi, supra n.19;
30. Sunahara, supra n.4.
31. Shimizu, supra n.23, at 286.
32. "Notice" dated December 28th 1942, sect. 8, referring to an Order in Council, December 16th 1941.
33. Shimizu, supra n.23, at 46.
34. I use the term "official discourse" as synonymous with "legal discourse".
35. Shimizu, supra n.23, at 300.
36. In Re Validity of Orders in Council of 15 December 1945 (P.L. 7355, 7356 and 7357), in relation to Persons of the Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R.248, at 320. See the excellent study of the case in Ian Bushnell, The Captive Court: A Study of the Supreme Court of Canada (Montreal & Kingston: McGill, Queen's University Press, 1992), 268-73.
37. Ibid, at 289.
38. Ibid., at 279.
39. Hudson left open-ended how this rebuttal was to be proved. Perhaps he had in mind the U.S. Regulations which excluded persons with less than one half Japanese blood or women who had married with a Caucasian. Or, perhaps he had in mind proof that one simply did not look like what Judge Hudson believed a person of Japanese ancestry was supposed to look like.
40. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988;
41. Theory and History of Literature, vol. 46), esp 12-13, 22, 24, 27.
42. Letter by Kinzie Tanaka to Inspector McGibbon, RCMP, reprinted in Shimizu, supra n.23, at 136.
43. Paul Thibault, Re-Reading Saussure (London: Routledge, 1996).
44. Maryka Omatsu, Bittersweet Passage: Redress and the Japanese Canadian Experience (Toronto: Between die Lines, 1992), 33.
45. See, e.g., Sunahara, supra n.4;
46. Adachi, supra n.19;
47. Shimizu, supra n.23;
48. Omatsu, supra n.42;
49. Muriel Kitagawa & Roy Miki, eds., This is my Own: Letters to Wes & other Writings on Japanese Canadians, 1941-1948 (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1985);
50. Yuko Shibata, Shoji Matsumoto, Rintaro Hayashi & Shotaro Iida, The Forgotten History of the Japanese-Canadians: The Role of Japanese Canadians in the Early Fishing Industry in B. C. and An Annotated Bibliography vol. 1 (Vancouver: New Sun Books, 1977);
51. Takeo Ujo Nakano with Leatrice Nakano, Within the Barbed Wire Fence: A Japanese Man's Account of His Internment in Canada, with Afterword by W. Peter Ward (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980);
52. Patricia E. Roy, J.L. Granatstein, Masako Lino & Hiroko Takamura, Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).
53. Shimizu, supra n.23, at 28.
54. See, e.g., Nakano, supra n.43, at 21.
55. As quoted in Shimizu, supra n.23, at 266.
56. Genshichi Takahashi, "Footsteps: Autobiography of a Socialist", in Keibo Oiwa, ed., Stone Voices: Wartime Writings of Japanese Canadian Issei, Foreword by Joy Kogawa (Montreal: Vehicle Press, 1991), 157-205, at 192-93.
57. Koichiro Mirazaki, "The Story of a Diehard", in Stone Voices, supra n.47, 27-92, at 42.
58. The exception was Kensuke Kitagawa who regarded his experience in confinement as a god-given opportunity to train and better himself so as to reach a higher moral existence. See, e.g., Kensuke Kitagawa, "Letters from the Angler Prison Camp", in Stone Voicess, supra n.47, at 95-113.
59. Kinzie Tanaka, letter dated May 26th 1942, as reprinted in Shimizu, supra n. 23, at 132-35.
60. See texts cited supra n.43.
61. From Muriel Kitagawa, This is my Own, supra n.43, at 184-85.
62. As quoted in National Association of Japanese Canadians, Justice in our Time: Redress for Japanese Canadians (Vancouver: Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Committee, 1988), 10.
63. In Re Validity of Orders in Council of 15 December 1945 (P.L. 7355, 7356 and 7357), in relation to Persons of the Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R.248, at 315.
64. The importance of the image is manifested through every moment of a legal discourse, however abstruse and technical the legal issues appear at first sight. See William E. Conklin, Images of a Constitution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989).
65. In Re Validity of Orders in Council of 15 December 1945 (P.L. 7355, 7356 and 7357), in relation to Persons of the Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R.248, at 282.
66. Ibid., at 219-35.
67. Ibid., at 290.
68. Attorney-General v. Wilts United Dairies (1922) 91 L.J. (K.B.) 897 in In Re Validity of Orders in Council of 15 December 1945 (P.L. 7355, 7356 and 7357), in relation to Persons of the Japanese Race [1946] S.C.R.248, at 273, per Rinfret J..
69. See William E. Conklin, "The Invisible Author of Legal Authority", Law and Critique 6 (1996), 173-192.
70. This point is expanded in Conklin, Law and Critique ibid..
71. See generally Conklin, Law and Critique ibid.,
72. and "The End of Judicial Review", Current Legal Theory 10(1) (1992), 1-16.
73. Reprinted 1992 in Bert van Roermund, ed., Constitutional Review, Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit, Constitutionele Toetsing (Deventer/Boston: Kluwer, 1993), 33-54.
74. Roland Barthes, "Myth Today", in Mythologies(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1957), 215-68;
75. "From Work to Texts", in Josue U. Harari, ed., Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post Strusturalist Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), 73-81.
76. This point is drawn from Benveniste's comments about the I/Thou relationship during a dialogue. See Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, ed. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1971), 218, 220, 221 (Miami Linguistics Series No. 8).
77. Emmanuel Levinas discusses this generally in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trld. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 168.