Santo Pasqualini returned home from his Vancouver bakery early in the afternoon of June 10, 1940 after spending the morning baking, unaware that earlier that day Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had declared war on Britain, France and their allies.
Santo crawled into bed for a nap while his wife, Alice, left for the bakery. Santo was woken shortly afterwards by members of the RCMP, who promptly arrested him.
The police escorted Santo to the Canadian Immigration Building and locked him in a cell. Alice did not learn of his arrest until she got home at the end of the day after closing up the bakery.
Alice learned Santo had been interred as an “enemy alien” a few days later after receiving an official form postcard from Internment Operations, dated June 12, 1940.
Two weeks later, 44 Italian Canadians from B.C., including Santo, were sent to the Rocky Mountains where they were interned at Eau Claire Camp No. 130 in the Kananaskis Valley near Barrier Lake. They were housed alongside German prisoners of war. The Italian Canadian internees would later be sent to internment camps in Ontario and New Brunswick.
Following Mussolini’s declaration of war, the Canadian government ordered the arrest and internment of 632 alleged fascists.
In the case of the 44 men from B.C., according to Raymond Culos, author of Injustice Served: The Story of British Columbia’s Italian Enemy Aliens During World War II, when they joined the Guilio Giordani Club (named for a martyr of the fascist movement), each had to sign a declaration stating “I swear to execute without discussion the orders of Il Duce (Mussolini) and to serve with all my strength and, if necessary, my blood the cause of the Fascist Revolution.”
Many of the men signed the declaration without giving much thought as to how it could affect them. It was simply a formality, a hoop to jump through on the path to a better life, as a number of the men joined the club at the invitation of the Italian consular agent.
“These men, they may have well joined the club in the late ’20s or early ’30s, so what they were signing didn’t seem to have any consequence in the future,” Culos said. “They were just so happy to be connected to (the consular agent).”
But with fascist Italy now aligned with Nazi Germany, members of a fascist club living in Canada were considered potential threats to Canada’s security. And Canada needed to act, Culos said.
“The truth is, I believe you can say that Canada was forced into doing something,” he said, adding 350,000 British soldiers had been chased out of France at Dunkirk, France had fallen, the U.S. was not yet in the war and Hitler’s Blitzkrieg had run rampant over much of Europe.
“It was a time of action, to be decisive and make sure a fifth column could not operate in this country,” he said. “They put away many of the more obvious Italians living in Canada. Those are the ones who identified with fascist parties.”
While the government had the legal grounds to arrest and detain alleged fascists under the War Measures Act – also requiring 31,000 Italian Canadians to register with the RCMP as enemy aliens – the injustice occurred when Canada failed to give these men the opportunity to defend themselves.
And when the internees finally had the opportunity to stand in front of a tribunal and face the allegations, after being held for an average of 15 months (some for 25 months), the hearings tended to be over quickly.
Culos said he does not doubt that Italian fascists were at work in Canada and that the government had to act as a result. But in its haste the government locked up otherwise productive, law-abiding men such as Santo Pasqualini, effectively destroying his business and driving his wife, Alice, to suffer a mental breakdown.
The Pasqualini’s business collapsed and Alice, who had no family in Canada, was sent to Vancouver General Hospital where she was admitted to the psychiatric ward, located in the hospital’s basement. Once there, Alice was fettered to the bed. Her two children, Lina and Lino, were split up and sent to live with friends.
“They were decent people who just made a bad choice at the time,” he said. “My dad, who did have a little more education than the rest of his contemporaries, had come here at six, so he was a Canadian. When he read the application, he refused to sign. That says the others were terribly naive. I guess that many of them didn’t know what they were doing.”
In Santo’s case, he sold bread and buns to the club and it was suggested to him that he should join, since the club was doing business with him.
At Camp 130, life for the Italian Canadian internees was not difficult. Some, as Culos wrote, saw it as a holiday, “but only when compared to the hardship experienced by the wives and children grieving at home.”
They lived in bunkhouses in a large triangular compound ringed by tall barbed wire fences and guardhouses. Throughout their internment, internees were responsible for cooking and cleaning and maintenance of the camp, along with work gangs outside the compound to work in a forestry camp. Men volunteering for the work gangs earned 20 cents a day.
For the most part, while the Italian Canadians were well treated, but as Culos said, many of them, one of whom had a son serving with the Canadian Army, were embarrassed and angry that their freedom had been stolen.
In 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, speaking before the National Congress of Italian Canadians, offered an apology for the government’s treatment of Italian Canadians during the war, describing it as an act of prejudice. Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed in 2005 to set aside $25 million for public education and commemoration projects.
There has not, however, been an apology from the government as a whole made in the House of Commons, which Culos said some Canadians of Italian descent still seek. Even though others would not agree with him, Culos said he does not believe an apology from the prime minister in the House of Commons is necessary, given the circumstances of the times.
“They had to take them off the street,” Culos said of the alleged fascists. “Had they been people who were a threat to our country and the government did not do anything about it, that would have been the worst crime.
“Canada can be faulted for not having extended to residents of Canada an opportunity to defend themselves of this charge, this possible threat, without having the full process of the law.”
Even so, Culos said, Alice Pasqualini, who is now 102, has been able to forgive the Canadian government for its actions.
“It is a really truly remarkable person who says in effect that she understands that Canada had to save the nation,” he said. “She’s reflective and ready to let it go,” he said.
