From 1942 to 1949, Canada forcibly relocated and incarcerated over 22,000 Japanese Canadians —comprising over 90% of the total Japanese Canadian population—from British Columbia in the name of "national security". The majority were Canadian citizens by birth and were targeted based on their ancestry.

The forcible expulsion and confinement of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War is one of the most tragic sets of events in Canada’s history. Some 21,000 Japanese Canadians were taken from their homes on Canada’s West Coast, without any charge or due process.

Beginning in early 1942, the Canadian government detained and dispossessed more than 90 per cent of Japanese Canadians, some 21,000 people, living in British Columbia. They were detained under the War Measures Act and were interned for the rest of the Second World War.

From shortly after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor until 1949, Japanese Canadians were stripped of their homes and businesses, then sent to internment camps and farms in British Columbia as well as in some other parts of Canada, mostly towards the interior.

The Tashme Incarceration Camp (/ ˈtæʒmɪ / [Anglicized pronunciation] or / ˈtɑːʃɪmɪ / [Japanese pronunciation]) was a purpose-built incarceration camp constructed to forcibly detain people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of Canada during World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor.