Unveiling of WWI Internment Operations Interpretive Display and WWI National Internment Commemoration Day in Calgary

Media Advisory: (Calgary, AB, October 22, 2026)

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (UCCLF) and The Military Museums cordially invite you to attend the official unveiling of an educational and commemorative exhibit dedicated to Canada’s First World War Internment operations from 1914 to 1920. The event will feature a commemoration of WWI National Internment Commemoration Day.

WHEN: Saturday, October 24 at 2 p.m. (MT)

WHERE: The Military Museums, 4520 Crowchild Trail SW, Calgary

From 1914 to 1920, in 24 camps across Canada, more than 8,000 men, women, and children (primarily Ukrainians), invited by the Dominion government to settle the West, were unjustly interned as enemy aliens under the War Measures Act, their possessions taken, and not all returned.

Another 80,000 were forced to register semi-regularly with authorities. They suffered, not because of anything they had done, but because of where they came from. Many remained “in fear of the barbed wire fence” long after their release.

The affected communities included Alevi Kurds, Armenians, Austrians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Ottoman Turks, Poles, Romanians, Serbians, Slovaks, Slovenes and others, but the majority were Ukrainians, and most were civilian. 

Remarks at the unveiling and commemoration event will be given by Major (Ret’d) Kent Griffiths, His Worship Mayor Jeromy Farkas, Greg McLean, MP and The Hon. Ric McIver, Speaker of the Alberta Legislature.