War Measures Act, statute (1914) conferring emergency powers on the federal Cabinet, allowing it to govern by decree when it perceives the existence of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended." The Act was proclaimed in force with detailed regulations limiting the freedom of Canadians during both world wars. Its use to imprison Canadians of German, Ukranian and Slavic descent in WWI and Japanese Canadians during WWII and to confiscate their property was an issue until the 1980s, when compensation packages and formal apologies were made to those affected. More limited emergency legislation, the offshoot of War Measures, was applied during demobilization after WWII, and during and after the KOREAN WAR in the 1950s.
The only use of the War Measures Act in a domestic crisis occurred in October and November 1970, when a state of "apprehended insurrection" was declared to exist in Québec and emergency regulations were proclaimed in response to 2 kidnappings by the terrorist FRONT DE LIBÉRATION DU QUÉBEC. Afterwards Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau pledged to refine and limit the application of the Act in internal crises, but by the time of the Liberal defeat in 1984 the Act had not been modified. Finally, in 1988, a more detailed and limited law, the Emergencies Act, was passed into effect.
