This statute, adopted August 1914 on the model of British legislation, gave emergency powers to the federal cabinet, allowing it to govern by decree when it declared the existence of ‘war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended’. The act was proclaimed and remained in force during both world wars, imposing extensive limits on Canadian freedom. Its most controversial use, to detain and remove property from Canadians of German, Ukrainian, and Slavic origins in the First World War and Japanese Canadians during the Second, resulted in belated apologies and compensation in the 1980s. Interim emergency legislation derived from War Measures extended some wartime powers after the Second World War and during the . .
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