Grave Influence: The Impact of Britain and the U.S. on Canada’s War Dead Policy

Abstract

Canada is a federation, a product of British and French colonial power. However, since the mid-20th century Canada has developed an independent character, while also aligning more closely with the United States. This article will show how Canada’s policy on war dead reflect these changes. During the First World War, Canada strongly aligned with the Imperial War Graves Commission’s strict no repatriation policy. In subsequent decades, however, military losses and the ability transport and identify the dead made repatriation much more feasible. Fairly recent events have forced Canadian policy change that effectively created two policies: repatriation for military deaths occurring after 1970, which is in line with U.S. practice, and non-repatriation for military deaths that occurred prior to 1970. This double policy effectively establishes unequal treatment of the dead, which, ironically, is counter to the founding ideal of equality in the War Graves Commission’s original policy of non-repatriation.

Keywords:

• war dead
• memorialization
• repatriation

Acknowledgements

The author extends tremendous thanks to Laurel Clegg for sharing insight and experience, to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory (now Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) for inviting him to work with them on the search, recovery, and identification of US military. Thank you to Dominique Boulais and Sarah Lockyer for clarification on the past and current policies and practices of the Canadian government with respect to war dead. Also many thanks to Rachel Woodward and Layla Renshaw for excellent editorial advice.

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Notes on contributors

Derek Congram

Derek Congram is a senior researcher at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (Canada) and a consultant forensic anthropologist. His teaching, consulting and research focus on medico-legal and humanitarian investigations of missing persons. He has worked for governments, universities, non-governmental and international organizations in more than 20 countries. His principal research interests are spatial analysis and GIS-modelling of unmarked burials from armed conflict, enforced disappearance in Latin American, and applied ethics. He is the editor of Missing Persons; Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Disappeared (2016, Canadian Scholars’ Press, Inc.).