Malizia only discovered this part of his family's history in 2011, a year before he became the assistant commissioner of the RCMP's national security division. His mother phoned him after discovering a photograph of his grandfather Nicola Doganieri in a Montreal Gazette article about the Italian-Canadian internment during the Second World War. Doganieri never spoke about what happened after his arrest on June 10, 1940, the same day Canada declared war on Italy. Doganieri was one of about 600 Italian-Canadians detained during the Second World War, a time when 31,000 residents of Italian descent were declared "enemy aliens" by the Canadian government. But some historians say Ottawa should be careful not to rewrite history with this gesture.

Source: CBC News May 23, 2021 07:52 UTC