Series S1 - Department of National Defence

Thomas Kunito Shoyama was born in Kamloops, B.C., on September 24, 1916. His parents had immigrated to Canada from Kumamoto-ken, Japan and upon settling in B.C. eventually had six children. After completing high school, Shoyama went to study at UBC in Vancouver, earning combined degrees in Arts and Commerce in 1938. He soon began work with Edward Ouchi and Shinobu Higashi to publish The New Canadian, then a weekly newspaper for Japanese Canadians. He worked as publisher and editor of the newspaper as it moved to Kaslo, B.C. during WWII when Japanese Canadians were being removed from the coast. In 1945, Shoyama left The New Canadian to join the S-20 unit of the Intelligence Corps of the Canadian Army. He was one of the first people of Japanese descent to be allowed to join the Canadian Army during WWII, and he worked to learn Japanese during this time. His time in the military was short, leaving in 1946.

The same year, he was hired by the Economic and Advisory Planning Board (EAPB), an arm of the government of Saskatchewan. Shoyama left Saskatchewan briefly from 1948-1949 to attend graduate studies at McGill University, but soon returned to the prairies to work for Tommy Douglas and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). While in Saskatchewan, Shoyama began to grow his family life, marrying Lorna Moore late in 1950, with whom he had a daughter in 1956. He continued to work for the EAPB until 1964 when he moved to Ottawa to be a senior economist for the Economic Council of Canada. Shoyama held many prominent positions in Ottawa, including Assistant Deputy Minister for the Department of Finance, Deputy Minister in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, and Deputy Minister of Finance. In 1979 he briefly became Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on Constitutional Matters and Chairman of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. He resigned from both positions the same year to accept a teaching position at the University of Victoria.

Throughout his career, Shoyama has been the recipient of many awards recognizing his work both for Japanese Canadians, and the broader Canadian public. These awards include: Officer of the Order of Canada (1978), the Outstanding Achievement Award in the Public Service of Canada (1982), the Vanier Medal from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (1982) and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Government of Japan (1992).