Sasaki and his students opened several branch schools in British Columbia and even trained RCMP officers until 1942, when Japanese Canadians were expelled from the Pacific coast and either interned or forced to move elsewhere in Canada due to fears that they were a threat to the country after Japan entered the Second World War.

When the war was over, the government gave interned Japanese Canadians two options: resettle in Canada outside of the 'Japanese exclusion zone' (within 100 miles of the Pacific coast) or emigrate to Japan.

Shinzo Takagaki, a Kodokan yondan (fourth dan) who promoted judo in many countries, reportedly moved to the United States with the intent of becoming a professional wrestler.

[21][24][25] Over the next several years new branches of Tai Iku Dojo were established in Steveston (where Tomoaki Doi and Takeshi Yamamoto had already started a club but asked for Sasaki's help), Kitsilano, Fairview, Haney, Mission, Woodfibre, Chemainus, Victoria, Duncan, Whonnock, Hammond, and Vernon.

[39] Dojos opened in the Prairies, Ontario, and Quebec in the mid-to-late 1940s and in British Columbia in the early-to-mid 1950s, and the centre of Canadian judo shifted from Vancouver to Toronto, where a significant number of judoka had settled after the war.

Many early dojos were housed at the local branch of the YMCA, which also provided short-term accommodation, assisted with finding employment, and coordinated social programs for resettled Japanese Canadians.

After the war, more than 300 displaced Japanese Canadians decided to stay in southern Alberta, and Senda established the Kyodokan Judo Club at the original Lethbridge YMCA building at 4th Avenue and 10th Street South in 1952.

[43][44][42][45] Glen and George Pridmore, two brothers and police officers from the St. James area of Winnipeg, started a nominal judo club at the Central YMCA in 1937, but they reportedly taught a mix of jujutsu and other unarmed combat techniques and called it 'judo' because it was a popular term at the time.

In 1952 Mitani established The Manitoba Judo Institute with the help of Harold Shimane and Noboru Shimizu, on the seventh floor of the McIntyre Block on Main Street.

[46][47][48][49] There was a club at the RCAF base again as early as 1956, organized by Flying Officer Vinsel and Leading Aircraftman Delasalle, and supported by Mitani[50] (it may have operated sporadically or had different incarnations, as a 1960 article reports that it was founded by Masao Takahashi in 1958[51]).

The first club outside of Winnipeg was established at the Brandon YMCA in 1953 by Harold Starn, a former British special forces soldier who received his judo training from Japanese prisoners he guarded in Burma during the war.

All three men were interned at Tashme, but left for Ontario by 1944 through a provision of the War Measures Act that allowed Japanese Canadians to move elsewhere in Canada if they could find employment.

[66][67] The Club also received guest instruction from Jon Bluming, a Dutch martial artist who was teaching judo in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1958,[68] and another dojo was established in Fredericton by RCMP Sergeant Melrose around the same time.

[59] The Steveston Judo Club reopened two years later in 1953, organized by Yonekazu "Frank" Sakai and Tomoaki "Tom" Doi with co-founders and instructors Seiichi Hamanishi, Takeo Kawasaki, Kunji Kuramoto, Yukio Mizuguchi, Kanezo Tokai, and Soichi Uyeyama, who were all local fishermen.

In Nova Scotia, Dutch martial artist Jon Bluming taught judo at the YMCA and Dalhousie University in Halifax for about a year before moving to Tokyo in 1959.

The COA held a hearing to determine which organization should have jurisdiction, and decided in favour of the CKBBA because it had members across the country and Gauthier's Federation was essentially limited to Quebec.

[100] The number or judo clubs in Canada increased significantly during the 1950s and 60s, especially in Ontario and Quebec in large part due to the efforts of Frank Hatashita and Raymond Damblant, who both played a role similar to Shigetaka Sasaki in the pre-war period.

[112] Rogers won the silver medal in the heavyweight category: it made him famous in Japan, sparked "a boom in the sport in his native land",[3] and for a time he was almost a household name in Canada.

Frank Hatashita became President of the CKBBA in 1961 and held the position until 1978, overseeing major organizational changes including recognition and funding from Sport Canada, more domestic competitions and greater participation in international tournaments, and the establishment of a national office in Vanier, Ontario with a paid professional staff.

That popularity is partly driven by the success of Nicolas Gill, who still receives attention in Canada's French-language press more than 15 years after his retirement from competition, and Antoine Valois-Fortier's bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, which began a new era in high-level Canadian judo.

[10] According to Own the Podium, the organization that plans and coordinates most high-level amateur sport investment in Canada, its four-year funding recommendations for Olympic judo increased from $1,870,000 for London 2012 to $3,109,830 for Rio de Janeiro 2016 and $5,169,500 for Tokyo 2020 (in a five-year period due to the COVID-19 pandemic), and from nothing to $125,000 for the 2020 Paralympics.

[10][129][130] While Valois-Fortier did not place again in the 2016 or the 2020 Olympics, he won silver at the 2014 World Judo Championships and bronze in 2015 and 2019, making him Canada's second-most competitively successful judoka at the highest levels after Gill.

Coloured belts for kyū grades were first introduced by Mikinosuke Kawaishi in France in 1935 because he felt that European students would progress more quickly if they received visible recognition of their achievements.

Four judoka have been awarded Membership in the Order of Canada, the country's second highest civilian honour of merit, for outstanding contributions to their communities through judo: James Driscoll (1978), Yuzuru "Jim" Kojima (1983), Yoshio Senda (2008), and Hiroshi Nakamura (2013).

[158][159][160][161] Five judoka are members of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame: Doug Rogers as an athlete (1973), and Minoru "Frank" Hatashita (1974), Yoshio Senda (1977), and Shigetaka Sasaki (1986), and Hiroshi Nakamura (2019) as 'builders' (officials, administrators, and volunteers).

[165][166] In 2012 at least thirteen judoka were awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Canadian Olympic Committee as either athletes (including the entire 2012 Olympic team) or builders: Fred Blaney, Amy Cotton, Mario Des Forges, Alexandre Émond, Gisèle Gravel, Jim Kojima, Sasha Mehmedovic, Joliane Melançon, Hiroshi Nakamura, Sérgio Pesoa, Nicholas Tritton, Antoine Valois-Fortier, and Kelita Zupancic.

One such profile, shown during the 2012 Olympics as part of a CTV series called "The Difference Makers", features Kelita Zupancic, who was training in Japan during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster.

[201] The first coverage of judo on English television appears to have been in 1956, starting with a demonstration by Fred Okimura and assistants on the Vic Obeck Show, and then in an episode of the information program Tabloid, titled "From foe to friend: Japanese culture in Canada".

[219] In 2012, it issued another judo stamp as part of its "Definitives: Canadian Pride" series, this time featuring Nicolas Gill as the flag bearer for the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

[220] Former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau began practising judo sometime in the mid-1950s when he was in his mid-thirties, and by the end of the decade he was ranked ikkyū (first kyū, brown belt).