Vietnam War resisters in Canada

Vietnam War resisters in Canada included American draft evaders and military deserters who found refuge from prosecution in Canada. American war resisters who sought refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War would ignite controversy among those seeking to immigrate to Canada. According to scholar Valerie Knowles, draft evaders were typically college-educated and middle class who could no longer defer induction into the Selective Service System. Deserters were usually lower-income and working class who had been inducted into the armed services right after high school or had later volunteered, hoping to obtain a skill and broaden their limited horizons.[1]

Street door to the office of the Student Union for Peace Action's Anti-Draft Programme, on busy Spadina Avenue in Toronto, August 1967.

Many continued to remain in Canada for their lives, and formed a small community of American war resisters in Canada.[2]

History

Immigration and politics
Further information: Draft evasion in the Vietnam War

Starting in 1965, Canada became the main haven for Vietnam War resisters. Because war resisters they were not formally classified as refugees but were admitted as immigrants, there is no official estimate of how many draft evaders and deserters were admitted to Canada during the Vietnam War. One estimate puts their number between 30,000 and 40,000.[1]

American draft evaders were at first assisted by the Student Union for Peace Action, a campus-based Canadian anti-war group with connections to Students for a Democratic Society.[3][4] Canadian immigration policy at the time made it easy for immigrants from all countries to obtain legal status in Canada.[5] By late 1967, draft evaders were being assisted primarily by several locally based anti-draft groups (over twenty of them), such as the Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors[6][7] and the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme.[8][9] As a counselor for the Programme, Mark Satin wrote the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada in 1968.[10][11] It sold nearly 100,000 copies overall.[12][13]

The Canadian government initially refused to admit deserters who could not prove that they had been discharged from American military service, this would change in 1968.[1] On May 22, 1969, Ottawa announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants' military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada.[14]

While Canada openly accepted draft evaders and later deserters the United States never seriously contested Canada's actions, while Sweden's acceptance was heavily criticized. The issue of accepting American exiles became a local political debate in Canada that focused on Canada's sovereignty in its immigration law. The United States did not become involved because American politicians viewed Canada as geographically close ally not worth disturbing.[15]

Emigration from the United States continued to be unusually high while the United States was involved in the Vietnam War and maintained compulsory military service. In 1971 and 1972 Canada received more immigrants from the United States than from any other country.[1]

Amnesty and repatriations

In September 1974, President Gerald R. Ford created an amnesty program for draft evaders that required them to work in alternative service occupations for periods of six to 24 months.[16] In 1977, one day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter fulfilled a campaign promise and offered pardons to any draft evader that requested one. It created controversy, with those on the right complaining of giving amnesty to criminals and those on the left complaining that requesting a pardon required the admission of a crime.[17]

According to sociologist John Hagan, after the 1977 amnesty about half of draft evaders in Canada remained while the others returned to the United States.[18] Those who choose to return were notably lower class who had trouble finding work in Canada, a minority of leftist radicals who had demanded amnesty, or ethnic minorities who had trouble assimilating to Canadian culture. Despite not being granted amnesty, about 4 out of 5 deserters would eventually return to the United States.[19]

Assimilation
Main article: Americans in Canada

Those that continued to live in Canada would form a visible community of Americans in Canada.[2] The notably young and educated population that remained expanded Canada's arts and academic sectors, and helped promote leftist politics in Canada.[20] American draft evaders who left for Canada and became prominent there include author William Gibson, politician Jim Green, gay rights advocate Michael Hendricks, attorney Jeffry House, author Keith Maillard, playwright John Murrell, television personality Eric Nagler, film critic Jay Scott, and musician Jesse Winchester. Other draft evaders from the Vietnam era remain in Sweden and elsewhere.[21][22]

People

Deserters
See also: Desertion

An estimated one thousand deserters fled to Canada to avoid more service in the Vietnam War. The United States government have not pardoned them and they may still face pro forma arrest if they return to the United States, as the case of Allen Abney demonstrated in March 2006.[23][24]

Draft evaders
See also: Draft evasion

Estimates vary greatly as to how many Americans immigrated to Canada for the specific reason of evading conscription, as opposed to desertion, or other reasons. Canadian immigration statistics show that 20,000 to 30,000 draft-eligible American men came to Canada as immigrants during the Vietnam era. The BBC stated that "as many as 60,000 young American men dodged the draft."[25] Estimates of the total number of American citizens who moved to Canada due to their opposition to the war range from 50,000 to 125,000[26] This exodus was "the largest politically motivated migration from the United States since the United Empire Loyalists moved north to oppose the American Revolution."[27]

These young men were often well educated,[1][28][29] and alienated from American society, showing a knowledge and distaste for American social problems at the time. Most felt the Vietnam War was immoral, and felt supported by the era's counterculture and protests to make the decision to flee to Canada. Despite a general distaste for the war, only a minority were active political radicals. Most made the decision to immigrate to Canada not because of a major opposition to the morality of the war, but in fear of a removal of personal independence brought by conscription. Many were middle class and needed little assistance assimilating in Canada. Draft evaders of a lower class background were more likely to come to Canada only as a last resort.[19]

American draft evaders tended to balance the "brain drain" that Canada had experienced. While some draft evaders returned to the United States after a pardon was declared in 1977 during the administration of Jimmy Carter, roughly half of them stayed in Canada.[30]

Notable Vietnam War resisters in Canada
Gay rights advocate Michael Hendricks (right) is an American draft evader that became a prominent person in Canada.

Deserters
  • Andy Barrie- former host of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio's Metro Morning in Toronto[14][29] (He later received a General Discharge from the United States Army, became a Canadian citizen, and is free to travel to the U.S.)
  • Dick Cotterill[29]
  • Michael Shaffer: "After six months in the Army, my application for CO status was denied and I was told that I would be going to Vietnam. I refused to draw my weapon and was ordered court-martialed. On Labour Day 1970 I was able to escape and cross into Canada ... During President Ford's Clemency Program in 1975, I went to Fort Dix seeking the "Undesirable Discharge" offered to deserters who turned themselves in. The Army decided that I wasn't eligible and court-martial proceedings were resumed. With help from the ACLU, I was released and two years later a Federal Court ordered the Army to discharge me Honourably as a Conscientious Objector ... I remained in Vancouver"[29]
  • Jack Todd – award-winning sports columnist for the Montreal Gazette
  • Mike Tulley - Edmonton, Alberta area sound engineer and social activist[31]

Draft evaders

Others

See also

References
  1. Knowles, Valerie (2000). Forging Our Legacy: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration, 1900–1977. Public Works and Government Services Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. ISBN 0662289838.
  2. "War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets". ABC News. November 21, 2005.
  3. Clausen, Oliver (May 21, 1967). "Boys Without a Country". The New York Times Magazine, p. 25.
  4. Williams, Roger N. (1971). The New Exiles: War Resisters in Canada. Liveright Publishers, pp.  61–64. ISBN 978-0-87140-533-3.
  5. Schreiber, Jan (January 1968). "Canada's Haven for Draft Dodgers". The Progressive, p. 34.
  6. Berton, Pierre (1997). 1967: The Last Good Year. Doubleday Canada, p. 202. ISBN 978-0-385-25662-9.
  7. Williams, Roger N. (1971), cited above, pp. 56–58.
  8. Cowan, Edward (February 11, 1968). "Expatriate Draft Evaders Prepare Manual on How to Immigrate to Canada". The New York Times, p. 7.
  9. Hagan, John (2001). Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Harvard University Press, pp. 74–80. ISBN 978-0-674-00471-9.
  10. Jones, Joseph (spring–summer 2002). "The House of Anansi's Singular Bestseller". Canadian Notes & Queries, issue no 61, p. 19.
  11. MacSkimming, Roy (26 August 2017). "Review: Mark Satin's Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada Is Just as Timely as Ever". The Globe and Mail (Toronto), p. R12. Online dated one day earlier. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  12. Adams, James (October 20, 2007). "'The Big Guys Keep Being Surprised By Us'". The Globe and Mail (Toronto), p. R6. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  13. Fulford, Robert (6 September 2017). "How Vietnam War Draft Dodgers Became a Lively and Memorable Part of Canadian History". National Post (Canada), national edition, p. B5. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  14. Nicholas Keung (August 20, 2010). "Iraq war resisters meet cool reception in Canada". Toronto Star. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  15. Stewart, Luke. "'Hell, they're your problem, not ours': Draft Dodgers, Military Deserters and Canada-United States Relations in the Vietnam War Era". Open Edition.
  16. Author unspecified (14 September 1974). "Flexible Amnesty Plan Is Reported Set by Ford".  The New York Times, p. 9. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
  17. Schulzinger, Robert D. (2006). A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507190-0. Retrieved July 30, 2011.
  18. Hagan, John (2001), pp. 3 and 241–42.
  19. Kusch, Frank (2001). All American Boys Draft Dodgers in Canada from the Vietnam War. Praeger.
  20. These points have been made in a series of academic journal articles by Canadian social historian David Churchill:
  21. Baskir and Strauss (1978), p. 201.
  22. Hagan (2001), cited above, p. 186 (quoting Baskir and Strauss).
  23. Tremonti, Anna Maria (March 14, 2006). "CBC Radio | The Current | Whole Show Blow-by-Blow". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio, The Current. Archived from the original on November 19, 2007. Retrieved January 21, 2009.
  24. "Deserter says he was treated well by U.S. military". March 20, 2006. Archived from the original on August 22, 2009. Retrieved January 27, 2017., CBC News
  25. Gray, Jeff (July 6, 2004). "US deserter's Canadian campaign". BBC. Retrieved January 19, 2009.
  26. draft dodgers memorial to be built in B.C., CBC News, 09/08/2004
  27. "On Strawberry Hill" by Chris Turner in The Walrus, September 2007.
  28. Bailey, Sue (July 5, 2009). "Iraq war resisters decry Tories' website editing". The Toronto Star. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
  29. "Vietnam War Resisters, Then and Now". Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved May 24, 2009.
  30. Hagan, John (2001), cited above, pp. 167 and 242.
  31. (January 8, 2006) "Soundman quietly supports his causes Archived October 19, 2015, at the Wayback Machine", Edmonton Journal, Retrieved December 12, 2012
  32. JAM! Music – Pop Encyclopedia
  33. Roman Goergen (February 23, 2011). "Sanctuary Denied". In These Times. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
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