Canada and the Vietnam WarCanada remained officially neutral for the duration of the Vietnam War, but the war had an important impact on the country and Canada and Canadians had an impact on the conflict itself.
BeginningsCanada had eagerly joined the United States in earlier Cold War conflicts such as the Korean War and was viewed as America's closest ally. While Canada was committed to the western cause in the Cold War, the country was also committed to multilateralism and the United Nations, especially under Lester B. Pearson from 1962 to 1968. Canada thus found itself in a difficult position caught between its two foreign policy objectives. Canada never agreed with the Truman or Eisenhower Doctrines that communism itself must be opposed, rather its policy was that illegal acts of international aggression must be opposed. During the first conflict between France and the Indo-China nationalist and communist parties Canada remained uninvolved but provided modest diplomatic and economic support to the French. Behind the scenes Canadian diplomats tried to discourage both France and the United States from escalating the conflict in a part of the world Canadians had decided was not strategically vital. Canada thus laid out six criteria that would need to meet before it joined a war effort or and Asian alliance group like SEATO.
These criteria effectively guaranteed Canada would not participate in Vietnam. At the start of the war Canada, to its relief, could not enter combat as they were appointed to the UN truce commissions and thus had to remain officially neutral in the conflict. The Canadian negotiators were strongly on the side of the Americans, however. Some delegates even engaged in espionage on behalf of the Americans, with the approval of the Canadian government. Canada also sent foreign aid to South Vietnam, that while humanitarian, was directed by the Americans. Canada tried to play a mediator role to help reach a conclusion that could allow the U.S. to honourably leave the conflict that Pearson thought was a horrible mistake. As the war escalated, relations between the two nations deteriorated. The lowest point was in April 2, 1965 when Pearson gave a speech at Temple University in the United States which called for a reduction in the bombing of North Vietnam. A furious Lyndon B. Johnson met with Pearson and apparently grabbed the much smaller Canadian by the collar and held him against the wall, and yelled, "you don't come here and piss on my rug." Draft dodgersMain article: Draft dodgers When the United States introduced the draft a new situation developed for Canada. A large group of draft dodgers, young men under risk of conscription who decided to flee to Canada rather than serve in the armed forces. The government of Pierre Trudeau decided to welcome them to Canada. The draft dodgers, centered in Toronto and Vancouver, created a core of a militant anti-war movement that swept Canadian university campuses, much as was happening in the United States. In Canada draft dodgers published materials advocating desertion and then smuggled the illegal works into the United States. In addition to the dodgers, a number of deserters from the American forces made their way to Canada. There was pressure from the United States and Canada's own military to have them arrested, or at least stopped at the border. Trudeau, however, decided to accept them as well. The population of draft dodgers had an important impact on Canadian society. The influx of young, educated, and left-leaning individuals was a major boon to Canada's academic and cultural institutions. The large influx over the decade made up for much of the "brain drain" in years before and after. While many of the draft dodgers returned to the United States after they were pardoned by Jimmy Carter in 1977, a large group stayed. The defectors were never pardoned and must legally remain in Canada to this day. Estimates of how many Americans settled in Canada to avoid service vary, but it is something between 20,000 and 50,000 who settled permanently. This group helped further shift Canadian politics to the left of those in the United States. Anti-war activismAnti-War activities were nearly as widespread in Canada as they were in the United States with demonstrations on most Canadian campuses. In English Canada the movement was fueled by the draft dodgers. Quebec also had a strong, and violent, anti-war movement as well. The separatist FLQ was also stridently anti-American and against the war. One of the most visible expressions of this was at Expo '67. President Johnson was visiting for the opening of the American pavilion, which would involve a large American flag being unfurled. The FLQ secretly informed the government that anyone who tried to raise the flag would be shot. The original government plan was to use a Boy Scout to raise it, under the assumption the FLQ would not assassinate a child, but this idea was rejected and an extremely nervous scout leader wearing a bullet proof vest did so. While he was not shot it was discovered upon the unfurling of the flag that the canton with the stars had been cut out by a protester. Military assistanceConcurrent with the draft dodging and defections to Canada 10,000 Canadian citizens fought with the Americans in Vietnam, and several thousand more Canadians served with the U.S. military but did not fight in Vietnam. Many of these were Canadians who had long lived in the United States, but others joined because of ideological or moral support of the American war effort. Others were out of work soldiers who had been the victims of recent government cutbacks. This cross border enlistment was not unusual: in both World War I and World War II tens of thousands of Americans had joined the Canadian forces while their homeland was still neutral. In Vietnam Canadian Peter C. Lemon won the Medal of Honor for his valour in the conflict. In Windsor, Ontario, there is a small, privately-funded monument to the Canadians killed in the Vietnam War. However, many Canadian veterans returned to a society that was strongly anti-war. Unlike in the United States, there were no veterans organizations or help from the government. Many of them moved permanently to the United States. There has been ongoing controversy among Canadian Vietnam veterans who want their comrades' deaths to be formally acknowledged by the government, especially in times of remembrance such as Remembrance Day. Canada was also a major supplier of equipment and supplies to the American forces. As a neutral power Canada could not send this directly to South Vietnam, but they could sell it to the United States. Throughout the Vietnam War Canadian manufacturers profited greatly from the conflict. These included relatively benign items like boots and whiskey, but both napalm and Agent Orange were manufactured in Canada and shipped south of the border. Canada also allowed their NATO ally to use Canadian facilities and bases for training exercises and weapons testing. Post-warAfter the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 thousands of refugees, known as boat people, fled Vietnam for both political and economic reasons. Canada agreed to accept many of them in one of the largest single influxes of immigrants in Canadian history. This created a vibrant Vietnamese community especially in Vancouver and Toronto. As in the United States, the Vietnam War was an important cultural turning point in Canada, perhaps even more so than in the United States. Coupled with Canada's centenary in 1967 and the success of Expo '67, Canada became far more independent and nationalistic. It became more willing to oppose the United States and move in a different direction socially and politically.
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Categories: Canadian history | Vietnam War | Canada and the United States |
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