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Canada did not fight in the Vietnam War, and diplomatically it was officially "non-belligerent". Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia A non-belligerent is a person who or a State or other organization that does not fight in a given conflict The country's troop deployments to Vietnam were limited to a small number of peacekeeping forces in 1973. Peacekeeping, as defined by the United Nations, is "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. [1] Nevertheless, the war had considerable effects on Canada, while Canada and Canadians affected the war, in return.

Contents

Beginnings

Prime Minister Pearson and President Johnson meeting in Texas, 1965.
Prime Minister Pearson and President Johnson meeting in Texas, 1965.

During the Cold War, Canada was firmly among with the Western democracies, as against being a non-aligned state. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the For instance, Canada was a founding member of NATO, and was instrumental in the forming of that military alliance against the Soviet Union and its satellites. The North Atlantic Treaty Canada's foreign policy, though, was also committed to multilateralism and the United Nations, perhaps most noticeably under Lester B. Pearson from 1963 to 1968. Multilateralism is a term in International relations that refers to multiple countries working in concert on a given issue The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1968 ( MCMLXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Canada thus found itself in a difficult position, caught between these two foreign policy objectives. Canadians were hesitant to adopt the Truman or Eisenhower Doctrines, which held that communism itself must be actively opposed through foreign intervention. The Truman Doctrine was a proclamation by US President Harry S The Eisenhower Doctrine, given in a message to the United States Congress on January 5, 1957, was the foreign policy of U Instead, Canada's policy was that illegal acts of international aggression must be opposed, as in the Korean War, during which Canada was among the many countries that sent troops to fight in support of South Korea, under a United Nations resolution. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often referred to as Korea ( Korean: 대한민국 tɛː

During the First Indochina War between France and the Indo-Chinese nationalist and communist parties, Canada remained militarily uninvolved but provided modest diplomatic and economic support to the French. The First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War, the The Anti-French War, the Franco-Vietnamese War, the Franco-Vietminh War, This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Canada was, however, part of the International Control Committee (along with Poland and India) that oversaw the 1954 Geneva Agreements that divided Vietnam, provided for French withdrawal and would have instituted elections for reunification by 1956. The Geneva Conference ( May 8 – July 21, 1954) was a conference between many countries that agreed to end hostilities and restore Peace in 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 laid out six prerequisites to joining a war effort or Asian alliance like SEATO:

  1. It had to involve cultural and trade ties in addition to a military alliance. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization ( SEATO) was an International organization for Collective defense created by the Southeast Asia Collective
  2. It had to demonstrably meet the will of the people in the countries involved.
  3. Other free Asian states had to support it directly or in principle.
  4. France had to refer the conflict to United Nations.
  5. Any multilateral action must conform to the UN charter. The United Nations Charter is the Treaty that forms and establishes the International organization called the United Nations.
  6. Any action had to be divorced from all elements of colonialism. See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism

These criteria effectively guaranteed Canada would not participate in the Vietnam War.

Additionally, at the start of the Vietnam War, Canada was a member of the UN truce commissions overseeing the implementation of the Geneva Agreements, and thus was obliged to stay officially neutral. 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, which, while humanitarian, was directed by the Americans.

Canada tried to mediate between the warring countries, aiming for a conclusion that could allow the U. S. to leave the conflict honourably, but also publicly (if mildly) criticised American war methods, occasionally. Meanwhile, Canadian industry exported military supplies and raw materials useful in their manufacture, including ammunition, napalm and Agent Orange,[2] to the United States, as trade between the two countries carried on unhindered by considerations of the purposes to which these exports were being put. Napalm is the name given to any of a number of Flammable Liquids used in Warfare often jellied Gasoline. Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful Herbicide and Defoliant used by the U Although these exports were sales by Canadian companies, not gifts from the Canadian government, they benefitted the American war effort, none the less.

As the war escalated, relations between Canada and the United States deteriorated. On April 2, 1965 Pearson gave a speech at Temple University in the United States which, in the context of firm support for U. Events 68 - Galba, Governor of Hispania, names himself legatus senatus populique Romani, breaking the line of Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. Temple University is a state-related public research University in Philadelphia. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the S. policy, called for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam.

Draft dodgers

Main article: Draft dodgers

A large number of draft dodgers, young American men facing conscription for the Vietnam War, decided to flee to Canada rather than serve in the American armed forces. A draft dodger, draft evader or draft resister, is a person who avoids ("dodges" or otherwise violates the Conscription policies of the A draft dodger, draft evader or draft resister, is a person who avoids ("dodges" or otherwise violates the Conscription policies of the These young men became concentrated in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. They 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 in the United States. Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS) was historically a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations Canadian immigration policy at the time made it easy for immigrants from all countries to obtain legal status in Canada. By late 1967, dodgers were being assisted primarily by several locally based anti-draft groups (over twenty of them), such as the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme. As a counselor for the Programme, Mark Satin wrote the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada, in 1968. Mark Satin (born November 16, 1946) is a US Lawyer and editor of the online political periodical Radical Middle Newsletter. It sold over 100,000 copies in eight editions. [3]

Deserters from the American forces also made their way to Canada. In Military terminology desertion is the Abandonment of a " Duty " or post without permission from one's Government or superior There was pressure from the United States and Canada to have them arrested, or at least stopped at the border.

The influx of these young men, who in many cases were well educated and politically leftist, affected Canada's academic and cultural institutions, and Canadian society at large. These new arrivals tended to balance the "brain drain" that Canada had experienced. A brain drain or human capital flight is a large emigration of individuals with technical skills or knowledge, normally due to conflict, lack of opportunity While some draft dodgers returned to the United States after an amnesty was declared in 1977 during the administration of Jimmy Carter, roughly half of them stayed in Canada. Amnesty (from the Greek amnestia, oblivion is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr (born October 1 1924 was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 The deserters have not been pardoned and may still face pro forma arrest and release, as the case of Allen Abney demonstrated in March 2006. [4]

Estimates of how many Americans settled in Canada to avoid service vary greatly. Canadian immigration statistics show that 20,000 to 30,000 draft-eligible American men came to Canada as immigrants during the Vietnam era; 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[5] This exodus was "the largest politically motivated migration from the United States since the United Empire Loyalists moved north to oppose the American Revolution. The name United Empire Loyalists is a honorific name which has been given after the fact to those American Loyalists who resettled in British North America and other In this article the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies that supported the American Revolution are primarily referred to as "Americans" with occasional references to "Patriots" "[6] Major communities of war resisters formed in the Slocan Valley and on Baldwin Street in Toronto. The Slocan Valley is a Valley in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. Toronto (təˈrɒntoʊ colloquially pronounced or) is the largest city in Canada and is the provincial capital of Ontario

Prominent draft dodgers who stayed in Canada permanently, or for a significant amount of time include:

Anti-war activism

Anti-War activities were nearly as widespread in Canada as they were in the United States, with demonstrations on most Canadian college and university campuses. In English Canada, the movement was fuelled by the draft dodgers. In Quebec, the anti-war movement was also strong, and even violent: The FLQ, a terrorist Quebec-separatist group, was also stridently anti-American and against the war. Quebec (kwɨˈbɛk The Front de libération du Québec ( Québec Liberation Front commonly known as the FLQ, and sometimes referred to as Front de libération Québécois

One of the most visible expressions of this was at Expo 67. The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, or Expo 67 as it was commonly known was the World's Fair held in Montreal, Canada from April 27 to October 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 bulletproof vest did so. Scouts Canada is a Canadian Scouting association that in affiliation with the French-language Association des Scouts du Canada, is a member of the World Although 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.

Canadians in the U. S. military

In counter-current to the movement American draft-dodgers and deserters to Canada, about 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight in southeast Asia. [8] Among the volunteers were fifty Mohawks from the Kahnawake reservation near Montreal. Mohawk ( Kanienkeh, Kanienkehaka or Kanien’Kahake, meaning "People of the Flint" are an indigenous people of North America The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (Gah'nah'wah'gay in Mohawk, Kahnawáˀkye in Tuscarora) is an Indian [9] One-hundred-and-ten Canadians died in Vietnam, and seven remain listed as Missing in Action. Missing in action is a status assigned to a member of the armed services who is reported missing following combat Canadian Peter C. Lemon won the U. Peter C Lemon is one of the youngest surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor. S. Medal of Honor for his valour in the conflict. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. (This cross-border enlistment was not unprecedented: In both the First and the Second World War, tens of thousands of Americans had joined the Canadian forces whilst their homeland was still neutral. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including )

In Windsor, Ontario, there is a privately funded monument to the Canadians killed in the Vietnam War. Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and lies at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. [10] In Melocheville, Quebec, there is a monument site funded by the Association Québécoise des Vétérans du Vietnam. [11] However, many Canadian veterans returned to a society that was strongly anti-war. Unlike in the United States, there were no veterans organizations nor any help from the government. Many of them moved permanently to the United States. There has been ongoing pressure from Canadian Vietnam veterans to have their comrades' deaths formally acknowledged by the government, especially in times of remembrance such as Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day (the event it commemorates or Veterans Day is a day to commemorate the

Assistance to the Americans

Canada's official diplomatic position in relation to the Vietnam War was that of a non-belligerent, which imposed a ban on the export of war-related items to the combat areas. Nonetheless, Canadian industry was also a major supplier of equipment and supplies to the American forces, not sending these directly to South Vietnam but to the United States. "RVN" redirects here RVN is also the former callsign of a TV station in Wagga Wagga New South Wales Australia Sold goods included relatively benign items like boots, but also munitions, napalm and commercial defoliants, the use of which was fiercely opposed by anti-war protesters at the time. Napalm is the name given to any of a number of Flammable Liquids used in Warfare often jellied Gasoline. A defoliant is any chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause its leaves to fall off In accordance with the 1958 Defence Production Sharing Agreement, Canadian industry sold $2. 47 billion in war materiel to the United States between 1965 and 1973. Materiel (from the French "matériel" for equipment or hardware related to the word Material) is a term used in English to refer to the Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. [2] Many of the companies were owned by US parent firms, but all export sales over $100,000 US (and thus, the majority of contracts) were arranged through the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a crown corporation which acted as an intermediary between the U.S. Department of Defence and Canadian industry. In the Commonwealth realms a Crown corporation is a State-controlled company or enterprise The United States Department of Defense ( DOD or DoD) is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government [2] Furthermore, the Canadian and American Defense departments worked together to test chemical defoliants for use in Vietnam. [12] Canada also allowed their NATO ally to use Canadian facilities and bases for training exercises and weapons testing as per existing treaties. The North Atlantic Treaty

Between 28 January 1973 and 31 July 1973, Canada provided 240 peacekeeping troops to Operation Gallant, the peace keeping operation associated with the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) Vietnam, along with Hungary, Indonesia, and Poland. Events 1077 - Walk to Canossa: The Excommunication of Henry IV Holy Roman Emperor is lifted Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Events 30 BC - Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian 's forces but most of his army subsequently Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. During the Vietnam War, the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS was created to replace the International Control Commission (formally called Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic The Republic of Indonesia ( (Republik Indonesia is a Country in Southeast Asia. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland [1] Their role was to monitor the cease-fire in South Vietnam per the Paris Peace Accords. The Paris Peace Accords (or Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam) were signed on January 27, 1973 by the governments of the [13]

Post-war

After the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, thousands of refugees, known as boat people, fled Vietnam for both political and economic reasons. Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Boat people is a term that usually refers to Illegal immigrants or Asylum seekers who emigrate en masse in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made rendering Canada agreed to accept many of them, in one of the largest single influxes of immigrants in Canadian history. This created a substantial Vietnamese community in Canada, concentrated especially in Vancouver and Toronto. Vancouver (vænˈkuːvɚ is a coastal Toronto (təˈrɒntoʊ colloquially pronounced or) is the largest city in Canada and is the provincial capital of Ontario

The Vietnam War was an important cultural turning point in Canada. Coupled with Canada's centenary in 1967 and the success of Expo 67, Canada became far more independent and nationalistic. The public, if not their representatives in parliament, became more willing to oppose the United States and to move in a different direction socially and politically.

In 1981, a government report revealed that Agent Orange, the controversial defoliant, had been tested at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick. Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful Herbicide and Defoliant used by the U This article is about the military base known as CFB Gagetown headquartered in the town of Oromocto with an extensive training area in southwestern New Brunswick New Brunswick ( French: Nouveau-Brunswick /nuvobʁɔnzwik/ is one of Canada 's three Maritime provinces and is the only constitutionally [14] In June of 1966, the chemical was sprayed over nearly 600 acres (2. 4 km²) of forest inside the base. There are differing opinions regarding the level of toxicity of the site, but as of 2006, the Canadian government says it is planning to compensate some of those who were exposed.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Vietnam War Bibliography Edwin Moise. Contains numerous sources on ICCS.
  2. ^ a b c Supplying the war machine - CBC Archives
  3. ^ Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada by Mark Satin
  4. ^ Deserter says he was treated well by U.S. military, CBC News, 30/20/2006
  5. ^ Draft-dodger memorial to be built in B.C., CBC News, 09/08/2004
  6. ^ "On Strawberry Hill" by Chris Turner in The Walrus, September 2007. Mark Satin (born November 16, 1946) is a US Lawyer and editor of the online political periodical Radical Middle Newsletter. The Walrus is a Canadian general interest Magazine which publishes long form journalism on Canadian and international affairs along with fiction and
  7. ^ JAM! Music - Pop Encyclopedia
  8. ^ Canada's Secret War: Vietnam. CBC. Retrieved on 2007-04-07. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 529 - First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in Jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor
  9. ^ Morrison, Wilbur H. (2001). The Elephant and the Tiger. Hellgate Press, p. 597. ISBN 1-55571-612-1.  
  10. ^ Canadian Vietnam Memorial - "The North Wall". Edna Barney (self published). Retrieved on 2007-04-07. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 529 - First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in Jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor
  11. ^ Canadian Vietnam Veterans Monument. Association Québécoise des Vétérans du Vietnam. Retrieved on 2007-04-07. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 529 - First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in Jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor
  12. ^ This collaboration was only revealed to the public in 1981. "History of the Canadian Peoples, 1867-Present," Alvin Finkel & Margaret Conrad, 1998
  13. ^ Control and Supervision Vietnam 1973 - ICCS, Veterans Affairs Canada, March 26, 2001
  14. ^ CBC Archives - A 1981 news broadcast on Vietnam era "Agent Orange" testing in Base Gagetown, New Brunswick

References

Further reading
Military history of Canada:
Wars since Confederation
Boer War
First World War
Russian Civil War
Spanish Civil War
Second World War
Korean War
Cold War
Vietnam War
Invasion of Afghanistan
Iraq War

External links

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