Draft dodgers fleeing to Canada is an iconic image of the sixties. Living there until President Ford offered conditional amnesty (draft dodgers only, deserters weren’t eligible) on Sept. 16, 1974. Then President Carter offered unconditional pardons on Jan 21, 1977 for everybody. This was on his first day in office.
Thats changed today. Canada no longer is a safe heaven for those opposed to war. Maybe because the US no longer has a draft? Todays cases are all active duty deserters that refused to go to war when called. Quite a big difference.
To a great extent. Plus Canada has been involved in many of the same operations as the US over this same period of time (Iraq was not the only thing that mattered, contrary to what a bunch of yoyos may have thought - Canada said no thanks on the Wrong War, but stood by our side elsewhere). Hard to shelter an ally’s deserters when you are receiving your own fallen from Afghanistan with honors.
Very true. Its hard to garner much support for deserters. They signed up, cashed their paychecks, and then refused to deploy to a war zone.
My dad served over twenty years in the military. By pure luck he was in the Navy patrolling in the Atlantic (opposite side of the world) during the Korean War. He almost made it through his 20 years without going to war. Events caught up with him in 1965 when Johnson ordered troops to Viet Nam. He had transferred to the Air Force in 1957 and Uncle Sam needed his services at airfields in Viet Nam. He always said that was just the breaks. He choose a military career because he held technical jobs. But he always knew and accepted that might require him to serve in a war zone.
There is/was a huge difference between the groups:
Draft Avoiders/Dodgers - are not members of the Armed Services
Deserter/AWOL - a soldier who leaves his unit and never comes back
The extradition treaty with Canada was a reciprocating model - if it isn’t a crime in the resident’s country, they won’t extradite.
Since Canada had no Draft, they had no laws about compelling a person to honor instructions to report for induction.
They did have a military, so they did have laws about desertion.
There were apparently a lot of US deserters in Canada. That’s why President Ford conditional pardon didn’t solve the problem.
Carter made a campaign promise to unconditionally pardon all of the draft dodgers and deserters. Which he fulfilled his first day in office.
I think the only exception was men who actually deserted the battlefield. But I’m not even sure about that. Carter’s pardon was pretty inclusive.
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I’m glad all these thousands and thousands of men had some place to go. It would have been quite traumatic for the country to prosecute and jail that many people. But they did get away from their duty while others went and died fighting. Not an easy thing to reconcile.
The political element is a factor too. Johnson and Nixon knew it wouldn’t be popular prosecuting that many draft dodgers. Letting them escape to Canada eliminated a thorny problem for them. Out of sight, Out of mind.
I doubt either President made any formal protests to Canada’s Ambassador about the situation.
I have a friend who was a draft dodger from the Viet Nam war. He’s been a Canadian for, what 40ish years now?
I golf with him occasionally but we never talk politics. The funny thing is that he still maintains his Ohio accent and is unapologetically American. The guy loves us here in Canada though.
The treaties existing today treat a crime in one place as a crime in the other, as long as the crimes are similar in both places and are regarded as crimes by both countries (e.g. murder, robbery, etc.).
As Canada had no draft, then draft-dodging was not a crime in Canada; and US draft-dodgers were neither prosecuted in, nor extradited from, Canada.
Desertion from the armed forces is a crime in Canada; therefore US forces who desert and come to Canada are committing a crime, and can be extradited to the US.
This may be a drift but from what friends (who took that route) told me Canada wasn’t that great a choice even way back when unless you were coming over with some financial backing or mad skills. More the kind of experience Mexicans had crossing into the US around the same time. I’m sure mileage varied but Canada, as a safe haven, just never impressed me all that much.
Well, they weren’t considered refugees, so if they didn’t get status as permanent residents, which could be hard for a young guy without much qualifications, it could be a pretty dodgy existence.
Another point:
Carter took office in January 1981 - 10 years after the big migration.
By that time, the educated and skilled had made homes in Canada and saw no reason to return.
Many/most of the Avoiders were young men who had just graduated from college, thus losing their 2S (student) deferment and got their brand new 1A (dead meat) classification.
Canada got another few thousand young college grads - absolute free of charge.
They really should have sent a Thank You to the Selective Service.
And a piece of it is also that actually qualifying as refugees or on humanitarian grounds now means competing with person fleeing such more dire circumstances, equally so humanitarian grounds.
Displacing someone escaping certain death in Darfur, because you’re an American, is less easy today I think.