# US soldiers opposed to war now find Canada less hospitable

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-soldiers-opposed-to-war-now-find-canada-less-hospitable/725001>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [July 13, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-soldiers-opposed-to-war-now-find-canada-less-hospitable/725001 "2015-07-13T02:29:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-soldiers-opposed-to-war-now-find-canada-less-hospitable/725001/21 "2015-07-14T20:23:11Z")

</div>

It was very easy to immigrate to Canada 45 years ago. You answered a few questions, spoke English and you were in. It is much much harder today. Once you got your landed immigrant status you were in the same boat as any Canadian (except traveling was harder–you needed a stateless person’s passport, assuming you had renounced your citizenship which they mostly did quickly).

A former student did it and came to Montreal, got admitted to McGill as a grad student with a TA-ship, got a girlfriend, married her (I guess they must have celebrated their 45th anniversary), wrote a PhD with me and then settled down to a job in the community college system here from which he is semi-retired. Nowadays it would be much much harder.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-soldiers-opposed-to-war-now-find-canada-less-hospitable/725001/22 "2015-07-17T02:13:02Z")

</div>

> [@usedtobe](#):
>
> There is/was a huge difference between the groups:
> 
> 1. Draft Avoiders/Dodgers - are not members of the Armed Services
> 2. 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.
> 
> Huge difference.

This makes sense. I thought Canada harbored Vietnam draft dodgers as a way of giving the USA a middle finger, but this makes sense now.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-soldiers-opposed-to-war-now-find-canada-less-hospitable/725001.md?page=1)