Let's provide a haven for those who chose not to fight in Iraq
JOHN HAGAN

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

May 30, 2008 at 7:19 PM EDT

The Liberals' Bob Rae recently joined the NDP's Olivia Chow and others in
urging Parliament to pass a motion allowing American Iraq war resisters,
such as Corey Glass, to stay in Canada. Last week, Mr. Glass was refused
refugee status and became the first Iraq war resister to be scheduled for
deportation.

Mr. Rae and Ms. Chow's plea for action recalled Pierre Trudeau and David
Lewis's leadership at crucial moments of the Vietnam War. Then, as now, it
took several years to build support and acceptance for American military
deserters, as well as draft resisters. Beginning in the mid-1960s, war
resisters who came to Canada before being drafted (“dodgers”) readily
received landed immigrant status. But until 1969, military resisters
(“deserters”) were treated differently – because they left the armed
forces and faced charges of desertion.

Allan MacEachen, as minister of immigration, initially directed
immigration officers to refuse U.S. military resisters entry as landed
immigrants. He reasoned that when such resisters left their units, they
broke moral and legal contractual obligations to serve in their nation's
armed forces.

Political and religious leaders ultimately persuaded Mr. MacEachen that
distinctions between military and draft resisters were irrelevant for
Canadian purposes. References to “dodgers” and “deserters” had no legal
meaning in Canada. The Immigration Act made no reference of any kind to
military service as grounds for prohibiting entry to Canada.

Canadians at the time questioned the Vietnam War, and Mr. Glass echoed
those sentiments when he said last week “what I saw in Iraq convinced me
that the war is illegal and immoral. I could not in good conscience
continue to take part in it.”

Ms. Chow and Mr. Rae recalled Canada's history of refuge and sanctuary
when they spoke during a gathering in January at a United Church in
Toronto. United Church, Mennonite, Jewish, Quaker, Unitarian and other
religious groups support today's Iraq war resisters – just as they did the
Vietnam War resisters 40 years ago. The gathering heard from such
resisters as Kimberly Rivera, who brushed back tears as she expressed
gratitude for her sanctuary with her young children in Canada. She
explained that she joined the American military because she was jobless
and needed health care for her children. It is tendentious to call her
service a free or voluntary choice. Recruiters coaxed and lied to Ms.
Rivera about a war she eventually concluded was immoral. U.S. government
“stop-loss” orders have added and extended nearly 100,000 tours of service
in Iraq, and this back-door draft is only one among many ways in which
service in Iraq can be involuntary.

Late last year, Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis put forward a motion in
Parliament's standing committee on citizenship and immigration to allow
resisters of wars not sanctioned by the UN to stay in Canada. Opposition
party MPs joined ranks to pass the motion, which should soon be brought to
a vote in Parliament.

Minus such legislation, Iraq war resisters will be unable to legalize
their status in Canada and will remain mired in the same bureaucratic
process as Mr. Glass.

It's a never-ending story, as the Vietnam War migration to Canada shows.
Even though president Jimmy Carter unconditionally pardoned American
Vietnam draft resisters when he came to office, his pardon for military
resisters required them to return to their units within six months to
apply for a less-than-honourable discharge. Most Vietnam resisters in
Canada refused the offer and remain here to this day. Stories of abuse in
U.S. military prisons were rampant, and any who returned risked
imprisonment. When retired Winnipeg mechanic Randall Caudill paid a short
visit to his daughter in the U.S. in 1997, nearly 30 years after leaving
the Marines and coming to Canada, he was arrested and held for trial.
Following months of diplomatic inquiries by the Canadian government, he
finally received a bad-conduct discharge and was allowed to return to his
wife in Canada.

In an era of harsh interrogation, extraordinary rendition, and detention
without trial, few American Vietnam or Iraq war resisters want to return
to the United States. They just want to get on with their lives in Canada.
Parliament can remedy the situation of Iraq war resisters by voting in
favour of the motion recommending that a new generation of U.S. war
resisters be allowed to apply for permanent residence so that they can
stay in Canada.

I often wonder how things might have turned out differently in the spring
of 1969. The government could have forced American Vietnam War resisters
to leave the country; the RCMP could have forcibly delivered Vietnam-era
resisters into the hands of American authorities.

Imagine today a YouTube video of the RCMP handing over Ms. Rivera and her
young children to the U.S. authorities. Or worse, imagine this being done
in secret. Yet this threat of deportation confronts Ms. Rivera and her
fellow American Iraq war resisters. They could be turned over by Canadian
authorities to the U.S. military for interrogation and punishment.

Ms. Chow and Mr. Rae, like Mr. Lewis and Mr. Trudeau before them, offer a
leadership that rejects this fate while supporting the sovereign right of
Canada to provide refuge and sanctuary to individuals who, like the UN and
Canada, chose not to approve or join in the pre-emptive U.S. war in Iraq.
John Hagan is John D. MacArthur professor at Northwestern University