ARTICLES

BUILDING SANCTUARY:
The Movement to Support Vietnam War
Resisters in Canada, 1965–73
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
SQUIRES, Jessica. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013, hardcover, 349 pages,
$34.95, ISBN 978-0-7748-2525-2
Reviewed by John MacFarlane, Directorate of History and Heritage,
Department of National Defence
Building Sanctuary is about the movement to support
Vietnam War resisters in Canada. Jessica Squires
specifies that her focus is not on “draft dodgers” but
on “Canadian support for resisters,” with resisters
including deserters as well as draft dodgers. Earlier
studies by Hagan and Churchill that focused on
resisters are included in an extensive bibliography. 1
Sources for the study include interviews with activists which “help to provide an accurate
picture of the culture of the anti-draft movement.” 2 Government documents, with the notable
exception of those from DND, as well as files from the groups associated with the movement,
help provide a fascinating look into this unique movement.
The movement included “a complex and varied set of relationships, actions and interactions
by and among various individuals, institutions and groups.” Beginning in 1967, but most active
in 1968 and 1969, 51 groups of various sizes (listed in Appendix 1) worked across Canada.
They provided direct support for arriving immigrants, notably legal advice, as well as political
advocacy to shape public perception, improve border conditions and affect public policy. 3
These groups relied on the support of church groups, university students’ associations, women’s
groups and increasingly on recent immigrants from the United States. Not surprisingly,
members held a wide variety of opinions on subjects such as the priority to be given to helping
immigrants as opposed to anti-war work and the related debates about effective resistance to
the war: draft-dodging, deserting, or actions inside the U.S. As in Canada during the two world
wars, opposition to conscription did not mean opposition to the war, and that caused some
tensions, particularly among communist supporters and opponents. 4
The author argues that the various forms of this movement helped shape immigration policy.
Appendix 2 contains a helpful chart that details changes from 1967 to 1973: “Shifts in Immigration
Regulations and Tactics of Counselling and Border Crossing.” Particular attention is given
to the important May 1969 decision to “open the border” to deserters coming to Canada. A
letter-writing campaign is credited with helping to influence Ottawa’s decision: “In the context
of questioning in the House of Commons, media attention to the issue, and pressure through
other means, such as lobbying and briefs, Minister [Allan] MacEachen and his staff must
increasingly have seen the letters as a reflection of public opinion.” 5 Advances were made
despite the RCMP’s “[c]onstant surveillance throughout the period” of dozens of groups. 6
142 THE CANADIAN ARMY JOURNAL VOLUME 16.2 2016