WI: No US draft-dodgers/war resisters in Canada

Based on something I wrote in Shared Worlds, what would happen if, for whatever reason, young men who fled the US to escape the draft during Vietnam had NOT gone to Canada, or were not given refuge by the Canadian government?

I'm tempted to say not much, though as I wrote on the SW thread, numerous of them became prominent in activism and academia, and in some cases, sparked a bit of tension with the Canadian left, especially the nationalist elements thereof. Some of the Americans took a less charitable view of Canada than the Canadians did, seeing it as another imperial power, in and of itself.

But I'm also wondering about the broader political and cultural effects. At the very least, it would butterfly away a fairly impressive list of Canadian cultural figures, not least of which would be adopted Torontonian Jane Jacobs, who followed her draft-age sons to Canada. Though it's difficult to say what the cumulative impact of all those absences would be. (Jane Jacobs, engaging as she may be, is not much known in Canada outside of interested circles, and you could probably say the same for a lot of her fellow expatriates.)

I'm also wondering if it would have any impact on American politics and/or society. Beyond there being a few more dead American boys.
 
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Well, that's pretty easy to do. They were only allowed into Canada because of Pierre Trudeau. Keep him from going into politics or from being in power during the Vietnam War, and they won't be accepted into Canada. Of course, that has butterflies of its own...

Generally, Canadian culture will be less rich and Canadian pacifism is going to be muted.
 
How important were the draft dodgers in Canada, anyway? Like, take Jacobs. In interviews, she never said that she was the reason Toronto did not engage in widespread urban renewal; she said that Canadian cities generally didn't, because Canada tends to lag US trends, and by the time it was ready to engage in US-style urban renewal, the US urban renewal projects had already failed. If anything, Vancouver and Calgary resisted urban expressways better than Toronto did, and Vancouver's program of public housing is so well-integrated that, unlike in US cities, you can't tell walking by a building that it's subsidized or publicly-owned.

Jacobs had more influence later in life, via David Miller, but a lot of David Miller's plans were completely trashed by Rob Ford anyway. Rest in peace, Transit City.
 
Well, that's pretty easy to do. They were only allowed into Canada because of Pierre Trudeau. Keep him from going into politics or from being in power during the Vietnam War, and they won't be accepted into Canada. Of course, that has butterflies of its own...

Generally, Canadian culture will be less rich and Canadian pacifism is going to be muted.

Well, I was thinking more of a WI than an Xhallenge, but yeah, getting rid of PET would probably go some way toward making a dodger-less Canada a reality.

A continued Diefenbaker regime would be interesting in this regard as well. The guy was seriously anti-American, but also pretty hardcore anti-Communist. I'm guessing that both of these facets might have converged into a policy of rejecting the resisters, ie. "buncha goddam screaming yankee assh*les trying to bring their revolution up here". And if he threw in a bit of anti-Soviet rhetoric as well, it might shore up his prairie-slavic base.

I wonder what position Dief did take on that issue as an opposition MP iOTL.

Canadian pacifism is going to be muted

Do you think that the presence of draft dodgers/resisters in Canada played a significant role in developing the antiwar movement? I know they were a big part of the movement once it got underway, but I'm not sure how influential they were in sparking it.

I guess if you know someone who was faced with being drafted should he return to the US, it might drive home the imperative to stop the war.
 
How important were the draft dodgers in Canada, anyway? Like, take Jacobs. In interviews, she never said that she was the reason Toronto did not engage in widespread urban renewal; she said that Canadian cities generally didn't, because Canada tends to lag US trends, and by the time it was ready to engage in US-style urban renewal, the US urban renewal projects had already failed. If anything, Vancouver and Calgary resisted urban expressways better than Toronto did, and Vancouver's program of public housing is so well-integrated that, unlike in US cities, you can't tell walking by a building that it's subsidized or publicly-owned.

Interesting observations. Her most influential book is probably The Life And Death Of Great American Cities, and yeah, she wrote that before she even moved to Canada. So it would probably have stood on its own, and had whatever influence it did have in Canada, even if she had remained in the US.

Cheech and Chong would never have met had Cheech not moved to Canada to escape the draft, but their direct influence in Canada has been absolutely zero.
 
I've read, don't remember where, that probably as many Canadians went south to join the U.S. military during the Vietnam War as Americans went north to evade the draft.
 
I've read, don't remember where, that probably as many Canadians went south to join the U.S. military during the Vietnam War as Americans went north to evade the draft.

That's entirely believable. Though, when you factor in the size of the respective host populations, obviously the American influence in Canada is gonna be bigger than the reverse.

Some of the left-wing anti-American stuff I referenced earlier...

“left-wing” Yankees

Then there are political groups like multiplying sects of Trotskyites, anarchists, Moscow line so-called Communist Party, who claim to be anti-imperialist while all the time maligning Canada as an imperialist power. These groups syphon off progressive Canadians, point their aggressive energies away from the National Liberation struggle and drown them in their quagmire of double-think and double talk. Among the most beligerent are woman’s liberation groups, fashioned after U.S. groups, which preach that woman’s liberation is isolated from the Canadian people’s fight for national liberation. By isolating women they greatly weaken the liberation struggle in Canada and consequently the liberation of women.

The stuff linking "women's liberation" with "Canadian liberation" is a little rich, considering that at the time, Canada had more restrictive abortion laws than the US.

(That group was headed by Bob Rae's brother-in-law; not sure if he wrote the prose.)

link
 
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