Canada and the Vietnam War Canada did not fight in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was " " officially " non - belligerent " . The country ' s troop deployments to Vietnam were limited to a small number of national forces in 1973 to help enforce the Paris Peace Accords . Nevertheless , the war had considerable effects on Canada , while Canada and Canadians affected the war , in return . Beginnings . During the Cold War , Canada was firmly allied with the mainstream Western powers . For instance , Canada was a founding member of NATO , and was instrumental in the forming of that military alliance against the Soviet Union and its satellites . Canada ' s foreign policy was also committed to multilateralism and the United Nations , perhaps most noticeably under Lester B . Pearson from 1963 to 1968 . Canada thus found itself in a difficult position , caught between these two foreign policy objectives . Canadians were hesitant to adopt the Truman or Eisenhower Doctrine s , which held that communism " itself " must be actively opposed through foreign intervention . Instead , Canada ' s policy was that illegal acts of international aggression must be opposed , as in the Korean War , during which Canada was among the many countries that sent troops to fight in support of South Korea , under a United Nations resolution . During the First Indochina War between France and the Indo - Chinese nationalist and communist parties , Canada remained militarily uninvolved but provided modest diplomatic and economic support to the French . Canada was , however , part of the International Control Commission ( along with Poland and India ) that oversaw the 1954 Geneva Agreements that divided Vietnam , provided for French withdrawal and would have instituted elections for reunification by 1956 . Behind the scenes , Canadian diplomats tried to discourage both France and the United States from escalating the conflict in a part of the world Canadians had decided was not strategically vital . Canada laid out six prerequisites to joining a war effort or Asian alliance like SEATO : These criteria effectively guaranteed Canada would not participate in the Vietnam War . Canadian involvement in the war . At the start of the Vietnam War , Canada was a member of the International Control Commission ( ICC ) overseeing the implementation of the Geneva Agreements , and thus attempted to maintain an air of neutrality . However , the Canadian negotiators were strongly on the side of the Americans . One representative ( Blair Seaborn , younger brother of Robert Seaborn ) was even involved in secretly exchanging messages between the U . S . and North Vietnam on behalf of the Americans , with the approval of the Canadian government . Canada also sent foreign aid to South Vietnam , which , while humanitarian , was directed by the Americans . Canada tried to mediate between the warring countries , aiming for a conclusion that could allow the U . S . to leave the conflict honorably , but also publicly ( if mildly ) criticized American war methods . Meanwhile , Canadian industry exported military supplies and raw materials useful in their manufacture , including ammunition , napalm and Agent Orange , to the United States , as trade between the two countries carried on unhindered . " 500 firms sold $ 2 . 5 billion of war materials ( ammunition , napalm , aircraft engines and explosives ) to the Pentagon . Another $ 10 billion in food , beverages , berets and boots for the troops was exported to the U . S . , as well as nickel , copper , lead , brass and oil for shell casings , wiring , plate armour and military transport . In Canada unemployment fell to record low levels of 3 . 9 % " Although these exports were sales by Canadian companies , not gifts from the Canadian government , they benefited the American war effort nonetheless . The first official response to the economic support being given to the United States military from the government was by Lester B . Pearson on March 10 , 1967 that the embargo of goods to their southern ally was " necessary and logical " due to the extreme integration of both economies and in doing so would also be a notice of withdrawal from North American defense arrangements . As the war escalated , relations between Canada and the United States deteriorated . On April 2 , 1965 , Pearson gave a speech at Temple University in the United States which , in the context of firm support for U . S . policy , called for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam . In a perhaps apocryphal story , when a furious President Lyndon B . Johnson met with Pearson the next day , he grabbed the much smaller Canadian by his lapels and talked angrily with him for an hour . After this incident , the two men somehow found ways to resolve their differences over the war — in fact , they both had further contacts , including meeting together in Canada two times afterward . American war resisters in Canada . American draft dodgers and military deserter s who sought refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War would ignite controversy among those seeking to immigrate to Canada , some of it provoked by the Canadian government ’ s initial refusal to admit those who could not prove that they had been discharged from [ American ] military service . This changed in 1968 . On May 22 , 1969 , Ottawa announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants ’ military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada . According to Valerie Knowles , draft dodgers were usually college - educated sons of the middle class who could no longer defer induction into the Selective Service System . Deserter s , on the other hand , were predominantly sons of the lower - income and working classes who had been inducted into the armed services directly from high school or who had volunteered , hoping to obtain a skill and broaden their limited horizons . Starting in 1965 , Canada became a choice haven for American draft dodgers and deserter s . Because they were not formally classified as refugees but were admitted as immigrants , there is no official estimate of how many draft dodgers and deserter s were admitted to Canada during the Vietnam War . One informed estimate puts their number between 30 , 000 and 40 , 000 . Whether or not this estimate is accurate , the fact remains that emigration from the United States was high as long as America was involved militarily in the war and maintained compulsory military service ; in 1971 and 1972 Canada received more immigrants from the United States than from any other country . Draft dodgers . Estimates vary greatly as to how many Americans settled in Canada for the specific reason of dodging the draft or " evading conscription , " as opposed to desertion , or other reasons . Canadian immigration statistics show that 20 , 000 to 30 , 000 draft - eligible American men came to Canada as immigrants during the Vietnam era . The BBC stated that " as many as 60 , 000 young American men dodged the draft . " Estimates of the total number of American citizens who moved to Canada due to their opposition to the war range from 50 , 000 to 125 , 000 This exodus was " the largest politically motivated migration from the United States since the United Empire Loyalist s moved north to oppose the American Revolution . " Major communities of war resisters formed in Montreal , the Slocan Valley , British Columbia , and on Baldwin Street in Toronto , Ontario . They were at first assisted by the Student Union for Peace Action , a campus - based Canadian anti - war group with connections to Students for a Democratic Society . This was led by campus chair Matthieu Charette in the United States . Canadian immigration policy at the time made it easy for immigrants from all countries to obtain legal status in Canada . By late 1967 , draft dodgers were being assisted primarily by several locally based anti - draft groups ( over twenty of them ) , such as the Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors and the Toronto Anti - Draft Programme . As a counselor for the Programme , Mark Satin wrote the " Manual for Draft - Age Immigrants to Canada " in 1968 . It sold nearly 100 , 000 copies overall . The influx of these young men , who ( as mentioned earlier ) were often well educated and politically leftist , affected Canada ' s academic and cultural institutions , and Canadian society at large . These new arrivals tended to balance the " brain drain " that Canada had experienced . While some draft dodgers returned to the United States after a pardon was declared in 1977 during the administration of Jimmy Carter , roughly half of them stayed in Canada . Prominent draft dodgers who stayed in Canada permanently , or for a significant amount of time include the below . ( For a separate , distinct list of noteworthy deserters , see next section . ) Deserters . Distinct from draft resisters , there were also deserter s of the American forces who also made their way to Canada . There was pressure from the United States and Canada to have them arrested , or at least stopped at the border . The deserters have not been pardoned and may still face " pro forma " arrest , as the case of Allen Abney demonstrated in March 2006 . Another similar case was that of Richard Allen Shields : He had deserted the U . S . Army in Alaska in 1972 after serving a year in Vietnam . Twenty - eight years later , in March 22 , 2000 , while he attempted to drive a lumber truck across the US - Canadian border ( in Metaline Falls , WA ) he was arrested by U . S . Customs agents and jailed at Fort Sill . He was discharged from the Army with an " Other Than Honorable " discharge in April 2000 . Other noteworthy deserters from that era include the following : Missing - text controversy . In February 2009 , " text on how both draft dodgers and resisters of the Vietnam War were ultimately allowed to stay in Canada suddenly vanished from the [ Government of Canada ' s ] Citizenship and Immigration [ web ] site . " Originally , the Government of Canada website had contained the following statements : . . . " Starting in 1965 , Canada became a choice haven for American draft resisters and deserters , . . . Although some of these transplanted Americans returned home after the Vietnam War , most of them put down roots in Canada , making up the largest , best - educated group this country had ever received . " The above statement ( now gone from the website ) was part of an extensive online chapter on draft resisters and deserters from the Vietnam war , which was found in the larger online document , " Forging Our Legacy : Canadian Citizenship and Immigration , 1900 – 1977 " It was originally posted on the Government of Canada website in the year 2000 , when the Liberal Party of Canada , led by Jean Chrétien , was in power and responsible for the content of that website . But " in 2009 , the Harper government [ took ] a much dimmer view of dozens of U . S . soldiers who ' ve come north after refusing to serve in the invasion of Iraq . Some had already been deported to face military jail terms ranging from about six to 15 months . " The removal from the Citizenship and Immigration website occurred in the same month that its multi - party counterpart , the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was debating that issue : On February 12 , 2009 , that multi - party committee passed , for the second time , a non - binding motion reaffirming Parliament ' s earlier ( June 2008 ) vote which recommended that the government let Iraq War resisters stay in Canada . A month and a half later , on March 30 , 2009 , the again voted in a non - binding motion 129 to 125 in favour of the committee ' s recommendation . Anti - war activism . Anti - War activities were nearly as widespread in Canada as they were in the United States , with demonstrations on most Canadian college and university campuses . In English Canada , the movement was fuelled by the draft dodgers . In Quebec , the anti - war movement was also strong , and even violent : The FLQ , a militant Quebec - separatist group , was also stridently anti - American and against the war . Canadians in the U . S . military . In counter - current to the movement American draft - dodgers and deserters to Canada , about 30 , 000 Canadians volunteered to fight in southeast Asia . Among the volunteers were fifty Mohawks from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal . One - hundred and ten ( 110 ) Canadians died in Vietnam , and seven remain listed as Missing in Action . Canadian Peter C . Lemon was awarded the U . S . Medal of Honor for his valour in the conflict . ( This cross - border enlistment was not unprecedented : Both the First and the Second World War saw thousands of Americans join the Canadian Armed forces before the U . S officially declared war on Germany ) In Windsor , Ontario , there is a privately funded monument to the Canadians killed in the Vietnam War . In Melocheville , Quebec , there is a monument site funded by the Association Québécoise des Vétérans du Vietnam . However , many Canadian veterans returned to a society that was strongly anti - war . Unlike the United States , there were no veterans organizations nor any help for them from the government , and many of them moved permanently to the United States . There has been ongoing pressure from Canadian Vietnam veterans to have their comrades ' deaths formally acknowledged by the government , especially in times such as Remembrance Day . Assistance to the Americans . Canada ' s official diplomatic position in relation to the Vietnam War was that of a non - belligerent , which imposed a ban on the export of war - related items to the combat areas . Nonetheless , Canadian industry was also a major supplier of equipment and supplies to the American forces , not sending these directly to South Vietnam but to the United States . Sold goods included relatively benign items like boots , but also aircraft , munitions , napalm and commercial defoliant s , the use of which was fiercely opposed by anti - war protesters at the time . In accordance with the 1958 Defence Production Sharing Agreement , Canadian industry sold $ 2 . 47 billion in materiel to the United States between 1965 and 1973 . Many of the companies were owned by US parent firms , but all export sales over $ 100 , 000 US ( and thus , the majority of contracts ) were arranged through the Canadian Commercial Corporation , a crown corporation which acted as an intermediary between the U . S . Department of Defence and Canadian industry . Furthermore , the Canadian and American Defense departments worked together to test chemical defoliants for use in Vietnam . Canada also allowed their NATO ally to use Canadian facilities and bases for training exercises and weapons testing as per existing treaties . Between January 28 , 1973 and July 31 , 1973 , Canada provided 240 peacekeeping troops to " Operation Gallant " , the peace keeping operation associated with the International Commission of Control and Supervision ( ICCS ) Vietnam , along with Hungary , Indonesia , and Poland . Their role was to monitor the cease - fire in South Vietnam per the Paris Peace Accords . After Canada ’ s departure from the Commission , it was replaced by Iran . After the war . After the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 , thousands of refugees , called boat people , fled Vietnam for both political and economic reasons . Canada agreed to accept many of them , in one of the largest single influxes of immigrants in Canadian history . This created a substantial Vietnamese community in Canada , concentrated especially in Montreal , Vancouver , and Toronto . The Vietnam War was an important cultural turning point in Canada . Coupled with Canada ' s centenary in 1967 and the success of Expo 67 , Canada became far more independent and nationalistic . The public , if not their representatives in parliament , became more willing to oppose the United States and to move in a different direction socially and politically . In 1981 , a government report revealed that Agent Orange , the controversial defoliant , had been tested at CFB Gagetown , New Brunswick . In June 1966 , the chemical was sprayed over nearly 600 acres ( 2 . 4 km ) of forest inside the base . There are differing opinions about the level of toxicity of the site ; but , in 2006 , the Canadian government said it planned to compensate some of those who were exposed . As of 2011 , some claims have been paid but the administration of the compensation program has been criticized .