Канада и Вьетнамская война: Скрытое участие и двойственная позиция.

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Canada did not officially participate in the Vietnam War. However, it contributed to peacekeeping forces in 1973 to help enforce the Paris Peace Accords. Privately, some Canadians contributed to the war effort. Canadian corporations sold war material to the U. S. government. In addition, at least 30,000 Canadians volunteered to serve in the U. S. armed forces during the war. At least 134 Canadians died or were reported missing in Vietnam.]] 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 U. S. One representative (J. 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 U. S., with the approval of the Canadian government. Canada also sent foreign aid to South Vietnam, which, while humanitarian, was directed by the U. S.
Canada tried to mediate between the warring countries, aiming for a conclusion that could allow the U. S. to leave the conflict honourably. It has also been commonly believed, as reported at the time, that the Canadian government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson publicly criticized U. S. war methods. Yet, the text of a speech which Pearson delivered at Temple University in Philadelphia on April 2, 1965 has debunked this widespread rumor, with Pearson even stating "The government and great majority of people of my country have supported wholeheartedly the US peacekeeping and peacemaking policies in Vietnam." 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 continued without interruption or hindrance. "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, oil, brass for shell casings, wiring, plate armour and military transport. In Canada unemployment fell to record low levels of 3.9%". As the war escalated, however, relations between Canada and the United States gradually deteriorated. In his Temple University speech, while stating firm support for U. S. policy, Pearson also 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 and had further contacts, including later twice meeting in Canada. With the federal elections of 1968, which brought Pierre Trudeau to the prime ministry, Canadian policy changed radically to one of unrelenting criticism of U. S. policy in Vietnam. Trudeau called for immediate negotiations between the U. S. and North Vietnam and offered on at least one occasion to serve as mediator in the negotiations, annoying President Richard Nixon, who succeeded Lyndon Johnson after his own election to the U. S. presidency in 1968.

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 U. S. forces, not sending these directly to South Vietnam but to the United States. The goods included relatively benign items like boots, but also aircraft, munitions, napalm, and commercial defoliants, the use of which was fiercely opposed by anti war protesters at the time. In accordance with the 1956 Defence Production Sharing Agreement, Canadian industry sold $2.47 billion in materiel to the United States between 1965 and 1973. 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 peacekeeping 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.

In a counter current to the movement of U. S. draft evaders and deserters to Canada, about 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight for the U. S. in Southeast Asia. Among the volunteers were 50 Mohawks from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. U. S. Army Sergeant Peter C. Lemon, an immigrant from Canada, 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 2015, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) produced a story remembering the Canadians who fought and died in the war. According to that story, a Canadian veterans association estimates that 20,000 Canadians enlisted in the U. S. armed forces to fight alongside the Americans, while some historians put the number as high as 40,000. In Melocheville, Quebec, there is a monument dating from October 1989 funded by the Association Québécoise des Vétérans du Vietnam.

The Vietnam War continued to resonate in Canada long after the war was over.

After the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, hundreds of thousands of refugees, called boat people, fled Vietnam and adjacent nations. According to Canadian immigration historian Valerie Knowles, from 1979 to 1980 Canada admitted an estimated 60,000 of these refugees, "most of whom had endured several days in small, leaky boats, prey to vicious pirate attacks, before ending up in squalid camps". Knowles says it was the highest number of boat people accepted by any nation, including the United States, during that period.

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 km2) 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.

Jack Pocock Memorial Collection, in the Discover Archives at the University of Toronto. Material from the Toronto Anti Draft Programme and similar organizations, mostly from 1969–1975. Manual for Draft Age Immigrants to Canada. Narrative and excerpt. Seeking Sanctuary: Draft Dodgers. Digital archives, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Toronto Anti Draft Programme. Self description from 1968. The Vietnam War: Canada's Role, Part Two: The Boat People. Transcript of a CBC Radio broadcast. Vietnam War Resisters in Canada , hosted by Vancouver Community Network. Annotated guide to texts and websites from the 1960s to the present. Compiled by scholar Joseph Jones. Vietnamese Community in Canada. Overview by Statistics Canada.