CBC-TV documentary explores Canada’s unofficial role in the Vietnam War

By Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Officially, Canada refused to join the Vietnam War.

Unofficially, Canada was involved in a myriad of ways — from secretly providing military intelligence, to supplying devastating chemicals that became one of the conflict’s most ignoble legacies.

These and other details about Canada’s shifting relationship with the U.S. during the decade-long conflict are outlined in the CBC-TV documentary “Vietnam: Canada’s Shadow War.”

As the 40th anniversary of the end of the bloody conflict nears, director Andy Blicq’s hour-long film examines both shameful and proud moments in what’s become known as Canada’s “quiet complicity.”

“I think there’s a certain mythology that was built up around the war, that we weren’t involved and that we welcomed the draft dodgers and we were on the sidelines as this was going on,” Blicq says in a recent interview.

“But after we did some of the research it became obvious that Canada was involved in quiet ways.”

While Canada kept its distance from the front lines, it did provide the United States with intelligence, by way of UN observers who secretly passed on information about the enemy, his film notes.

Meanwhile, Canadian industry sold an estimated $2 billion worth of military hardware and other supplies to the U.S. — from airplanes, to ammunition to special forces green berets.

“A lot of money was made here in Canada,” says Blicq.

More shocking for Blicq was the shameful toxic legacy of Elmira, Ont., where a former Uniroyal Chemical plant helped supply Agent Orange to the U.S. military.

Seventy-five million litres of the devastating herbicide was sprayed over the war zone to strip away vegetation concealing the enemy, but its long-lasting effects on anyone in its path were infamously far more destructive.

“I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that those chemicals were made in Canada,” Blicq says.

Then there were the Canadians who actually joined the battle.

They include 17-year-old Winnipeg runaway Kirk Leavesley, who rides the rails to Minneapolis where he joins the Marines and is sent to Vietnam in 1968. He is wounded two years later and spends weeks in hospital. Like many vets, he returns addicted to drugs and alcohol, haunted by what he’s been through.

Of course, Canada is much better known for providing safe haven to thousands of U.S. war resisters who chose to flee rather than face military service.

The doc notes they included newlyweds John Phillips and Laura Jones, who made their way to Toronto’s hippie Yorkville neighbourhood.

In an interview, Jones says she felt “this tremendous relief that we were welcome in Canada,” noting that fellow Quakers embraced them completely.

But as the doc reveals, the U.S. government was not willing to let them go so easily. FBI and other law enforcement officials pursued war resisters with surprising zeal, says Blicq, intimidating family members who followed them across the border, as well as those who stayed behind.

Jones notes that her passport and citizenship were revoked along with those of Phillips, and that changed the way she saw her own role in the conflict.

“I no longer see myself as the appendage, that the women were invisible and it was the men who struggled. That was the attitude at the time,” she says.

Canada’s own role changed, too, notes Blicq, with Ottawa becoming more outspoken by the end of the conflict in its criticism of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam.

A new Canadian identity emerged, one that was distinct from the U.S. and Britain.

“We discovered who we were not — and we were not part of the American war culture,” says Blicq.

“Vietnam: Canada’s Shadow War” airs Thursday on CBC-TV’s “Doc Zone.”

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