Reconsidering Canada’s role in Vietnam

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2021 (1516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHILE federal elections in Canada are rarely fought around matters of foreign policy, voters are interested in how our political leaders would manage the critical Canada-U.S. relationship. That is increasingly more important today in a post-pandemic world in which protectionism is rising, the rules-based world order is under attack and where an aggressive China is rising in power.

Needless to say, it can be an extraordinarily difficult relationship — as the turbulent Trump years so manifestly demonstrated. In an earlier time, our bilateral relations with the U.S. were significantly complicated by Canada’s direct involvement in the enormously costly and deadly war in Indochina (1954-73).

In a new book by historian John Boyko, The Devil’s Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War, the bestselling author delves into a handful of individualized personal stories to abruptly pull back the curtain on Canada’s shameful role in Vietnam. As the jacket cover points out, Boyko “recounts Canada’s often-overlooked involvement in that conflict as peacemaker, combatant, and provider of weapons and sanctuary.”

Accordingly, there was Canada’s problematic role in both the International Control Commission (ICC) and the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) that enforced the 1954 Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam agreement and monitored the war activities of all parties. In many instances, Canadian members of the commissions sided with the U.S. and actually did its bidding.

Defence-related industries in Canada knowingly exported billions of dollars in armaments (e.g., ammunition, TNT, grenades and aircraft engines) to the United States that would eventually make their way to the jungles of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, U.S. military contractors purchased billions worth of Canadian nickel to build bombs, armoured vehicles and aircraft, and Japanese arms companies acquired aluminum and copper from Canada.

It’s really hard to reconcile the fact those lethal arms were used to kill millions of innocent civilians in Indochina, while good-paying jobs (7,000 in Winnipeg) were saved in parts of Canada.

To be sure, there were some good-news stories about Canada’s Vietnam connection, including the emergence of a non-violent anti-war movement that sought to hold wayward governments to account. You could even view the acceptance of tens of thousands of U.S. war resisters, depending upon your own disposition, in a favourable manner. And who could forget the notable contribution to Canada’s well-being from those 60,000 or so Indochinese refugees in the early 1980s.

But it is the insights around the critically important Canada-U.S. relationship that most caught my eye throughout the narrative. Given the centrality of the U.S. marketplace to Canada, how was official Ottawa supposed to conduct itself during the war?

The belief among Ottawa policy-makers was that Canada could have more influence over the U.S. by making itself useful to our southern neighbour. That is, that Canada could help shape American war decisions by looking the other way on Canadian arms exports, by supplying raw intelligence through the ICC/ICCS and by largely keeping our collective mouth shut.

These were all presumably the price to pay so an ally would be able to sit at the big table and to engage our U.S. counterparts on Vietnam. What Canadian officials forgot to realize was that Washington wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what Ottawa had to say about the prosecution of the war. It didn’t matter to them what we did or said.

On the few occasions when Ottawa did muster the strength to speak out (including prime minister Lester Pearson’s memorable 1965 Temple University speech, after which U.S. president Lyndon Johnson practically throttled him for calling for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam), there was no serious retaliation or economic punishment meted out against Canada. The Americans were mostly silent. In fact, how could the U.S. impose punitive measures against Canada without simultaneously shooting itself in the foot?

Indeed, the discussion in Boyko’s The Devil’s Trick triggers a series of pertinent and relevant questions today about Canada-U.S. relations. Why do Canadian decision-makers seemingly fail to learn from past experiences such as the Vietnam War? Or, do they recognize the huge policy failures of the past and still continue to make the same mistakes anyway? Lastly, did they learn the wrong lessons from our Vietnam engagement?

I wonder if our federal politicians could come up with the answers to those questions.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.