Building Sanctuary: The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965–73 by Jessica Squires (review)

Political history in Canada is changing. Historians are no longer fixated on “great men” biographies or “top-down” examinations of government policies, international relations, political economy, and elections. Instead, the focus is shifting to extra-parliamentary politics, civil society, and the vast range of groups and individuals who participate in politics, broadly defined. Building Sanctuary effectively represents this shift and, despite some important limitations, makes an enormous contribution to the new political history in Canada.

The book examines a largely under-studied topic: the history of American Vietnam War resisters in Canada and the development of government policies to deal with them. Squires challenges the myth of Canada as a peaceable nation and effectively demonstrates that the “experience of war resisters in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during which time the haven myth was entrenched, was actually the product of a complex and varied set of relationships, actions, and interactions by and among various individuals, institutions, and groups” (vii–viii). To demonstrate this complexity, she uses a “bottom-up” approach and dedicates individual chapters to the groups that supported incoming American resisters; the connections between these groups and with their counterparts in the United States; the different experiences of draft dodgers and deserters; the development of immigration policies related to war resisters; the influence of left nationalism on various debates; the policing of the anti-draft movement; and the discussions that ultimately changed the immigration status of war resisters. Squires situates this analysis in a broad range of fields, and although she misses an opportunity to fully engage with social movement theories that could further explain the range of actors, their tactics, and their influence, she nevertheless draws upon and contributes to the literature on nationalism, immigration history, and studies of political policy and the bureaucracy. She also bases her analysis on useful and important sources. Although there is perhaps too little critical engagement with the limits of oral history, and she often relies too heavily on interviews undertaken in the 1970s by Renee Kasinsky, her use of a wide range of archival documents and interviews offers an interesting perspective on a largely unexamined history.

Perhaps the greatest strength of Building Sanctuary is the analysis, in the final four chapters, of the political debates surrounding war resisters in Canada. Squires effectively explains the profoundly complex interactions that occurred within government between bureaucrats and politicians, and outside government among social movement actors, the media, the police, and others. She also successfully highlights the broad range of interests and ideas at play in these discussions. Her examination of left nationalism is a particularly valuable contribution to the literature surrounding the ubiquitous debates in Canada over the meaning and purpose of the nation. Moreover, Squires’s analysis of internal government discussions on immigration policy, which also takes into consideration the input of outside actors and interests, adds significantly to the literature on immigration history and public policy development. While the story is not as transnational as she might claim, and more information on the influence of the U.S. government and other American actors would have added an interesting layer to her analysis, Squires effectively defends her argument on the complexity of policy development on war resisters in Canada.

There are, however, some significant limitations. For one thing, the first three chapters are quite confusing and often unclear. The first chapter, which provides information on the groups created to aid war resisters coming to Canada, becomes repetitive and disjointed. Moreover, Squires claims that these groups are complex and diverse, but in the chapter they appear quite similar and connected. Chapter 2 is supposed to address transnational connections but does not adequately fulfil its purpose. Chapter 3 is apparently focused specifically on deserters; however, it also includes a discussion of the ways Canadians viewed other war resisters, adding unnecessary complication. The book would greatly benefit from the inclusion of the broader context...