Crisis of Confidence: Conscientious Objection in Canada during the First World War by Amy J. Shaw (review)

The passage of the 1917 Military Service Act and the introduction of conscription marked a new direction in Canada’s war effort. By the end of 1917, of the 404,395 men who had reported, 380,510 – a surprising 93.7% – had requested exemptions. In that group were hundreds of conscientious objectors (COs), and these men are the focus of Amy Shaw’s book: Crisis of Confidence: Conscientious Objection in Canada during the First World War.

Shaw makes effective use of newspaper reports and limited archival sources (the official government files were destroyed after the war) to piece together a thorough examination of these young Canadians who found themselves odd men out because of their refusal, for religious, moral, and ethical reasons, to fight in Canada’s military. Some were opposed to fighting but were willing to serve in non-combatant roles; others refused all military service and faced very severe consequences including harassment, assault, and imprisonment. Most were labelled lazy, weak, effeminate, and, ultimately, cowards. Moreover, because of their largely rural backgrounds and relative isolation in minority religious denominations, they found few defenders in Parliament and received little support from other groups opposed to conscription, organized labour for example.

The Military Service Act contained a clause offering limited exemption to those men who could demonstrate that, at the time of the passage of the bill, they were members of one of the recognized religious groups exempted from military service. For the Borden government, a legitimate CO was a member of one of these ‘historic peace churches’ which had come to Canada with specific promises of exemption, including Mennonites, Doukhobors, Brethren in Christ (Tunkers), Hutterites, and Quakers. It also meant that conscientious objection was linked to membership in a particular religious group rather than regarded as an individual right or belief. It was, Shaw explains, a way of ‘keeping the promises’ rather than ‘any real concession to the right of individual freedom of conscience.’

Shaw examines the experiences of the members of the historic peace churches and the other denominations that did not have this exemption protection as well as individuals who fell outside a particular denomination. Individuals who claimed exemption for matters of personal conscience were the most vulnerable. Given that all the mainstream churches supported the war, it was almost impossible for an individual to be recognized as a CO by the government on ethical grounds. In a war that was based on the ideal of ‘Christian sacrifice,’ it was difficult to claim, in the words of the London Free Press, ‘exemption from religion on religious grounds.’ Some churches were better than others at resisting, and success was a function of the structure of the group: the more ‘respectable’ and British the group, the more easily its members were accepted as COs.

Shaw draws interesting parallels with the British experience, where COs were more organized and had a higher public profile and generally a higher-class standing than COs in Canada. Compared to their British compatriots, the Canadian objectors lived in relative silence and obscurity. ‘Their views were unfamiliar to many Canadians, and the perceived need for greater unity during wartime also increased the distrust engendered by their alternative reading of religious obligations. They were made to discuss often deeply held but difficult-to-express views in a highly confrontational setting, where they were judged in public by the community’s elite.’ And their experiences during the war only tended to intensify that sense of isolation and separation from mainstream Canadian society. As a result, most of the participants were extremely reticent to recount their experiences after the war. This book, therefore, is an important contribution to the study of religious freedom, obligation, and identity in Canada during the First World War.