Northern exposure

The growing strain on the U.S. military, manifest in multiple and lengthened tours of duty, is helping to accelerate the desertion rate. According to Zaslofsky, one U.S. soldier now living in Canada had served two tours of duty and was awarded a medal for his service at a party held in his honor on an Army base. It was supposed to be his last day in the Army. Afterward, excited about his imminent freedom, the soldier drove back to his house, where he found an Army official waiting on his driveway with orders for him to return for a third tour. "That's it," the soldier said to himself, according to Zaslofsky. "I'm going to Canada."

Jeffrey House, who represents Joshua Key, Corey Glass and other war resisters, added, "People come to me and say, 'I can't look at one more body' or, 'I can't stand to not be able to pass a car while walking without worrying that it's going to be blown up.' People get beyond tired and you're asking a lot of them, particularly when it's on such a doubtful venture as the war in Iraq."

House, who was himself a Vietnam draft dodger, says 124 American soldiers have come to his Toronto office alone, and he estimates that at least twice that number are now in Canada. He says that it's not uncommon for someone to fly up to Toronto from the northeastern United States just for the day and say to him, "I'm supposed to be back in Iraq in three weeks. What are my options?"

But U.S. soldiers fleeing to Canada today face a Canadian government that may well be less hospitable than the one in power during the Vietnam era. Back then, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau welcomed war deserters, declaring "Canada should be a refuge from militarism." Richard Nixon called him an "asshole," to which Trudeau allegedly responded, "I have been called worse things by better people."

The government of Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, by contrast, seems to have something of a reverence for the Bush administration and its worldview. Although this is never expressed openly in the more progressive-minded Canadian political landscape, the Harper government has implicitly echoed many of Bush's policies, values and rhetoric. Harper has regularly spoken of a more muscular foreign policy, created strong ties with evangelical Christians -- including those in the United States -- and sought to curb some of Canada's generous social programs. Some Canadian commentators have suggested that if Harper had been running the country in 2003, there would probably be Canadian troops in Iraq alongside the American ones. (Canadian troops are serving in Afghanistan, but none are in Iraq.) Still, the Harper government so far has not said or done anything to oppose the American war resisters -- at least not publicly.

Of five Toronto-area Conservative members of Parliament contacted for this report, only one responded. "Unfortunately, Minister Van Loan will not be commenting on this issue," Michael White, spokesperson for Peter Van Loan, the leader of the government in the House of Commons and a member of the federal Cabinet, said in an e-mail. "However, if you want to do a story about how the Government is strengthening democracy in Canada, then I'm the guy you want to talk to." Spokespeople for both the Canadian Ministry of Immigration and the ruling Conservative Party refused to say anything that would either support or criticize Canada's providing safe harbor for American war resisters.

Intriguingly, very few leftist Canadian politicians have been willing to openly show their support, either. It is a touchy subject that often provokes an uncomfortable response -- it seems that politicians of all stripes here are torn between upsetting their constituents on one hand, and the U.S. government on the other.

But so long as Canada doesn't deport them, many of the war resisters do not appear to be going elsewhere anytime soon. Joshua Key, for example, says that he stands firmly behind his decision and is determined to stay. Kyle Snyder has recently married a Canadian woman and will gain citizenship, and others are in varying stages of putting down roots.

Corey Glass says that the positive reception he has received from most Canadians has helped make him feel at ease with his difficult decision to flee. Most of the time, he says, Canadians welcome the war resisters, "especially when they find out you were in Iraq and decided to step out, because they're pretty proud of not engaging in the war."

"I know I made the right decision," Glass added. "I just wish I hadn't needed to."

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