Send Them All Home

Matt Gurney: Resisting a war by running away

Posted: July 30, 2009, 9:15 AM by NP Editor

Kimberly Rivera, a U.S. soldier, was sent to Iraq in 2006. Like many other American soldiers deployed since 9/11, she eventually came to have doubts about the mission. In February of 2007, while on a two-week leave home from Iraq, Rivera and her husband packed up their children and drove to Toronto.

There, they found a small but welcoming group of natural allies. Rivera is not the first American soldier to desert the military and seek asylum in Canada. The fate of these errant soldiers has stirred controversy here, with many recalling the tens of thousands of draft dodgers that fled north to escape the Vietnam War. Many of those Americans have lived productive lives in Canada ever since. This, plus the distaste felt by many Canadians for any military mission nastier than peacekeeping, has led some to conclude that Rivera and a handful of others like her should be permitted to remain.

Last June, opposition parties combined to pass a motion urging the Harper government to let American deserters stay in Canada. The motion was reaffirmed after last fall’s election, but Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has been less than impressed, deeming the war resisters “bogus refugee claimants.”

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