The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also delivers police services under contract to 11 provinces and territories, over 150 municipalities, and 600 Indigenous communities. The RCMP is commonly known as the Mounties in English.
Beginning in late 2002 and continuing after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, large-scale protests against the Iraq War were held in many cities worldwide, often coordinated to occur simultaneously around the world. After the biggest series of demonstrations, on February 15, 2003, New York Times writer Patrick Tyler claimed that they showed that there were two superpowers on the planet: the United States and worldwide public opinion.
Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave, which are temporary forms of absence.
Canada did not officially participate in the Vietnam War. However, it contributed to peacekeeping forces in 1973 to help enforce the Paris Peace Accords.
Jeremy Dean Hinzman is an Iraq War resister who was the first American deserter to seek refugee status in Canada.
The Iraq War began with the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Government of Canada did not at any time formally declare war against Iraq, and the level and nature of this participation, which changed over time, was controversial. Canada's intelligence services repeatedly assessed that Iraq did not have an active WMD program.
The War Resisters Support Campaign (WRSC) is a Canadian non-profit community organization, founded in April 2004 in Toronto, Ontario to mobilize support among Canadians and worldwide to convince the Canadian government to offer sanctuary to all U.S. military personnel who wish to come to Canada because of their opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Mary Ann Wright is a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Jeffry A. House is a retired lawyer who practiced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is best known for his efforts on behalf and representation of fugitive American soldiers and Indigenous protesters.
Joshua "Josh" Key is a United States Army deserter, who fled while on leave from the Iraq War, and is a current resident of Canada. He is the author, with Lawrence Hill, of The Deserter's Tale, a book chronicling his service in Iraq and his subsequent departure from military life.
Agustín Aguayo is a veteran of the Iraq War. After several failed attempts to attain conscientious objector status, he deserted his unit in Germany in September 2006 to avoid redeployment to Iraq. He was convicted of desertion by a court martial March 6, 2007 and served six months in prison. His trial led Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience.
Robin Long is one of several U.S. Army deserters who sought asylum in Canada because of his opposition to the Iraq War and became the first of those to be deported to the United States after being rejected for refugee status. He was deported from Canada on July 15, 2008.
Anne L. Mactavish is a Canadian jurist who is a judge of the Federal Court of Appeal.
During the Iraq War, which began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there were United States military personnel who refused to participate, or continue to participate, in that specific war. Their refusal meant that they faced the possibility of punishment in the United States according to Article 85 of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice. For that reason some of them chose to go to Canada as a place of refuge. The choice of these US Iraq War resisters to go to Canada has led to considerable debate in Canada's society, press, legal arenas, and political arenas. Much of the debate on this issue has been due to the controversial nature of the Iraq War itself. Among the many elements of that debate are Canada's relationship to the Iraq War, and Canada's relationship to the US, its largest trading partner.
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
Kimberly Rivera is an Iraq War resister and former U.S. Army Private First Class who went AWOL in February 2007 after a year of service. She was the first female U.S. military deserter to flee to Canada. She was deported from Canada on September 20, 2012, and pleaded guilty to desertion, receiving a sentence of ten months' imprisonment and a bad-conduct discharge. Amnesty International objected to her detention and designated her a prisoner of conscience.
Courage to Resist (CTR) is an organization in the San Francisco, CA area and beyond formed during the early part of the Iraq War which began in 2003. CTR's mission is to support U.S military war resisters, including helping them with legal fees such as well-known resisters Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner. In 2018, CTR began encouraging soldiers to resist at detention camps and other immigrant operations of the U.S. military. CTR's principle slogans are “Supporting the troops who refuse to fight!” and "Towards a World Without War!" They support those “who face consequences for acting on conscience, in opposition to illegal wars, occupations, [and] the policies of empire”.
Vietnam War resisters in Canada were American draft evaders and military deserters who avoided serving in the Vietnam War by seeking political asylum in Canada between 1965 and 1975. Draft avoiders were typically college-educated and middle class Americans who could no longer avoid conscription. Deserters were usually lower-income and working class who had been inducted into the United States Armed Forces right after high school or had later volunteered.
Vietnam War resisters in Sweden were Americans who fled to Sweden to avoid service in the Vietnam War between 1967 and 1973. Among the roughly 1,000 American exiles were around 800 military deserters and draft dodgers. Unlike other nations like Canada that discreetly harbored Vietnam War resisters, the Swedish government granted war resisters asylum status and the public openly welcomed them. This unique acceptance and Swedish politicians' open protests against American involvement in the Vietnam War caused a rift in relations between the United States and Sweden.
