Draft:Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters

• Comment: There are several concerns — please add additional sources that establish notability for this subject. Also, it needs to be re-written to be more encyclopedic {see WP:MOS}. WeWake (talk) 18:10, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Half of the links are just malformed please fix KylieTastic (talk) 11:16, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

---

The Montreal Council to Aid War Resisters (MCAWR) was formed in October 1966 in response to the US war in Vietnam. It was established by a group of Canadians and American exiles to provide information, counselling and assistance to war resisters who were considering moving or had moved to Canada. War resisters were considered all those who opposed the war on principle, people wanting to evade the draft and those serving in the US armed forces wanting to desert the military. An estimated 30,000 war resisters moved to Canada from the United States from 1965 to 1975 . Thousands more moved to Mexico and Europe.

The very beginnings of the MCAWR are not clear, but by the mid-sixties the organization was being run by Ed Miller and Vance Gardener. Miller was a pacifist from New York City who organized against the war in Vietnam in the early Sixties. When his induction into the armed forces was imminent, he moved to Montreal. Miller later moved to a small town in Nova Scotia and continued to organize protests against war throughout his life including the war in Iraq. In Montreal, Miller worked as a psychological consultant at the Montreal Children's Hospital. Not much is known about Gardener, though he too had moved to Montreal from the United States in the context of the war in Vietnam. In the city, he found employment as a childcare worker. In 1966, Bruce Garside, a professor of philosophy at McGill University, joined Miller and Gardener in the administration of the MCAWR. Garside had moved to Montreal the year before for professional reasons. He was a pacifist who became increasing active against the war in Vietnam as it progressed throughout the mid-Sixties.

The MCAWR was active for many years and was formally registered with the government of Quebec in 1971. Its early work focused on providing practical advice and support to new or potential arrivals. As part of its work, the MCAWR published an information broad-sheet called Immigration to Canada and its Relation to the Draft. This was similar to Mark Satin's Manual For Draft Age Immigrants to Canada. Thousands of copies were distributed to anti-war organizations and bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. The pamphlet informed war resisters of the legal procedures and status around immigrating to Canada, as well as practical information related to the political situation in Quebec, employment, education and whom to contact upon arriving in Canada. In follow-up, individual counselling of potential immigrants more specific information was given verbally.

As was the case with many organizations in the sixties and seventies, the MCAWR had a very loose administrative structure with no formal titles attached to the administrators except for what was necessary for legal purposes. It operated by consensus and administrative meetings were quite rare. A committee of volunteers contributed to funding the organization, provided shelter to war resisters when they first arrived in Canada and assisted when specialized advice or support was needed. In support of this work, a hostel called Ghandi House was established on Rue St-Antoine where war resisters could live until they became established in Canada.

Paul Kirby, one of the founders of the underground magazine Logos, remembers Gandhi House "was big, and we could put up a lot of people, it had a huge kitchen. Thee draft dodgers and resisters didn't stay very long...It was cheap as hell." By 1970, Gandhi House was operating from May to August, with sufficient bunk beds to house up to twenty-five people. Others who did not have much financial support stayed with local families (including other war resisters) and the MCAWR staff and volunteers provided job and immigration counselling services.

Major funding for the MCAWR was provided by religious organizations, especially by the United Church Political Action Committee. Together with the Canadian Unitarian Council, and other organizations, the MCAWR organized a fundraising concert at Place des Arts on 10 April 1971 featuring Pete Seeger, Jesse Winchester and Louise Forestier. The concert was a huge success and enabled the MCAWR to hire a full time secretary, Bill Mullen. With the new funding, the MCAWR opened an office at the Yellow Door Coffee House in the Milton Park area, colloquially known as the McGill ghetto, and furthered the operations at Gandhi House.

The Yellow Door Coffee House itself was a project funded by the United Church and administered by a well-loved minister of that church, Roger Balk. In addition to coffee, the Cafe offered a very in-expensive and hearty lunch and performances by the protest singers of the day. It was a dynamic gathering place offering support and fellowship for progressive alternative folks in the sixties and seventies, including war resisters.

While the MCAWR's work proved helpful for many new arrivals to the Quebec, there were still difficulties. Some of the challenges stemmed from the different realities that draft dodgers (people who had avoided military service) and deserters (people who had left the military) encountered. The former were widely welcomed into Canada, especially in Quebec where there was a long history of resisting military conscription. On the other hand, desertion was considered a crime in Canada and their being permitted entry into the country encountered considerable vocal opposition.

In the majority of cases there were also class, cultural and racial distinctions. Draft dodgers tended to be from the middle class, having some secondary level of education and a history of political activity. On the other hand, joining the military had often been a desire to escape from poverty, discrimination and disadvantage for poor and visible minorities. As the war intensified and the seemingly needless slaughter of US youth became more evident, those serving in the US military increasingly just wanted to survive. Among several options circulating at the time, going to Canada was amongst them however they were received differently and had different expectations as a result of their military service and their decision to desert.

The MCAWR tended to work with draft dodgers, while deserters were assisted by the American Deserters Committee, although its work evolved over the course of its operations. According to materials preserved in the Bruce Garside Collection at the Archives Gaies du Québec, by the spring of 1970, the MCAWR was offering language classes in "conversational French". It was also providing guidance and information about the political context in the province, noting in particular the growing nationalist movement amongst French Canadians.

The MCAWR's work eventually wound down, even before the introduction of an amnesty for draft evaders by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 1971, the MCAWR began to discourage people from migrating and settling in Quebec, noting an economic downturn in the province and the strain that new arrivals (especially those without French language skills) were placing on the economy.<ref>“Committee to Aid Refugees from Militarism, ExNet Bulletin, Number 22, March 18, 1971,” AMEX / Canada Records, Wisconsin State Archives.<ref> With the official end of the US war in Vietnam in 1975 and the amnesty that followed two years later, the original impulses for the MCAWR no longer existed and the organization eventually ceased to exist.