The basics

Two Canadian books are essential reading (in order of priority):

Adelman, H. (1982) Canada and the Indochinese Refugees Regina: L.A. Weigl Educational Associates Ltd.^[212]

Tepper, E.L. (1980). Southeast Asian Exodus: From Tradition to Resettlement. Toronto: The Canadian Asian Studies Association, Carleton University.^[264]

Both books were published long before the refugee crisis was over, but they are a good place to start because they describe Canada's motivations for getting involved. After 1981, the on-going admission of refugees became ‘business as usual’ and little was written about it. This is why the number of boat people admitted is often greatly understated.

There is one more Canadian book that we can recommend, but with a stipulation: The preface to the 2015 reprint points out that it was re-issued on the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. That one single point risks putting the book into the revisionist camp since the content has nothing to do with the fall of Saigon. Luckily, only one page was revised in the reprint and the author was obviously not convinced that there was any connection.

The reason we recommend this book is that it deals with the single event that led to Canada becoming aware of and responding to the boat people crisis. Another reason for the recommendation is that the 2015 reprint is the only recommended book that is still in print.

Pappone, R. (1982). The Hai Hong: Profit, Tears and Joy. Ottawa: Canada.^[515]

There many other good Canadian books and they are all enlightening, as long as they were published before 2006. Most of the others focus more narrowly on resettlement on the Canadian side and less on the events that led up to that.

Important context

This book, although not Canadian, fills a big gap that Canadian publications do not cover because they were published before the refugee project ended in 1996.

Robinson, W.C. (1998). Terms of Refuge The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response London: Zed Books Ltd. Copyright © United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1998.^[193]

Robinson explains the entire crisis from the perspective of the UNHCR and is one of the few that covers it right to the end. You also learn that there was much more going on in Vietnam's neighbouring countries -- it wasn't just a Vietnamese crisis.

The next two books are for context. You need to understand why people did what they did. This is getting deeply into context.

Chang, P. (1982). Beijing, Hanoi and the Overseas Chinese. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies University of California, Berkely.^[202]

Ross, D.A. (1984). In the Interests of Peace: Canada and Vietnam 1954-73 Toronto: University of Toronto Press.^[260]

Ross's is the only agenda-free account of Canada’s responses to events in Vietnam during the war. Canada was not a party to the war, but Canada's proximity to the US made it a struggle to stay out. Other books published on Canada's involvement in the war are basically conspiracy theories saying that Canada was secretly involved -- Ross clarifies things.

Now here is a problem. None of these books are in print or available electronically. You must find them in used book stores. That's one of the reasons we need this web site.

This is a selection of items that are found under the subject "Migration to Canada" in the Bibliography search.

These items are Canadian publications that describe why and how Canada responded to the refugee crisis in SE Asia.

There is much other useful material on this topic that can be found under the subject "Migration to Canada" in the Bibliography search.

The internet is generally a poor place to research this topic. The following web sites, while containing useful information, fall into a common trap of mis-stating the total number of refugees.^[2] But they contain valuable information on other aspects of the project.

Useful Primary Sources

If you want to search for original sources yourself, some useful primary sources include:

• Canada Library and Archives, Cabinet Conclusions

• Global Affairs Canada Digital Library, Communiques

• House of Commons Debates

We also used the Toronto Star digital archive, but it has unfortunately been moved to some place where only rich institutions can access it.

When you use government sources for original research, use sources such as those listed above, where the content consists of images of original documents. Other government web sides that contain histories in narrative form are not reliable. We have documented two cases of the Harper government going back and changing old historical narratives: the Canadian Forces web site and the Immigration web site.

These articles from the Toronto Star confirm that the public acceptance of the refugees and the actual refugee program began in July, 1979. It was not 1975.

Avoid these revisionist items

The following are sources to avoid unless you are doing a study of political revisionism in Canada. This is by no means a comprehensive list. You can check out other items by looking them up in our bibliographic data base.

This is a selection of items that are found under the subject "Migration to Canada" in the Bibliography search.

The Canadian sources listed above leave some gaps that have to be filled in from other sources. In particular, most Canadian sources were published early in the refugee crisis and do not cover the later parts. An important element of the later stages is the strategy of international cooperation that was used to bring the crisis to an end.

The following items are non-Canadian publications that fill in the gaps in the primary story of why and how Canada responded to the refugee crisis. They also provide context in terms of what else was going on in SE Asia at the time. Not all of the boat people came from Vietnam.

This is a selection of items that are found under the subject "Canada-Vietnam to 1975" in the Bibliography search.

All of the remaining books listed below have political agendas, but they still provide useful information if taken in with the appropriate level of skepticism. The political context was the strong anti-war sentiment that prevailed in Canada at the time and the authors were out to prove that the Canadian government was not "anti-war" enough. The Ross book, above, handles this conflict more objectively.

No one, outside of this web site, has yet written a history of what Canadian politicians have been doing to the Canadian Vietnamese community since 2015. You have to do original research.

Our original research on the topic starts in the Government section of this web site with Canada gets a new national identity.

If you want to do some of your own research, primary sources can be found under the subject "Canadian Politics (S-219)" in the Bibliography search. Another subject "Canadian Politics (Context)" provides additional context.

Following is a selection of media articles that have appeared on the topic.

In late 2014 the media sensed that the government was up to something, but never really caught on to how bizarre it was. By mid 2015 the media had lost interest. The relevant government activities actually began in 2008 and continue to this day, so the media reports at best only capture a small part of the story.

The only stories that came near revealing what the government was up to were printed as opinion pieces in relatively obscure outlets. Mainstream media reporters just reprinted what was fed to them in press releases, or if they tried to make a story of it, they did not succeed in finding anyone who could explain it to them. (Stories simply based on press releases are not listed here).

This is a selection of items that are found under the subject "World Other" in the Bibliography search.

The events of the Vietnam war ought to be irrelevant to a study of the boat people in Canada for two reasons: the boat people crisis was caused by events unrelated to the war, and the former boat people have wisely left the events of the war behind them and are moving forward.

The parliamentary bill S-219 that parliament adopted in 2015 contained a revised history of the Vietnam war and also revised the origin story of Canada's Vietnamese community to attach it to the war. If you are going to study why and how the government did this, you will need some context.

There are thousands of books on the Vietnam war. Most of them belong under the category of "American History" and are not that relevant to understanding the Vietnamese people or history. We have selected material that (a) puts the Vietnam War into the context of Vietnamese people and Vietnamese history instead of American history and describes the choices that Vietnamese people had to make, and (b) focuses on political elements instead of military elements.

Books published more recently generally benefit from the availability of more sources from all parties involved in the war.

This is a selection of items that are found under the subject "Canadian Diaspora Politics" in the Bibliography search.

There are political divisions in Canada's Vietnamese community. This normally would not be remarkable. Every community of people had political divisions -- that is freedom of speech.

One particular political division has come to be unusually disruptive because Canada's government has chosen to take their side and is demanding that the entire community conform to the wishes of the chosen political faction.

For this reason, you might want to know something about the political faction that is led by former ARVN and Saigon government officials.

This is another area where there is no published analysis. If you want to study this issue you must do original research. One place you can do research is in the American Vietnamese community. The same political faction exists there and much has been written about it.

The following items are just a sampling of the kinds of things being written.