The American war and the fall of Saigon

Canada made carefully considered decisions not to join the French and the American wars in Vietnam. Canada chose to be non-partisan, viewing the wars to be civil wars in which Canada had no interests at stake. This was not an easy decision given that France and the US were friendly nations who were demanding assistance. Canada made a principled decision that recognized the rights of the Vietnamese people. This is explained in detail in 1945-1973 Canada and Vietnam

When the war ended the US, reluctantly at first^[1], acted on a moral obligation to "rescue" its former ally from the consequences of its defeat. This was the US refugee program -- it started in 1975 and extended formally until 2009.

When the war ended, Canada had no such moral obligation and did not act to "rescue" a former ally. To do so would have meant abandoning the principles that had kept Canada out of the war.^[3] Canada undertook some humanitarian actions which resulted in a small number of Vietnamese being admitted to Canada, mostly family of people who were already in Canada. This is explained in detail in 1973-1977 Canada and the fall of Saigon

Other than that, Canada and the UNHCR considered the exodus of the former Saigon leadership to be a political problem for the Americans to solve, not a humanitarian crisis. In any case, the Canadian public was not interested in welcoming the former Saigon leadership to Canada.

The other refugee crisis -- the boat people

Vietnam suffered a number of serious problems in the years right after the American war ended, among them, two more short wars with Cambodia and China. Those and other issues led to an exodus of the ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, beginning in mid-1978. The story of how UNHCR and Canada came to respond to this exodus as an international refugee crisis is explained in Canada and the boat people crisis and in a detailed chronology that follows that.

There were no political factors in the decision to respond, and there were no political factors in the screening of refugees. The people admitted to Canada came from all over Vietnam and no one was asked what their role had been in the wars. As a result, Canada's Vietnamese community is diverse in terms of the wartime experiences.

This response by Canada was entirely consistent with the considered decisions that Canada made between 1945 and 1973 not to join the French and American wars in Vietnam.

Canadians are generally aware that the origins of Canada's Vietnamese community lie in a refugee crisis. Canadians responded enthusiastically and private citizens got involved in helping refugees directly, so the memories of the event are strong and generally positive.

The public response had been triggered by the stories of what the boat people were experiencing in their journey out of Vietnam. The Canadian media described the cause as an exodus of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, so there was no misconception that it was related to the war. If it had been related, the positive response would have been far less likely.

Today in Canada, that refugee crisis is always described as an outcome of the Vietnam war -- literally 100% of the time. What has happened in Canada is the Vietnamese community's entire origin story has been rewritten.

In 2008, the Harper government decided to re-cast the Vietnam war and declare that Canada had been involved as an ally of the Saigon regime. Canada's Vietnamese community got a new origin story that was consistent with this take on the Vietnam war. The original boat people, a diverse collection of people, have disappeared from Canada's history.

Harper was able to put this over on Canadians in part because it made the Canadian refugee story the same as the American one. Canadians were already familiar with the American one from the popular images of the fall of Saigon. It was easy to let Canadians think that Canada had been involved in that.

Both Canada and the US admitted large numbers of Vietnamese refugees after the end of the Vietnam war.

There the similarity between the two stories ends. Canada responded for different reasons and so got a different result -- intentionally. In proportion to the population, Canada admitted more. In terms of non-partisan admissions, Canada admitted a massively greater number in relation to the population.

The numbers below tell only part of the story. The important difference was the selection criteria. See the notes below the table.

* program had political admission criteria

In the US, the refugee crisis is generally considered to have happened in two waves. The first was the fall of Saigon and the second was the resettlement. This makes sense, because the admission criteria changed in the second wave, because the cause of the exodus and the reason for responding had changed.

Political factions in Canada have tried to break up the Canadian response in the same way, but they made a mess of it. None of those factors changed for Canada, so they had to choose an arbitrary division point. They arbitrarily chose 1980, for which there is no rational explanation. That date now appears in many politically-motivated accounts as the "end" of the refugee crisis. The end date is a good "smell test" to help you decide if you are reading a factual account of the crisis or political propaganda.

The difference in the distribution of numbers between the US and Canadian programs indicates that the US was actively evacuating people from Vietnam (1975 and ODP and its successors) while Canada was more focused on refugee camps (resettlement).

The American program targeted specific groups based on political criteria, for example, re-education camp prisoners and their families, Amerasian children and their families. This effectively limited the programs to former government and military officials and their families, or others who had had contact with the Americans in South Vietnam. Only the "resettlement" program was not entirely political.

Canadian programs were not political (with the exception of Harper's program). Admission was based on need for resettlement and adaptability, or family in Canada. Canada took people from all over Vietnam and did not ask what their role had been in past conflicts. The ODP was used only for family reunification.

Regarding the US numbers:

For US numbers there is considerable variation between different sources. We have not identified a definitive source.

It is not clear if the Amerasian admissions are included in the ODP count - we may have double counted them.

We have found no figures for the Humanitarian Resettlement Program 2005-2009. Despite its name, the eligibility criteria were the same as for ODP. It was "humanitarian" in the sense that it opened the door again. We suspect that it was motivated by the same political group that motivated Harper's program (VOICE), becasue it would be their inclination to call it "humanitarian".