It is widely understood that the origin of Canada's Vietnamese community lies in a UNHCR program known as the "boat people" program. That much is true. But who were those boat people?

• In the reality, the boat people are a large, diverse group who came from all over Vietnam between 1979 and 1996.^[1]

• In the myth, the refugees are a small, select group consisting of Saigon's ruling military elite who came in 1975-80.^[2]

*The full circle represents 220,000 people, the number of Vietnamese admitted to Canada as permanent residents up to 2019.^[15]

Who^[3]

Stephen Harper believed that it was the responsibility of government to shape the identity of Canada and Canadians by constructing an appropriate historical narrative for Canada.

When Harper came to power in 2006, he set out to radically change Canada's national identity. His ideal identity for Canada required elements of British heritage, military power, anti-communist ideology, and a close alliance with the US. He conceived Canada as a "warrior nation".

Harper also had an obsessive cold-war style anti communist streak as well as a healthy contempt for Pierre Trudeau, who he thought was almost a communist.

He believed that he had support for his ideas among some conservative groups in Canada, but recognized his ideas were fairly radical (i.e. right-wing) for most Canadians. Because of the potential for a mixed reaction from Canadians, he usually incorporated deceptions into the implementation of his ideas.

Why^[4]

Harper had a problem with the way Canada had handled the Vietnam war and the SE Asian boat people crisis. Canada had missed an ideal opportunity to express Harper's ideal identity: a military power putting that power to work fighting communists on principle, alongside its natural ally the US. Instead, Canada had expressed an identity in terms that were anathema to Harper.^[5]

Harper's ideology let him believe that he could fix the identity problem by rewriting the history. His new historical narrative:^[6]

• Re-framed the Vietnam war as an international war against communism and placed Canada as an ally of the Saigon regime.

• Created a new origin story for Canada’s Vietnamese community by re-casting the boat people as victims of the fall of Saigon.

Having created the new historical narrative, Harper then implemented his desired Canadian identity in policies that were designed to turn his historical narrative into a permanent reality:

• Formally recognize the Republic of Vietnam as a legitimate nation and ally of Canada. Besides creating the desired national identity, Harper would view this as an anti-communist measure and justification for further anti-Vietnam policies.

• Erase the real boat people from Canadian society and redefine the Saigon military elite as "the Vietnamese community" in Canada. Canada's Vietnamese community became the living proof of Harper's revisions to Canada's history and national identity.

How^[7]

Harper had help from conservative groups and from people who personally benefitted from the rewritten history, specifically:

• Conservative politicians, authors, media, and other conservative groups who were ideologically opposed to the way Canada has handled Vietnam since 1945.

• The former Saigon government and military leaders (ARVN) now in Canada^[8] who want to be respected and recognized as legitimate leaders and who have anti-Vietnam political agendas that would be enhanced by that recognition.

• Thanh Hai Ngo, a former official of the Saigon government, who Harper appointed to the Senate, where he took on the job of promoting the revised history. Among other things, he travels the country spreading the news to provincial and municipal governments, and produces a steady flow of anti-Vietnam material.

The government did not invent the new origin story from scratch -- versions of it have existed within the Vietnamese community for almost as long as there has been a Vietnamese community in Canada. This is because it serves the interests of the ARVN political faction. Through their propaganda efforts, the revised origin story was already widely believed in the Vietnamese community.

Harper's task was to embellish the story with more detail, and provide the resources necessary to embed it so thoroughly in the historical record that it is the only one to be found today by all Canadians.

Jason Kenney was Harper's lead in running the project. One of his first acts was to let the former boat people know that they were entering a new era of government hostility toward them.^[9] Over the next few years the government engaged in many activities that gradually embedded the desired revisions into the historical narrative.^[10]

Ultimately, bill S-219 was passed in parliament by the Harper government in 2015 to implement his policies. This bill contains the necessary historical "facts" to justify the policies and make permanent the hostile environment for the former boat people, who were now "legally" replaced with the former Saigon military.^[11]

The work to revise the history was extensive and thorough to the point where any reference to the history published since 2008 is now corrupted with this political propaganda. Students of history who want to be assured of having a reliable source must used resources published before 2008.^[12]

The re-casting of Canada's Vietnamese community as "victims of the fall of Saigon" serves as living proof that Harper's re-framing of the Vietnam war is true and so Canada's national identity as a "warrior nation" is enhanced.

The myth is intended to affect the perceptions of three different groups, each in a slightly different way: Canadians in General, Canadian politicians, and Canadians of Vietnamese origin.

The Harper government put such an incredible effort into propagating and sustaining its rewrite of Canadian history that it is impossible to track every piece of work that was put into it.

Here we describe generally the strategy that Harper used to imbed the revised origin story in Canadian minds, without itemizing instances. Harper initiated this strategy, but the successor Liberal government continues to follow it rigorously.

The key principles of the strategy are simple:

Never make a reference to the Canadian Vietnamese community without including a partisan reference to the Vietnam war. The word "Saigon" is typically enough.^[13]

Always refer to the Saigon political faction as "the Vietnamese community". Refer to its political symbols as cultural symbols of the Vietnamese community.

The essence of the myth is to redefine Canada's response to the boat people crisis as a response to the fall of Saigon. It happens that the US responded to the fall of Saigon in the desired way, and most Canadians are familiar with the popular images of that response. It was not a big leap to make people believe that Canada was involved with the US.^[14] One just has to repeat a few clues incessantly.