As people are picked up off the streets, thrown into detention centres and deported to third countries, the Safe Third Country Act might face another challenge.
DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Log in or create a free account to listen to this article.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, tens of thousands of American citizens sought, and gained, refuge in Canada. They weren’t technically refugees – most applied for landed immigrant status – but what they were seeking was, in effect, a safe place to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.
The official policy of Canada’s “Department of Manpower and Immigration” was not to ask about applicants’ military status; these were mostly young, educated, middle-upper-class men, after all – making them precisely the type of “desirable” immigrant seen to offer benefits to Canada.
