US deserters in Canada

These people at one church in Toronto showed their support for American young men avoiding the war in Iraq. This man is a soldier how now calls Canada home. Originally from Connecticut, he now calls Toronto home after serving two tours in Iraq in a military police unit. He says, I do think people have a right to defend themselves, but when it comes to Iraq, a country that’s never threatened America, for us to be over there killing their people, the justification is not there. This man also agrees, he moved to Canada decades ago because he felt the Vietnam War was also unjustified. He is one of the people working to keep deserters in Canada. He says Canadians feel that if they’re not participating in a war because it doesn’t feel right, then Americans who are also taking that position can be sheltered here. Canada has allowed the young men to stay temporarily but the young men have lost every legal battle to obtain refugee status. Immigration authorities and the courts have refused to consider their main argument that the war in Iraq is illegal. The first American to avoid service in Iraq and come to Canada says he’s starting to think about returning to America and face the possibility of facing time in a military prison. He and the other deserters do have a glimmer of hope in the country’s Immigration Minister, who could issue a personal order granting the men refugee status. PMs are urging the government to do so. The Foreign Affairs spokesman of the opposition Liberal Party, the party in charge in 2003 when Canada refused to take part in the war, is urging the Canadian government to take into account the plight of deserters. But so far the government has ignored the deserters. The Canadian Prime Minister is trying to strengthen its ties to the Bush administration and allowing the deserters to stay could damage that effort.