1960s Draft Dodger Group -- Toronto Anti-Draft Programme

The following was the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme’s description of itself on the back cover of its principal publication, Mark Satin, ed., Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2nd ed., March 1968). Obviously, the addresses and phone numbers at the bottom of the description are no longer valid!

Toronto Anti-Draft Programme

The Toronto Anti-Draft Programme is the largest group in Canada helping young American immigrants who refuse to fight against Viet Nam.

The Programme works closely with the Vancouver Committee to Aid American War Objectors in providing legal research and information to the other Canadian aid groups (there are 26) and is in contact with 2,200 draft counsellors in the U.S., providing background information, reporting changes in immigration practice, and verifying or denying the ever-present rumours.

In 1965, the Vancouver Committee first published a fact sheet on immigration which was widely distributed by the Student Union for Peace Action, a [Canadian, Toronto-based] fraternal organization of SDS. Soon inquiries from Americans were occupying one SUPA staff member full-time, and an American war immigrant was hired to direct the counselling services. By 1968 we were receiving 100 letters and 17 visitors a day. The Programme is now run independently by a staff of six.

Trained counsellors are available seven days a week to advise people planning to immigrate, and this is our major function. But the Programme also helps immigrants once they arrive in Canada.

We have two hostels to provide temporary lodging and nearly 200 Torontonians have offered to house draft resisters temporarily. Our American Immigrants Employment Service has a full-time counsellor to help find job offers for applicants and jobs for landed immigrants. And there is a small loan fund for immigrants who experience special difficulty and have no place else to turn. Several Toronto lawyers have offered to advise immigrants with special legal problems.

The Programme is assisted by dozens of volunteers, both new immigrants and Canadians. Church groups and the faculty of the University of Toronto have been especially valuable sources of assistance and support. Financially, approximately half our support comes from sympathetic Canadians and half from Americans we have helped. Contributions are welcomed -- and needed.

mailing address: P.O. Box 764, Adelaide Street Station, Toronto 2B

street address: 2279 Yonge Street, Suite 15, Toronto 12

telephone number: (416) 481-0241; employment service, 921-1926

[end of description]

For more information about TADP:

Amazon.com, Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada

Pierre Berton, 1967: The Last Good Year (Doubleday Canada, 1997)

John Burns, "Deaf to the Draft: Called in U.S., But Asleep in Toronto," Toronto Globe & Mail (Oct. 11, 1967), p. 1

Oliver Clausen, "Boys Without a Country," New York Times Magazine (May 21, 1967), p. 25

Anastasia Erland, "Mark Satin, Draft Dodger," Saturday Night Magazine [Canada] (September 1967), cover story, p. 21

John Hagan, Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada (Harvard University Press, 2001)

Lynda Hurst, "A Picture and a Thousand Words," Toronto Star (August 24, 2008) [retrospective on my journey from draft dodger leader to Radical Middle editor]

Joseph Jones, "The House of Anansi's Singular Bestseller," Canadian Notes & Queries (Spring-Summer 2002), p. 19

Joseph Jones, Vietnam War Resisters in Canada: A Guide to Web Sites

Renee Kasinsky, Refugees From Militarism: Draft-Age Americans in Canada (Transaction Books, 1976)

Dan Wakefield, Supernation at Peace and War (Little, Brown, 1968)

Roger Neville Williams, The New Exiles: American War Resisters in Canada (Liveright, 1971)

THE RADICAL MIDDLE CONCEPT:

WHY "Radical Middle"?

50 Thinkers and Activists DESCRIBE the Radical Middle

50 Best Radical Middle BOOKS of the '00s

GREAT RADICAL MIDDLE GROUPS AND BLOGS:

Over 250 Great Radical Centrist GROUPS and Organizations

50 Great Radical Centrist BLOGS