This thesis investigates the state of Canadian public
opinion concerning the war in Vietnam from the time of Canada's
initial involvement on the International Control Commission in
1954, to the final pullout of Canadian observers in 1973. The
Canadian Institute of Public Opinion polls will form the basis of
this examination, but various media publications and government
statements will also be used to portray the nature of public
debate on this issue. This study is broken down into two
periods; from 1954 to 1964 and from 1965 to 1973. The
conclusions reached show that fear of communism contributed to
significant Canadian public support for American intervention i n
Vietnam in the early years of the conflict. It was only near the
end of the war, when Canadians began to consider U.S. actions as
more dangerous to world peace than revolutionary communism, that
support for American policy declined. However, throughout the
entire period of this study there was always a large percentage
of Canadians who were undecided about the war. This most likely
reflects the general apathy of Canadians when confronted with
foreign policy questions that had little direct impact on their
daily lives. Nevertheless, there was a considerable percentage
of the population that was strongly opposed to the American
intervention and to what was considered the Canadian government's
complicity in prolonging the war. Overall, Canadian attitudes
changed slowly and even then only very little. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/3712 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | O’Kane, David James |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 2636962 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds