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Refuge ready to take in American draft dodgers
Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Sister Victoria Marie (left) and Sarah Bjorknas, with cat Derv and dog Peaches, outside Samaritan House on East Pender.
CREDIT: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - George W. Bush meet Sarah Bjorknas.
The U.S. president may not know of the Vancouver Catholic and peace activist now, but that could change if calls to reactivate the U.S. military draft take hold.
Bjorknas is a 34-year-old library clerk and owner of a weary century-old home -- Samaritan House, on East Pender in the Strathcona district -- that opens its doors to the wayward and disadvantaged under the loose affiliation of the Catholic Worker network.
She is also the first person in B.C. to publicly declare that U.S. draft dodgers or even military deserters from the Iraq war, are welcome in her home.
"You just don't know," she said of increased talk in the U.S. about the need for a military draft as the death toll mounts in the year-long occupation of Iraq. "It's all theoretical. But I think it's wise to open up dialogue about it and be ready."
Bjorknas started giving serious consideration to receiving potential draft dodgers after fielding an e-mail two weeks ago from an academic in Utah interested in laying the groundwork for an underground railway to Canada should the U.S. re-enact the draft.
Two American soldiers fleeing the Iraq conflict have already wound up in Ontario, where they are being assisted by Quakers. Although it's possible U.S. deserters could arrive looking for help in B.C., Bjorknas believes far greater numbers of conscientious objectors would flow north under any new military draft.
"Deserting is a huge decision to make," she said Monday.
Thousands of U.S. draft dodgers fled to Canada during the Vietnam War. But it could be different this time around.
J.E. McNeil, a lawyer and executive-director of the Centre on Conscience and War, based in Washington, D.C., and founded in 1940, said Canadian legal changes post-Vietnam make it more difficult for Americans to head north to avoid the draft.
Applications to become a landed immigrant must now be made from outside Canada, she said, adding anyone seeking refugee status would have to prove they would be subject to persecution, not just prosecution, if returned to the U.S.
Under American law, it is still possible for deserters to be sentenced to death in times of war or national emergency, although that hasn't happened since the Second World War and is not considered a strong likelihood these days, McNeil said.
There have been scattered calls from Republicans and Democrats for a return to the draft to address the increasingly bloody Iraq conflict, although the issue is not likely to be decided until after the 2004 presidential election.
Bjorknas explained that the Catholic Worker movement started in New York in the 1930s, based on principles such as Christian faith, the promotion of discussion, hospitality, and acts of mercy.
Samaritan House is not officially sanctioned by the Vancouver Archdiocese, she said, but is morally supported by Sacred Heart and St. Paul's churches. The movement tries to operate as independently as possible, relying more on grassroots anarchy than formal rules and institutional hierarchy.
"It's a well-established movement, not a crazy new thing," she says. "But it's outside the norms of behaviour."
Raised in rural Langley, Bjorknas is the youngest of three children of a Catholic mother and a unionist father.
"It's a philosophy I grew up with -- non-material, a sense of the humanity of people," she says. "I've always been a non-conformist, so I guess this (Samaritan House) is not entirely surprising."
She graduated from Holy Cross School in Surrey in 1987 and studied political science and Canadian studies at Simon Fraser University before hiring on as a library clerk 11 years ago at McGill Library in Burnaby, where she is active in the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Bjorknas operates the home on her $32,000 income and donations of up to $2,000 a year from individuals and churches, as well as food donations, making Samaritan House a daunting financial challenge.
"It can be," she says. "But part of the movement is voluntary poverty."
She shares the home and duties with Sister Victoria Marie, a 59-year-old native of Brooklyn, who came to Canada in 1965 and is studying for her doctorate in spirituality and addictive recovery at the University of B.C.
The sign on her door reads: "Jesus loves you. But I'm his favourite."
Samaritan House features two bedrooms on the main floor, three in the basement, and a garden out back for growing vegetables, fruit and herbs.
The living room serves as a place to hold weekly mass and social discussions on Thursday nights. But the house is officially non-denominational, as reflected by wall tiles reflecting the breadth of religions -- Hinduism, Islam, Taoism.
Samaritan House is not a high-volume operation, receiving just 80 guests since opening in 1998. The only major rules: no drugs, no alcohol, behaviour that is respectful of the home's sense of community, and a minimum age of 19 years.
Some guests stay an afternoon, others indefinitely, depending on their circumstances.
And, yes, some take advantage of the hospitality. Although no one has caused them physical harm -- security is handled by Peaches, a bull mastiff-cross with a ferocious bark -- a lap-top computer, two cameras, and power tools are among items stolen over the years.
"You feel disappointed," confirms Sister Victoria, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Joy. "But you don't get angry. We know it's coming. This is the Downtown Eastside."
For more information on Samaritan House, consult its website at ca.geocities.com.
© The Vancouver Sun 2004
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