Orillia Presentation of Running on Empty: Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975-1980

Orillia Public Library, 36 Mississaga Street West, Orillia, ON
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Join co-author Peter Duschinsky for a video presentation and book reading from Running on Empty: Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975-1980 at the Orillia Public Library.

The fall of Saigon in April 1975 resulted in the largest and most ambitious refugee resettlement effort in Canada’s history. Running on Empty presents the challenges and successes of this bold refugee resettlement program. It traces the actions of a few dozen men and women who travelled to seventy remote refugee camps, worked long days in humid conditions, subsisted on dried noodles and green tea, and sometimes slept on their worktables while rats scurried around them - all in order to resettle thousands of people displaced by war and oppression.

Peter Duschinsky is a retired immigration foreign service officer and Immigration Canada’s former director of international liaison.

"Running on Empty is a compelling narrative about how Canada was able to resettle Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong refugees during a time of international crisis. A valuable addition to Canadian immigration history." Vinh Nguyen, Renison University College at University of Waterloo