Peace Train Canada

By Douglas Roche  Mark Carney is an internationally acclaimed central banker, a man of ideas who raises the subject of values in our society, a visionary who has a prescription for a ruptured world, and a tactician who stands up to the menacing U.S. president, Donald Trump.   He brings to his office unique credentials as governor of two central banks and as an adviser to the U.N. secretary-general. I’ve watched 10 prime ministers since I entered politics in 1972 and cannot recall one occupant of the office who drives himself as hard as Carney does. His schedule, as he admits, is “relentless.”   Why, then, is my applause restrained?   I’ve spent months exploring this question for my upcoming book, Values/Chaos: Discovering Mark Carney and Canada’s Role in a Ruptured World. The core reason for my misgiving is that Carney has elevated military might through arms over diplomacy as the route to peace.   The entire United Nations structure, built on the ashes ...

An opinion column by E ric Reguly, European Bureau Chief, from the July 10 Globe and Mail.  A goal of Peace Train Canada is to urge the federal government to create opportunities to talk about military spending and to maintain Canada's historic commitment to peacekeeping. Canada will never be a military powerhouse. But it is making up for lost time during the post-Cold War years, when spending on fighting machines sank to risible levels. As various MPs have stated, Canada had planes that wouldn’t go up and submarines that wouldn’t go down, and still does for the most part. Today, only one of Canada’s four rust-bucket submarines is in service and its CF-18 fighter jets are twice the age of some of its pilots.   Canada’s fighting stance will soon change. Ottawa has ordered fleets of the latest-generation fighter and surveillance aircraft and naval and Arctic patrol vessels whose collective costs over their lifespans will come to hundreds of billions of dollars. Spending on d...

From the Aug. 3 Globe and Mail. A goal of Peace Train Canada is to urge the federal government to maintain Canada's historic commitment to peacekeeping. Walter Dorn, quoted below, is an advisor to the Peace Train. Ottawa’s decision to slash its troop contribution to United Nations missions is sparking concern that the cuts will undermine Canada’s new Africa strategy and jeopardize its longstanding peacekeeping traditions.   By the middle of next year, the Department of National Defence says, Canada will withdraw its peacekeepers from UN missions in Congo, South Sudan, Kosovo and Cyprus and sharply reduce its role in a multinational mission in the Sinai. Even before the withdrawal, Canada’s troop contribution ranked only 65th in UN peacekeeping missions, with fewer than 30 personnel deployed − the smallest number it has ever contributed.   After the latest planned cuts, it will rank about 100th, according to Walter Dorn, a peacekeeping expert and defence studies profess...

           Keith and Bernadette Wyton were featured on the Scoop on Port Alberni, a community-focused media platform whose mission is to provide local news and information to the residents of the Alberni Valley. Check it out!

In this time of rapid change and the rising spiral of state violence, Canadians have a chance to speak up for peace—or be overwhelmed by the arguments for expanding militarism.   One way to do that is through Peace Train Canada, which is once again going to Ottawa in October to promote the cause of peacemaking.   Its message is simple, said Keith Wyton, who is organizing the Train together with his wife, Bernadette: “We must do everything we can as a nation to avoid war and to work for peace,” he said.   Wyton noted that some might see this small effort like being a Cassandra, the priestess of Apollo in Greek myth who was condemned to tell the truth about the future but not be believed.   Today, he noted, people who are called “Cassandras” are sometimes viewed as doomsayers. But Cassandra’s curse was not that she was wrong—but that she was not believed, he said.   “Cassandra’s tale is a cautionary one for the Canadian government as it increases milita...

The 2026 Peace Train is filling up! Thirty people have signed up so far, some taking the train and some flying to Ottawa. There’s still room for more, says organizer Bernie Wyton.   “We hope for more to make this trip a much bigger event,” she said of this year’s trip, which departs from Vancouver on Oct. 23.   The goal of Peace Train is to get peace back on track, Wyton said.   “We are calling on our government to commit to a culture of peace by establishing and funding an integrated, independent Canadian Centre for Peace and Justice. This is not a protest, but an effort to lift up all those who will rise to the current global challenges of resisting polarization, rampant self-interest, and an industrial war machine that is out of control.”   The train will arrive in Toronto on Oct. 27; participants will take a train to Ottawa on Oct. 28. There will be a reception with Members of Parliament that evening, arranged by Elizabeth May. More info about the trip be...