Peace Train Canada

  It’s almost here! The Peace Train starts its journey on Oct. 22. A total of 42 Peace Trainers are headed to Ottawa, most of them by train from Vancouver.   Of that total, 30 are from B.C., nine from Winnipeg, three from Edmonton and one from Nova Scotia.   While there, they will attend an all-party reception with Members of Parliament sponsored by MPs Gord Johns (NDP), Elizabeth May (Greens) and Dave Epp (Conservative); visit their own MPs in their Ottawa offices; participate in a peace education workshop, a community dialogue on peace education, and a panel presentation on “Canada’s Military Spending Spree: The Real Cost to Canadians.”   A full schedule is below. People in the Ottawa area who want more information about any of the events below can contact the Peace Train at info@peacetraincanada.com   Full Schedule   Oct 22, 7-8:30 PM: Peace Train Send Off, Canadian Memorial United Church 1825 W. 16 Ave, Vancouver. Oct 23, 2-3 PM. Peace Trai...

  For decades, peacekeeping has been part of Canada’s identity — internationally and at home.   Through the Cold War years, Canada provided about 10 per cent of the 800,000 or so peacekeepers with the United Nations. In 1993, there were over 4,000 Canadian peacekeepers deployed around the world. Altogether, over 125,000 Canadians have served with the United Nations as peacekeepers since the 1950s.   Today, however, there are only about 60 Canadians serving as peacekeepers, and the federal government is reducing the number of missions where they serve — a decision made to “better align CAF resources with current defence priorities,” according to the Department of National Defence.   On Sept. 16, defence experts convened to further explore this shift in peacekeeping. Titled “A Middle Power Adrift? Canada and the Future of Peacekeeping,” the Barton Dialogues webinar brought together experts to discuss the challenges and evolution of peacekeeping in a fragmented an...

In October, the Peace Train will be in Ottawa again to promote the idea of the creation of a national peace centre.   As part of that trip, it once again wants to present a petition to Parliament about that idea.   You can help by signing the petition, and by getting others to sign it, too. (You can read the petition below.)   How it Works   The 2026 petition is a three-page document. It can be found here.   All three pages should be printed and stapled together. The first page has the “whereas” clauses on it and must be on top when stapling.   A person must sign, not print their name.   Although only 25 are required to complete a petition, gather at least  5 or 10 more as several signatures may be disqualified (for example when someone prints instead of signing their name).   If you want to keep collecting signatures after the first 3 pages are full, print another 3-page set and continue.   When you have finished colle...

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...