Cross-Country Peace Train Seeks to Get Canada Back on the Track Towards Peace











Getting peace back on track in Canada—that’s the goal of the Peace Train. 

The 40 or so people travelling on VIA Rail from Vancouver to Ottawa Nov. 15-22 plan to ask the Canadian government to establish and fund a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice focused on research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations. 

“In the face of ever-increasing violent wars, nuclear threat, climate disruption, and humanitarian crisis, the Peace Train seeks to raise the voice of Canadians about the need for us, as a country, to find peaceful ways to promote stability, security, and human rights both here and abroad,” said Keith Wyton of Port Alberni, B.C. 

For Keith, who is organizing the Train with his wife, Bernadette, it’s not about Canada doing something new but, rather, recovering its “honorable history of peace efforts going back to 1957 and Lester Pearson’s Nobel Prize for helping create the first UN Peacekeeping force,” as he put it. 

Keith would like to see Canada become a leader, once again, in not only promoting peaceful solutions to conflict around the world, but helping to train Canadians to be those leaders on the ground in conflict situations. 

The Peace Train is a “symbolic way for us to share that message,” said Bernadette, adding that the project “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 Peace Train will start its journey with a launch event in Vancouver on November 14, 7 PM at the Canadian Memorial United Church, 1825 West 16 Avenue. The VIA Rail “Canadian” Train leaves Vancouver Pacific Central Station at 3 PM on Nov 15.  It will conclude with a multi-party reception and public event in Ottawa after Peace Train participants meet Members of Parliament to make their request in person. 

For more information about the Peace Train, visit the website.  

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence : Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche

Image
The goal of the Peace Train is to ask the Canadian government to establish and fund a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice focused on research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations. That is similar to what Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche argued for in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail in September: "I nstead of playing catch-up in NATO . . . Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms." Regehr was the founding executive director of Project Ploughshares. Roche was a senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament. Both are members of Canadian Pugwash Group. Reprinted from the Canawhat dian Pugwash Group.   By Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche   Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure
Read more

Train is a Verb: A Poem

Image
A poem by Bernadette Wyton.   If you want peace, train for peace. Look inside to see What brings your own and What brings the roil of war within.   Look outside to see Beyond the tangle of fear-thinking. To the one tribe on the one blue dot called home.   Look around to see, Me-First is the seed of battle.   Don’t set your path through that field. Don’t loose yourself in flaming forests of rage or Drown in the rising sea of needless suffering.   The enemy is othering. The enemy is not seeing What we’re doing to ourselves.   If you want peace, train your mind for peace. Come back to the table of wisdom. Open the ears of your heart For all of us And listen for the prompting Of a new way home.   Bernadette Wyton is one of the organizers of the 2024 Peace Train.
Read more