Peace Train brings vigil to Edmonton on Saturday: Edmonton Journal












The Peace Train is coming to Edmonton, and with it a trainload of passengers hoping for a new era of peacekeeping in Canada and around the world.

Some 40 participants will make their way via Jasper to Edmonton on Saturday around 7 p.m. for a peace vigil said Keith Wyton, a resident of Port Alberni, B.C., and project organizer.

Via Rail’s The Canadian leaves Vancouver on Friday and arrives in Ottawa next Wednesday. In Ottawa, participants expect to plead for a small fraction of the amount of money the federal government spends on the military to establish and fund a centre for research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations.

At issue is the decline of Canada’s role as a peacekeeper, Wyton said.

“What we’re asking the government to do is to establish a National Center of

Excellence for Peace and Justice,” he said, noting that the former Pearson Peace Centre was designed to support Canada’s role in peacekeeping and international diplomacy, and that centre has closed.

“A place where policy and diplomatic efforts can be housed within the government and to advise government,” Wyton said, citing international problems caused by “a failure to come to find ways of resolving disagreements in a diplomatic fashion, not in a ‘going to war’ fashion.”

Click here to read the whole story in the Edmonton Journal.

 

 

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