Working paper: Peace Train Canada urges Canada to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The following working paper has been submitted by Peace Train Canada (PTC) about why a dozen participants are going to New York on March 2 to urge the Canadian government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

What is Peace Train Canada (PTC)? 

In the face of ever-increasing violent wars, nuclear threat, climate disruption, and humanitarian crisis, the Peace Train “sounding louder,” raises the voice of Canadians across the country committed to the basics of enduring stability, security, and human rights both here and abroad. 

The goal of PTC is to lift up all those who will rise to the current global challenges of resisting polarization, rampant self-interest, unchecked militarization, and widespread disregard for basic diplomacy and human rights. 

Our vision is that Canada becomes an independent, middle power that is invested in and committed to promoting a culture of peace and resisting the culture of war. 

We carry the memory of our country as a respected peace builder and the aspiration that Canada once again assume the full measure of its diplomatic power in the service of peace. To that end, we have petitioned our government to re-establish and fund a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice focused on research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations for Canadian civilians, police, military personnel, and the international community. 

The PTC motto is, “Train is a verb. If you want peace, train for peace.” This implies training in disciplines such as listening, patience, dialogue, diplomacy, empathy, and compromise. 

Peace is the domain of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. We know that, although peace is not pretty, passive, or perfect, it is possible and it is the fundamental condition for survival and optimal functioning in our world. Building a culture of peace is a matter of national interest. 

To choose life, we must choose peace. This requires that we recognize and respect the inter-relation and inter-dependence of all life. These values have been enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

PTC cherishes the UDHR as a common ethical framework for our global village. Part of training for peace is “keeping this Declaration constantly in mind.” as pledged by the UN General Assembly. 

Why is Peace Train Canada at the TPNW? 

Peace Train Canada is a group of ordinary people representing the Canadian majority, as polled, who embrace the prohibition of nuclear weapons and want Canada to ratify the TPNW. 

We are here because our government is not here. The Canadian government did not send observers to the first and second meetings of states parties to the TPNW. It continues to reserve the suicidal right of retention and potential use of nuclear weapons on its behalf. 

This represents a failure of leadership; a failure to understand human history, human psychology, and human fallibility; a failure to recognize that nuclear weapons are weapons of indiscriminate, mass destruction and mass suffering bound to a perpetual toxic legacy and, as such, run counter to the very essence of the UDHR and must be prohibited; a failure to comprehend the gruesome devastation of nuclear weapons (from upstream mining, to downstream testing, to inadequate nuclear waste management, and the gross humanitarian and environmental destruction unleashed by detonation, as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki); a failure to heed the Hibakusha and the millions of Canadian citizens, dignitaries, and Order of Canada recipients who, for many years, have been calling on our government to join the TPNW. 

Our human capacity for analysing, empathizing, problem solving, and getting along is untapped. We must overcome the cognitive deficit required to compete in the nuclear arms race. We must commit our intelligence and ingenuity to preventing war in the first place by upholding justice and the elements of global security and by rejecting the spin of fear, conspiracy, lies, and ignorance that seed war. 

Although Canadian officials claim to share the sentiment of the TPNW, they say that the timing is off. When we last checked, the time was 89 seconds to midnight according to the doomsday clock. In this MAD race, we have simply run out of time.

Our government considers an ordered scheme of non-proliferation to be more realistic than prohibition. Unfortunately, the only step-by-step approach we have witnessed over the last five years has led into a super-charged nuclear arms race sporting the highest threat to humanity since the first atomic bombs were dropped. 

Canadians will not be complicit in leaving this threat to our grandchildren. We are stepping out of our country to send a clear message back home: “The only way to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons is to eliminate the weapons.” 

What is PTC requesting of Canada?  

We request that the government of Canada sign and ratify the TPNW. 

We request that the government of Canada play a pivotal role within NATO in moving away from the “mindset of war” that NATO has called upon us to do. 

These requests are legitimized by the polled majority of Canadians who believe that their government should join the TPNW. Prompted by the alarm of the doomsday clock, we claim, “The time is now!” 

What is PTC requesting of the TPNW parties? 

We request that the states parties direct a concentrated diplomatic effort to the Canadian government, encouraging it to sign and ratify the TPNW. 

A compelling reason for this request lies in the potential for Canada to play a significant role, as a NATO member, in ushering a way out of the NATO “deaf zone” with regard to prohibition. 

Standing on their shoulders.

The message carried by PTC is not new but an additional voice channeling the volume and clarity of a host of mentors whose shoulders we stand on. We share these connections as a source of energy, encouragement, confidence and joy in the work of peace building. Following are just a few examples woven into Canada’s peace-making legacy we so admire. 

Thanks to: 

Joseph Rotblat for having the conscience and courage to leave the Manhattan Project when you saw it was an unwarranted scourge on humanity. Thank you for coming to Canada and redirecting your gifts to the establishment of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Pugwash for thriving all these years, gathering scientists from around the world to bring scientific insight and reason to bear on the catastrophic threat posed to humanity by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Thank you for breathing life into the Bertrand Russell-Albert Einstein Manifesto of 1955, urging leaders of the world to think in a new way, renounce nuclear weapons, remember their humanity, and find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them. 

Setsuko Thurlow, our own national treasure, for choosing life, for surviving the Hiroshima bombing, for your fidelity to the memory of loved ones lost in such a brutal way, and for dedicating your life to see that all of ours are safer with the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Lester B Pearson for helping to create the first United Nations peacekeeping force. Thank you for ushering in a time when Canadians identified our nation's peacekeeping role as its top contribution in international affairs. Thank you for inspiring the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre where Canadian and foreign soldiers once trained in the art of peacekeeping and conflict resolution for postings with United Nations peacekeeping missions.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau for your careful walk through the cold war. Thank you for establishing the highly regarded Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. It remains a worthy template for the creation of another Centre for Peace and Justice.

Douglas Roche for modelling creative dissent and for a lifetime of work uplifting our humanity with the arms of peace and nonviolence. Thank you for all your dedication as an author, parliamentarian, senator, and UN Ambassador for Disarmament. Thank you for founding the Middle Powers Initiative to help countries like ours recognize they could influence major powers on issues like nuclear disarmament.

Romeo Dallaire for establishing the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security. Thank you for your vision and reminder that peace is possible, violence is preventable, and that children must be at the heart of solutions. Thank you for sharing lessons learned from the darkest corners of human conflict in your books, including your latest inspiration “The Peace."

Raja Kouri and Jeffery Wilkinson for the amazing confluence of your book, “The Wall Between.” Thank you for showing us how to listen to each other with compassion, understanding, and equanimity. 

Samantha Nutt for founding War Child and for all of your work providing assistance to war affected women and children. 

Carol Off for the life-line of your voice across the air waves on the CBC program, “As It Happens.” Thank you for your fearless defence of journalism and for your wonderful latest book, “At a Loss For Words.” 

Gord Johns Member of Parliament (MP) for your defence of peace and human rights and for connecting PTC to government representatives from all political parties. 

All the MPs and officials who met with PTC in Ottawa for your care, time, and ideas – the best of democracy at work. 

Elizabeth May, for encouraging us to board another peace train to New York for the TPNW. 

Heather McPherson, for your fearless defence of human rights. 

Don Davies, for including our peace centre request in budget discussions. 

May, McPherson, and Davies for attending the second meeting of states parties to the TPNW in the absence of an official Canadian Observer. 

So many other individuals and organizations creating a more peaceful world, including: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Project Ploughshares, KAIROS, Mennonite Central Committee, World Beyond War, Vancouver’s Anglican and Canadian Memorial United Churches, Peace Quest, Physicians for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, War Child, Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom, Voice of Women, and The Elders. 

Finally, thank you to our PTC National Advisors who are an enduring source of inspiration and who have so generously assisted in refining our goals and aspirations. Thank you Ernie Regehr, Walter Dorn, Alex Neve, Michael Cooke, Steven Staples and Peter Langille for the tenacious application of your lives in making this world a safer, better place for all of us.