"Thank-you for being odd." MP Dave Epp's remarks to Peace Trainers at breakfast with Parliamentarians on Oct. 22 in Ottawa

By Dave Epp

No one knows the cost of peace, more than those who are asked to risk their lives in its pursuit. 

Isn’t that an odd thing to say from an MP whose heritage is from the Anabaptist tradition? Whose faith background is rooted in non-violence? 

Yet, as we move into the Remembrance Day season, I often cite these words as I honour those who chose a different path to pursue peace, than I have personally chosen. 

I recall the words spoken at last year’s Peace Train event with Parliamentarians, by my colleague and friend, Colonel Alex Ruff, who retired from 25 years of active military service, including two peacekeeping missions to Bosnia.

Now serving in the House as an MP, his service also included the pursuit of peace.

In the last Parliament, I served on the Foreign Affairs and International  Development Committee, and, through testimony with respect to the situation in Haiti, we learned that Canada could not participate in a peacekeeping force because we lack the military capacity to do so.

Which is another odd thing. That is, wouldn’t it be odd if, today, Canada’s decision to increase it’s military spending it could reclaim its former role as a soft power, with its peacekeeping capabilities? 

Also odd was that, during President Trump’s first term, it was actually the voices of US Generals, that convinced him to put more dollars into the World Food programme? And why did they do that? It’s because those Generals realized that for all their military firepower, they could never provide the world stability that feeding people in situ did, before they began migrating, or before they lost hope and became radicalized.

Today, there are different voices in President Trump’s head.  

But given the world trade instability largely caused by our neighbour to the south, wouldn’t it be odd again today that international development would be recognized as the fourth leg of the solid three-legged stool? A stool that has served Canada’s, and indeed the world’s interest, alongside defense, diplomacy and trade.

To put it another way, one doesn’t go to war with one’s closest trading partners; it’s bad for business.

Wouldn’t it also be odd if governments, in the pursuit of more sustainable budget and subsequent cuts to development budgets, chose to incite the private sector to, both individuals and businesses, to increase their charitable contributions by changing the tax code to reward low and high income donors with the same tax treatment for their contributions?

When I look around the room at my colleagues in the House and Senate, I have to admit that we are odd, that I am odd, for choosing this form of public service. We must be odd since there are so few of us that have this honour and privilege to serve in this capacity.

And when I look at the rest of you in the room, the Peace Trainers, I have to say you too must be odd for having chosen to come to Ottawa to pursue peace.

Thank you to all of you for being odd, for your service and for your pursuit of PEACE. Keep coming back, for history has shown, that change is usually driven by odd people! 

Photo above: Dave Epp (l) speaks with Peace Trainer Lori Matties of Winnipeg at the Oct. 22 breakfast with Parliamentarians in Ottawa. Dave Epp is the Conservative MP for Chatham-Kent-Leamington, Ont.