Peace Train Canada

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...

           Keith and Bernadette Wyton were featured on the Scoop on Port Alberni, a community-focused media platform whose mission is to provide local news and information to the residents of the Alberni Valley. Check it out!

In this time of rapid change and the rising spiral of state violence, Canadians have a chance to speak up for peace—or be overwhelmed by the arguments for expanding militarism.   One way to do that is through Peace Train Canada, which is once again going to Ottawa in October to promote the cause of peacemaking.   Its message is simple, said Keith Wyton, who is organizing the Train together with his wife, Bernadette: “We must do everything we can as a nation to avoid war and to work for peace,” he said.   Wyton noted that some might see this small effort like being a Cassandra, the priestess of Apollo in Greek myth who was condemned to tell the truth about the future but not be believed.   Today, he noted, people who are called “Cassandras” are sometimes viewed as doomsayers. But Cassandra’s curse was not that she was wrong—but that she was not believed, he said.   “Cassandra’s tale is a cautionary one for the Canadian government as it increases milita...

The 2026 Peace Train is filling up! Thirty people have signed up so far, some taking the train and some flying to Ottawa. There’s still room for more, says organizer Bernie Wyton.   “We hope for more to make this trip a much bigger event,” she said of this year’s trip, which departs from Vancouver on Oct. 23.   The goal of Peace Train is to get peace back on track, Wyton said.   “We are calling on our government to commit to a culture of peace by establishing and funding an integrated, independent Canadian Centre for Peace and Justice. This 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 train will arrive in Toronto on Oct. 27; participants will take a train to Ottawa on Oct. 28. There will be a reception with Members of Parliament that evening, arranged by Elizabeth May. More info about the trip be...

Want to know more about the Peace Train and meet some of the people behind it? Check out this video   on YouTube!

  One of the publications I write for is Canadian Affairs, an online news source that wants to cover topics that don’t get much attention. That includes about peace and peacekeeping. Earlier, I wrote there about the lack of attention to and questions about Canada’s increased defence spending. And now one of my colleagues has written about Canada’s peacekeeping myth, including comments from Peace Train supporter Walter Dorn. The article is below, but I encourage you to check out Canadian Affairs. Canada’s peacekeeping myth   Canada rightly once saw itself as a peacekeeping nation. But with just 27 peacekeepers on missions now, experts say much will need to change to restore that legacy   by Sam Forster   April 2, 2026   For much of the Cold War, Canada was widely seen as one of the world’s leading peacekeeping nations.   As thousands of Canadian soldiers served in United Nations missions around the world, peacekeeping became a cornerstone of...

  Peace Train Canada 2026 will be departing the station this fall—and you are invited to be onboard.   Travelling on VIA Rail’s The Canadian once again, it will leave Vancouver for Ottawa on October 23.     It arrives in Toronto on Tuesday, October 27 and Peace Trainers will depart for Ottawa the next morning, on Wednesday, October 28.   A parliamentary reception with MPs is on October 28, from 5 to 7 PM.   “This will be a journey across our great land to support peace,” says organizer Keith Wyton.   “With wars wreaking havoc, now is the time to tell our government that we must strengthen our diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict . . . if we want peace, we must train for peace.”   Along the way, Peace Trainers will meet supporters at train stations before ending up in Ottawa for a week of meetings and events with government representatives and officials.   The goal of the meetings is to call for the establishment of a Canadia...

The goal of Peace Train Canada is the establishment of a national peace centre that would, among other things, promote the Canadian heritage of peacekeeping. What do Canadians think about that?   A Nanos poll in 2025 sought to get some answers to that question. According to Jean-Christophe Boucher, who teaches political science at the University of Calgary and who helped create the poll, the older you are the more you support that idea of peacekeeping. The younger someone is, the less they do.   In that poll, respondents were asked to rank different national defence priorities from defending the homeland to contributing to international security through things like peacekeeping.   Overall, Boucher said in an e-mail to Peace Train Canada, contributing to international stability through activities like peacekeeping ranked lowest among the four “missions” the poll analyzed. Defending Canadian territory was number one at 91%, but 66% of Canadians still said contributing...