"Never giving up in the face of resistance from power and money." John Kidder reflects on his time on the Peace Train

By John Kidder 

VIA Train 2 departed Vancouver for Toronto on Oct. 23. We—my partner Elizabeth (MP Elizabeth May) and me—are on board with 40 others on the Peace Train, headed for Ottawa. For us, the train is far and away our preferred way to travel. Also, it's my birthday tomorrow, so this is also a bit of a present. 

And there’s a bit of irony. I rode this train from Vancouver to Montréal in 1964, 62 years ago when I was 16, with six other guys from B.C., on our way to Collège Militaire Royal (CMR) in St. Jean, Québec. 

In those days, one could get a very good degree at the Canadian military colleges, and one had only to serve three years in the services in return. So, many young guys (only males in those unenlightened days) applied, 1,200 or so in B.C.  Only seven of us made the cut. 

And so we went on across the country, picking up young men at every stop, going off for training as officers and gentlemen, so that we would be able properly to kill people and win battles and wars. 

And there in the dome car we sang, across the country we sang, as everyone did in the mid-60s, a time when the word “hootenanny” didn’t sound odd, a time when everybody sang folk songs. The anti-war movement was gaining steam in the U.S. and elsewhere. There were mass protests against nuclear weapons. 

We thought we were going to win. It seemed so obvious that war was senseless in every possible way, it was inevitable that we'd be able to move on. 

We newly minted officer cadets sang "We Shall Overcome", "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" and "Universal Soldier." We sang loudly and lustily against the very military profession we'd just signed up to join. And we sang without a trace of irony. It did not occur to us that we were living simultaneously in two completely contradictory worlds. 

Today, here we are, on the same train again. This train is full of old and young peace activists. The world outside is bombing and burning and shooting and killing and spending more and more resources, money, and people on preparing to do even more of the same. 

As for Canada, it is building a defence bank and promising to spend 7% of our gross domestic product on killing machinery (and, of course, more on the long-term killing machinery of the fossil fuel business). Our friends to the south and in Asia and Africa are mired in wars of choice, wars of personal ambition, religious and racial hatred. People are dying all over the world for the ambitions of autocrats and warlords and money men. 

It’s all folly. We have learned so little since that train ride to CMR 62 years ago. I salute those on this train, as well as my own dear Elizabeth, Douglas Roche, Alex Neve, and so many others who have never given up on the promises all the countries of the world made to each other after World War 2 killed 27 million people, forming the United Nations, swearing to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making all the promises of peace among nations. 

It's fashionable now to think of such people as naive and unrealistic, idiot idealists. Never. Heroes every one. Never giving up in the face of such resistance from power and money. Don't you give up either. 

Roll on, Peace Train.

Photo above: John and Elizabeth on the Peace Train.