Rabbi Arthur Bielfeld contributes to peace by working passionately to improve conditions for those living in poor social conditions.

“What Canada has going for it is potentially a breadth of perspectives that makes it an interesting and dynamic place. My greatest hope is that we will retain that outlook and not return to some more narrowly focused perspective, where either through law or through attitude we discourage that true multicultural spirit.”

Rabbi Bielfeld emigrated from Massachusetts to Toronto, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1968. He served as the spiritual leader of Reform Temple Emanu-El for 33 years, retiring in 2001.

He identifies his formative influences as his four notable female friends, Barbara Frum, Jane Jacobs, Margaret Lawrence and June Callwood, who taught him not just what it meant to be Canadian, but “what it meant to be a human being.”

Bielfeld believed that it was unconscionable that governments in Canada, one of the richest countries in the world, were not doing more to combat poverty affecting individuals and families. He took action to help those he could. Bielfeld founded the Leo Baeck Day School; he also served as co-chair of the June Callwood Coalition to End Child Poverty, past chairman of the Board of the Energy Probe Research Foundation, founding chair of MAZON Canada, a Jewish response to Hunger, founding chair of the Campaign Against Child Poverty, past board member of the North York Committee on Community, Race and Ethnic Relations, past board member of the United Way of Greater Toronto, and past board member of the Casey House Hospice which provides support for those with HIV/AIDS. 

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Canada’s Gardening professionals provide inspiration and elbow grease to make public spaces beautiful.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”   –  Luther Burbank

Professional gardening gurus such as Lois Hole (former Lieutenant Governor of Alberta) of Alberta and Ed Lawrence and Mark Cullen of Ontario and their peers have assisted countless people with finding peace and enjoyment through gardening throughout Canada.

Lois Hole and her husband Ted helped countless Canadians to garden in cold climates. Their Hole’s Greenhouses & Gardens Ltd. in St. Albert, Alberta, Lois’s countless gardening books and “can do” attitude brought gardening to many Albertans who otherwise wouldn’t have broken ground. Hole’s opened in 1979 and remained one of Western Canada’s largest retail greenhouse stores until it closed in early 2011 when the Hole family moved the operation to their new site on the edge of Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park, and opened the Enjoy Centre. She was a thought after and humorous speaker, who always had a good gardening anecdote at the ready.

Lois held many honourary degrees and became a member of the Order of Canada in 1999. She died in 2005.

Ed (“40 parts water, 1 part soap”) Lawrence is a retired head gardener to six Canadian Governors General and Prime Ministers. During his 30 years of outstanding achievement in the field of Canadian horticulture, Ed’s responsibilities included not only the oversight of the 85 acre historic grounds and greenhouses of Rideau Hall, but of all six official residences under the authority of the National Capital Commission, including those of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

For more than two decades his phone-in radio show for CBC Ontario has been tremendously popular, even with people who don’t garden.  Ed has written gardening columns for newspapers throughout the Ottawa Valley and a weekly column for the Toronto edition of the newspaper, The Globe and Mail. His keen interest in the experience of Canadian gardeners is unwavering, and every year his knowledge helps countless Canadians get into the garden.

In 1988 he won Landscape Ontario’s Garden Communicators’ Award for his broadcasting work and in 2000, Ed was the recipient of the prestigious Award of Merit from the Ontario Horticultural Association.

Gardening advocate, Mark Cullen reaches over two million Canadians every week through print and radio outlets. He delivers a message that is compelling, fun, informative, inspirational – all based on his sustainable approach to gardening.

Mark writes a ‘gardening feature’ column for the Toronto Star, and his weekly garden/environment column appears in more than 30 newspapers in 6 provinces. His radio show, ‘The Green File’, airs five times per week on six radio stations across Canada. Mark is a best-selling author with over 20 books in print, including his most recent The New Canadian Garden, and is the gardening editor for the Harrowsmith Canadian Almanac, Harrowsmith Garden Digest, and is garden-editor of Active Life Magazine and Reno and Décor Magazine.

He is a spokesperson for many organizations, including being Founding Chair, Highway of Heroes Living Tribute, which has as its goal: to plant 117,000 trees on the Highway of Heroes, 401 CFB Trenton to Keele St., Toronto, to honour Canada’s fallen in war since WWI.

He is the recipient of many honours, including the Order of Canada in 2016. 

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Dr. John Geddes contributed to peace by founding CanAssist Africa, a charity that funds small infrastructure projects in East Africa.

Dr. John Geddes is a Kingston family physician, Queen’s University Professor and founder of CanAssist Africa, a charity that funds small infrastructure projects in East Africa. Dr. Geddes presently spends half his time as Director of Operations for CanAssist.

Dr. Geddes has a background in rural medicine and student health. His first exposure to International Development was as Clinical Educator with the Queen’s Family Medicine Development Program in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).  From 1998 to 2009 he traveled regularly to BiH to teach physicians and nurses and help development of the discipline of Family Medicine in the country as it recovered from war. From 2004 to 2013 he was Medical Director for the McGill Canadian Field Studies in Africa programme and founded CanAssist African Relief Trust in 2008.

“Most of us would not hesitate to wade into a shallow pool to save a drowning child, even if it meant getting our new leather shoes wet and dirty.  Taken more broadly, giving up the cost of a night out at the movies to help vulnerable children in Africa follows the same moral responsibility. A life saved is a life saved, whether in a Canadian water park or a Ugandan village.” 

The goal of CanAssist is to improve the factors that we consider social determinants of health and well-being, through funding infrastructure improvements in the community that benefit the many, not just the few. CanAssist projects in Kenya and Uganda have included sending money for the purchase of school desks and hospital beds, building hospital laundry facilities and school latrines, developing water and sanitation projects – all of which dramatically improve the living conditions for many.

Communities, schools and health facilities come to CanAssist with ideas about what sustainable infrastructure will improve their well-being. 95% of funds raised go directly to on site projects, where work provides temporary employment to local men and women.

Since April, 2008, CanAssist Relief Trust has funded over 60 projects in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, totalling $850,000. 

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Harold Cardinal contributed to peace by advocating for radical changes in policies affecting First Nations in Canada.

Harold Cardinal, an outstanding First Nations leader, philosopher, scholar, teacher, negotiator and lawyer was born in Northern Alberta in 1945. In 1968 at the age of 23, as a member of the Sucker Creek First Nation, Harold Cardinal was elected president of the Indian Association of Alberta (the forerunner of the Assembly of First Nations), its youngest president. During his unprecedented 9 terms in office 1968-77, he initiated many programs to affirm Indigenous culture, religion and traditions. After his Presidency he served as Band Chief to Sucker Creek First Nation.

Cardinal was a lifelong student of First Nations law and this study was complemented, but in no way supplanted, by extensive study of law in mainstream educational institutions. He earned a doctorate in law in his 40s, entered the Bar of Alberta at 59, and taught at the University of Saskatchewan. He completed his Masters of Law at Harvard University, and received his PhD in law posthumously form the University of BC. He was also a generous mentor and inspiration to a great many Indigenous and non- Indigenous students, professionals and political leaders.

Cardinal served as the Vice Chief of the Assembly of First Nations during the period of the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in the early 1980s. He was instrumental in the creation, in 1984, of the Prairie Treaty Nations Alliance, representing all First Nations of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to advance issues of concern to those First Nations with particular emphasis on their treaties with the Crown.

He is perhaps best known for writing “The Unjust Society”, his response to then Minister of Indian Affairs, P. E. Trudeau’s “White Paper”, which advocated the elimination of separate legal status for Indigenous people in Canada. The white paper amounted to an assimilation program which, if implemented, would have repealed the Indian Act, transferred responsibility for Indian Affairs to the provinces and terminated the rights of Indians under the various treaties they had made with the Crown. The result was a complete about-face by the federal government on the policies of the White Paper and the establishment of joint meetings between First Nations and the federal cabinet in the early 1970.

“If we are to be part of the Canadian mosaic, then we want to be colourful red tiles, taking our place where red is both needed and appreciated.”

Cardinal was not only an architect of change on the political level; he was also instrumental in engaging and redefining the manner in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous people related to one another. One of the foundations of his life work was the insistence of the need for mutual recognition, understanding, and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. While he acknowledged difference, he still fundamentally believed in the power of relationship: “Two more disparate people, speaking in different tongues, speaking from different worlds, would be hard to find anywhere and yet their dreams, their visions, their hopes, and their aspirations could not find any greater fusion”. Cardinal is also one of the first Indigenous scholars who actively sought “…a convergence between the knowledge systems of the Cree people and other First Nations and the knowledge systems found in Western educational institutions” (Cardinal, 2007, p. 65). Upon recognition of the power of colonization over both societies, Cardinal foresaw a bridge of understanding between them.

Honours and Awards

• Honorary doctor of laws from the University of Alberta (1999)
• Appointed Indigenous Scholar in Residence, School of Law, University of Alberta (1999)
• National Aboriginal Achievement Award (2001)

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Nellie McClung, feminist, author, politician and social activist, contributed to peace by obtaining the vote for settler women.

Born in 1873 in Chatsworth, Ontario, Nellie McClung was a feminist, author, politician and political activist. Her leadership rallied others to the cause of women’s suffrage in Manitoba. Women’s suffrage was not a popular cause in Canada. Men and women were frightened that women’s rights would lead to the breakdown of home and family. McClung calmed these fears with intelligence, reasonable discussion, personal charm, and irrepressible humour.

“The real spirit of the suffrage movement,” McClung wrote, “is sympathy and interest in the other woman, and the desire to make the world a more homelike place to live in.”

Her concern for less fortunate women grew out of deep religious beliefs and devotion to her family. She had seen firsthand the suffering of women and children caused by neglect, overwork, poverty and alcohol abuse. Marriage, five children, and a successful writing career did not stop McClung from campaigning for women’s rights. Her novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, is a witty portrayal of a small western town. Published in 1908, it became a national best seller.

In 1912, Manitoba women formed the Political Equality League to improve women’s working conditions. The League convinced Premier Roblin that factory conditions for women were indeed terrible, but despite McClung’s eloquence, the League did not convince him that female suffrage was the remedy for such abuses.

To rally public support, the League held a Mock Parliament on January 28, 1914. The subject of debate was whether or not men should have the vote. A male delegation presented its case for male suffrage, and then “Premier” Nellie McClung rose to speak. She complimented the men on their splendid gentlemanly appearance, then she launched into her satiric attack: “Oh no, man is made for something higher and better than voting…Politics unsettles men, and unsettled men mean unsettled bills …  broken furniture, broken vows, and … divorce!” The resounding success of the Mock Parliament lent energy and support to the League’s campaign. The 1915 election saw the defeat of Roblin’s Conservative government, and on January 28, 1916, Manitoba became the first Canadian province to give settler women the vote.

Nellie McClung continued to fight for women’s suffrage in other provinces, and saw, slowly but steadily, tradition giving way to equality.

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Wallace Edwards contributed to peace by writing and illustrating the book What is Peace? 

Wallace Edwards, artist and book illustrator was born in Ottawa, and graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1980. He lives in Toronto and Yarker, Ontario. His paintings and illustrations are found in public and private collections, books, magazines, and on public display in Canada and the United States. He has published ten books, including, You are the Earth, co-published with the David Suzuki foundation, and What is Peace?, commissioned by PeaceQuest.org and published by Scholastic.

It is true that children know a lot about war. Wallace Edward’s book, What is Peace?, explores peace, and invites young readers to think about what that means to them. The book is available in English, French and Japanese:

Is peace happy? Is it sad?

Is it lonely? Is it tender?

Edwards focus on animals (real or fantastic) and his focus on the environment and peace are evident in his client list, which includes the Metro Toronto Zoo, the City of Toronto, the B.C. Ministry of the Environment, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. He loves to read to and teach young children to draw and become engaged with the world.

“I try to make the paintings simple enough for adults and complex enough for children to enjoy.”

Edward’s awards and shortlists include the Governor General’s Award, the IRA Children’s Choice Award, and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award. His books have garnered over two dozen awards and honours.

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

The legalization of same sex marriage in Canada granted a basic human right to same sex couples.

“If you don’t like gay marriage, then don’t get gay married.”   –  Billboard

In the 1960s in Canada gay men were being sent to prison for having sex with men. Bars and bath houses were raided with regularity into the 1980s, and gays and lesbians and transgender people were routinely denied the basic right of access to housing and jobs at an alarming rate. The ability to marry, divorce, adopt their spouses children, adopt from adoption agencies, collect their partners benefits and have full rights when a partner dies – all rights granted to heterosexual spouses, would be hard won by the LGBQT community.

The right to marry is one milestone in a decade’s long struggle for work, housing, religious and social equity, and freedom from persecution, harassment and brutality. LGBQT people and organizations advocated long and hard for changes to provincial and federal laws to enshrine their rights in the human rights legislation at the provincial and federal levels. The Supreme Court, many Liberal, and municipal governments have contributed to a groundswell of legal precedents and social change in regards to LGBQT rights in Canada.

Same-sex marriage in Canada was progressively introduced in several provinces by court decisions beginning in 2003 before being legally recognized nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act on July 20, 2005. The Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled, in Halpern v. Canada, that the common law definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman violates section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision immediately legalized same-sex marriage in Ontario, and sets a legal precedent – over the next two years, similar court decisions legalized same-sex marriage in seven provinces and one territory before the federal Civil Marriage Act was passed in 2005.

The introduction of a federal gender-neutral marriage definition made Canada the fourth country in the world, and the first country outside Europe, to legally recognize same-sex marriage nationwide. Before the federal recognition of same-sex marriage, gays and lesbians challenged laws in almost every province to achieve court decisions had already introduced it in eight out of ten provinces.

In June of 2005 The Liberals’ controversial Bill C-38, titled Law on Civil Marriage, passes a final reading in the House of Commons, sailing through in a 158-133 vote, supported by most members of the Liberal party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. The legislation gained royal assent and became law.

In 2006, a motion tabled by the ruling federal Conservatives under Stephen Harper moved to reopen the same-sex marriage debate is defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of 175-123. Twelve Conservatives, including five cabinet ministers, broke from party lines and voted against the motion, while 13 Liberals supported the motion.

Same-sex marriage was legally recognized in the provinces and territories as of the following dates:

• 2003: Ontario, British Columbia
• 2004: Quebec, Yukon, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador
• 2005: New Brunswick
• 2005 (Civil Marriage Act): Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Ginger Goodwin contributed to peace as a conscientious objector who advocated for labour rights through peaceful means. #Canada150

“People would call him radical, militant. I think he was. But he was a peaceful person. He advocated change through peaceful means, through Parliament and elections. He was never arrested for anything.”    –  Roger Stonebanks, Goodwin’s biographer in Fighting for Dignity

Ginger (Albert) Goodwin (1887 – 1918) was a migrant miner and smelter, who became a labour activist and leader. He emigrated from England at 19, and worked as a miner in Nova Scotia and British Columbia. He arrived on Vancouver Island in 1910. He was appalled by the work and safety conditions at the Cumberland mine, and fought for eight hour work days and the right to create and join trade unions.

He was a conscientious objector to WWI, and openly stated that the working class were now being employed to kill each other in the war. Goodwin nevertheless complied with the law and signed up for the draft, but was not conscripted after he was found unfit for service, due to his having the  “black lung”, a disease well known to miners, When he led an 11 day strike of smelter workers in Kootenay, he was reclassified as “fit to serve”.

Goodwin then joined other draft dodgers in the hills near Cumberland, B.C. Although he was unarmed, he was shot and killed by a policeman, Dan Campbell. The widely held belief was that Goodwin was murdered in an attempt to stifle collective bargaining.

His death inspired the Canada’s first general strike, the 1918 Vancouver general strike on August 2, 1918. This strike was a paved the way for the Winnipeg General Strike the same year, a defining moment in Canadian labour history.

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Sister Peggy Flanagan wrote both poetry and challenging letters to the editor and parliamentarians about issues of war and peace. #Canada150 

“Live in hope. Call one another to the freedom of living in peace. Do not despair. United in communal hope, we create a collective energy.”

Born in Newmarket in 1938, Peggy Flanagan grew up in the small Ontario community of Schomberg.

After attending Teachers’ College in Toronto, Peggy entered the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul in Kingston where, after the novitiate, she returned to her teaching career. She taught in several Kingston Catholic schools, and assumed the responsibility of principal in a number of these schools. While teaching she attended summer school at the University of Ottawa and graduated with a B.A. in 1971. In the 1980s she studied for her Masters of Theological Studies Regis College in Toronto.

Sister Peggy was a committed and dedicated promoter for peace and social justice.  She did this in the classroom but through her poetry, and through her challenging letters to the editor of local and national newspapers and parliamentarians.  Her motto was, “Live simply and love greatly.”

In the 1970’s she was missioned to Winnipeg, Manitoba to care for emotionally disturbed boys and opened a group home for developmentally handicapped children. In 1989 she helped to establish a self-help group for Adult Children of Alcoholics in the Kingston area.

She was elected in 1989 to a five-year term on the Leadership Team of the Congregation. After completing her term on the Council she had a ten month sabbatical during which she took a facilitator’s course and was able to experience living alone, painting and writing.

She was then asked to take over as General Secretary, a position she held from 1995 – 2002. Following this she continued to be involved with prison ministry and was active on Congregational Committees including Healing Violence and Responsible Sharing (which allotted monies to various projects dealing with peace, poverty reduction, food security, women and children). She was also a faithful (Peace) Vigil Keeper at City Hall every Friday for several years. Sister Peggy, who had a zest for life, blended humility with an intense commitment to make things better for the marginalized of society.

Some of Peggy’s journal entries of 2008 include:

Feb. 6 – Pray and fast every day deliberately and consciously for new miracles of peace – peace within hearts, within families, within communities, nations, worlds. Pray and fast for economic and political conversion into God’s reign of peace and justice.

Mar. 19 – Pray for an increase of love, love that runs over into a violent world. Pray for zeal, for a passion for peace within and without.

March 27 – Your vocation is to be a messenger of peace and a defender of life. Refuse to believe that death has the last word. The Spirit lives and touches you and others through you.

May 10 – Peace is given to those who make peace.

July 11 – Every act of kindness, or forgiving, or of love, sends healing energy through the entire network of creation.

Oct. 11 – Every day breathe in gratitude and peace.

Oct. 15 – The gifts of the Spirit are love, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Claim them all!  Live by the Spirit and be guided by the Spirit.

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.

Nisga’a Nation contributed to peace by creating a blue print for land settlements and First Nation self-governance in Canada. #Canada150

In the early 1980’s, the Nisga’a Nation, through w?ahlin Sim’oogit Hleek, the late James Gosnell, participated in constitutional talks hosted by the federal government.  In response to a question posed by then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “What does Aboriginal Title mean?” James memorably replied that the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada own the land “Lock, Stock and Barrel”.

To comprehend where the Nisga’a Nation stands today and their long-standing aspirations in respect of sustainable prosperity, the publication of the document Lock, Stock and Barrel: Nisga’a Ownership Statement  is required reading.  It provides a comprehensive insight into the Nisga’a Nation’s present position, dating back to first contact and through the generations from the 1913 Land Committee to its re-birth through the Nisga’a Tribal Council in the 1950’s, and in their position in the Calder Case.

The Nisga’a Nation had always sought a just and equitable resolution to the land question through negotiation of a treaty that would recognize their ownership and interests in the land, and their right of self-government over their lands and themselves.

On May 11, 2000, this was accomplished when the Nisga’a Final Agreement took effect. Nisga’a Nation owns 2,000 square km of Nisga’a Lands, and has constitutionally protected interests in 26,000 square km of land in the Nass Area.  Under this treaty, the Nisga’a Nation has clearly defined rights of law-making authority in several areas, including citizenship, fisheries, hunting, forests, language, culture, and education. This right of self-government is constitutionally protected under this Treaty as was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2013. 

Got a name in mind? Contribute to the list! Send us your suggested names on the Contact Us page.

Want to get 150+ Canadians straight to your inbox? Subscribe here.