Dr. Samantha Nutt contributes to peace through her work with War Child Canada which she established to help children in war zones around the world. #Canada150
Dr. Samantha Nutt is a family physician with almost two decades’ experience working in war zones, including Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, South Sudan, Burundi, northern Uganda, Ethiopia, and the Thai-Burmese border. She wrote about her experiences as a war-zone physician in her 2011 book Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid.
Dr. Nutt is on staff at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She is also on the board of the David Suzuki Foundation.
She has published articles on human rights, foreign policy, and war-related issues.
“Justice not charity, solidarity not pity, opportunity not handouts.”
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The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW Peace) was established in 1960 when women across Canada were worried about the threat of nuclear war and the effect of nuclear fallout on children from weapons testing. Based in Toronto, it has chapters in several provinces in Canada.
VOW Peace is a part of a network of other peace groups in Canada and around the world, all working together for a world without war. It was a founding partner in the Canadian Peace Alliance which has over 4 million supporters across the country.
Current priorities include stopping the bombing in Syria and Iraq, withdrawing Canadian troops from Ukraine, opening Canada’s borders to more refugees, and signing and ratifying the Arms Trade Treaty.
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Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys contributed to peace by providing education to girls, the poor, and indigenous peoples in New France. #Canada150
Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620 – 1700) came to North America from France as a young woman ready to serve the community. She opened the first public school in what is now Montreal in 1659 and worked to provide all children with an education. She also set up skills training classes for women in the community to help them earn a living. She always devoted the majority of her time to helping the more needy members of society. In 1692, her congregation opened a school in Quebec that specifically catered to girls from poor families.
After a few years, she established the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, a non-cloistered religious order whose members worked in the community. She had to resist continued efforts by the church to require the sisters to remain within a cloister.
The Catholic Church recognized her as a saint in 1982.
“Not only has she performed the office of schoolmistress by giving free instruction to the young girls in all the occupations that make them capable of earning their livelihood, but, far from being a liability to the country, she has built permanent buildings, cleared land-concessions, set up a farm…” – King Louis XIV of France
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The Honourable Flora MacDonald (1926 – 2015) contributed to peace as Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and then as an international humanitarian, working primarily with women in Afghanistan.
Flora MacDonald was elected Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands in 1972. She became the first female Minister of External Affairs in 1979.
During the Vietnamese boat people crisis, she challenged Canadians to match federal government funding for Vietnamese refugees; 60,000 were admitted into Canada. She was also part of the planning to rescue six American diplomats who were in hiding after militant Iranian students invaded the American embassy in Tehran.
She was defeated in the 1988 election, but soon threw herself into international development work, taking on key roles with groups including the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict and the International Development Research Centre. In 2001, she began travelling to remote parts of Afghanistan. In 2007, she founded Future Generations Canada, an aid group that supports schools for girls, and health and farming projects in Afghan villages.
MacDonald said she gave the same advice to women and men aspiring to elected office: “Polish your public speaking skills and learn to “relate to the difficulties somebody down the street is having.”
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The Honourable Len Marchand contributed to peace through his work in federal politics, particularly promoting the need for land settlements with Canada’s First Nations. #Canada150
The Honourable Leonard (Len) Stephen Marchand (1933 – 2016) was a member of the Okanagan Indian Band and the first status First Nations person to be elected to Canada’s Parliament.
Trained as an agronomist, Marchand left that career in the mid-1960s to work for the North American Indian Brotherhood. His work took him to Ottawa to lobby on Indigenous issues. He ran for the Liberal party in the riding of Kamloops-Cariboo in 1968, and represented the riding until 1979.
The Honourable Len Marchand became the first Indigenous person to hold a position in the federal cabinet. He was Parliamentary Secretary to Jean Chretien, who was then the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and had a role in convincing the government to begin land settlement negotiations with First Nations.
Marchand also held posts as Minister of State for Small Businesses and Minister of the Environment. He was appointed to the Senate in 1984 where he worked to establish the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. He retired from the Senate in 1998.
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Dr. James Orbinski, physician, writer, and humanitarian, contributes to peace with his on-going commitment to medical humanitarianism.
Dr. James Orbinski co-founded the Canadian chapter of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 1991. He was international president of MSF for three years and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organization in 1999.
He led medical missions in several war-torn countries including Rwanda, Zaire, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
He has founded and supported organizations addressing barriers to health in resource-limited communities, providing services to people with HIV/AIDS, promoting research into neglected diseases, and working on global health projects.
Dr. Orbinski published a book and was the focus of a film on the genocide in Rwanda; he said that the experience of being in the country during the genocide changed him from a researcher and scientist to a doctor focusing on humanitarian medicine.
Dr. Orbinski has been recognized for his humanitarian work in Canada and internationally.
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HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS in Canada protect the basic right of Canadians to be free from discrimination and harassment.
Federal and provincial Human Rights Commissions follow the principle that “all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability or conviction of an offence for which a person has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.”
Following are some examples of statements issued by Human Rights Commissions in Canada:
“[E]veryone in Canada [should] speak out against hateful acts that threaten our families, our friends, our neighbours and our way of life. Speak loudly so that both the victims and the perpetrators hear you when you say: My Canada includes everyone.”
The Genetic Non-Discrimination Act, [is] an important step for privacy and human rights in Canada. [It] prohibits genetic discrimination across Canada. It bars any person from requiring individuals to undergo a genetic test or disclose the results of a genetic test as a condition of providing goods or services, or entering into a contract.
The rights of transgender and gender-diverse people in Canada [must be made] clear and explicit in federal human rights law.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission is adding its voice to those of Indigenous women across the country who are urgently calling for greater equality, increased access to justice, and improved safety for Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission released “Impaired at work: a guide to accommodating substance dependence.” …[W]hen an employee is dependent on drugs or alcohol, an employer has an obligation to accommodate and support their recovery.
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Roy Bonisteel contributed to peace by reporting on religion on CBC TV’s Man Alive as “Canada’s Humanities Teacher.”
Roy Bonisteel, radio broadcaster, journalist, television host, university instructor and citizenship judge was born in 1930. From 1967 to 1989 he was host of the CBC Television program Man Alive, which explored man’s relation to spirit, spirituality and religion.
Called, “Canada’s Humanities Teacher” by the Globe and Mail, Roy Bonisteel interviewed thought leaders of his time: Malcolm Muggeridge, Eli Wiesel, Mother Teresa, the 14th Dalai Lama, Hans Kung and many others.
In 1964, at a time when Canadian broadcasting regulation required radio stations to broadcast religious shows, Bonisteel entered into an agreement with the United Church of Canada to produce a 15-minute program titled Checkpoint. The show was syndicated across Canada. This then led to a position as director of broadcast for the United Church in Vancouver in 1965. He received an appointment as head of ecumenical radio operations for the Anglican, Roman Catholic and United churches, in Vancouver, the first person to have such an assignment. Bonisteel started a religious open-line radio program titled God Talk, with a panel consisting of Rev. Walter Donald, Rev. Jack Shaver and Fr. John Shields.
“We are moulded into a materialistic world where we do a lot eating, drinking and making merry until we ask the basic questions, ‘Who am I? Where am I going? What is our purpose in life?'”
A bronze memorial statue of Bonisteel, seated and holding a book, overlooks the Bay of Quinte in a Belleville garden.
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Bruce Cockburn contributes to peace by writing and performing powerful songs advocating for a more peaceful and just world.
“Part of the job of being human is just to try to spread light, at whatever level you can do it.”
Canadian activist, musician, songwriter, singer and spiritual seeker, Bruce Cockburn is deeply respected for his activism on issues from native rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt, working for organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Friends of the Earth.
A global citizen, his remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock, and world beat styles while travelling to places as Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, and Nepal, and writing memorable songs about his ever-expanding understanding and experience of the world. His songs of protest have supported the work of activists worldwide. His song, “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”, is an angry response to the plight of refugees in Central America. “Stolen Land”, refers to the land claims of British Columbia’s Haida people, and, “If a Tree Falls”, condemns the deforestation of the Amazon.
Bruce Cockburn has an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, 20 gold records, 13 Junos, 6 Honourary degrees, and an Order of Canada.
“A sane person doesn’t think war is a good idea. I’m not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don’t go looking for those things.”
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Tomb of the Unknown Soldier contributes to peace by serving as a reminder to the tragedy of war and how necessary it is to maintain peace so that others don’t die in war.
The Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located before the National War Memorial in Confederation Square across from the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.
The culmination of a project begun by the Royal Canadian Legion, the tomb was added to the war memorial in 2000 as part of the Canada Millennium Partnership Programme and holds the remains of an unidentified Canadian soldier who died in France during World War I. The soldier was selected from a cemetery in the vicinity of Vimy, the site of a famous Canadian battle where Canadian troops fought as a combined force.
The remains of the soldier buried there were exhumed on the morning of May 16, 2000, and the coffin was flown in a Canadian Forces aircraft to Ottawa on May 25, accompanied by a 45-person guard of honour, a chaplain, Royal Canadian Legion veterans, and two representatives of Canadian youth. In Ottawa, the Unknown Soldier lay in state for three days in the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill.
On the afternoon of May 28, the body of the Unknown Soldier was transported to the National War Memorial on a horse-drawn Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) gun carriage. The Governor General, and the Prime Minister, as well as veterans, Canadian Forces personnel, and members of the RCMP were in the funeral cortege. Then, with full military honours before a crowd of 20,000, the body, in a silver maple casket, was re-interred in a sarcophagus in front of the war memorial. Legionnaires placed a handful of soil from each of Canada’s provinces and territories, as well as from the soldier’s former grave site, on the casket before the tomb was sealed.
The tomb is intended to honour the approximately 116,000 Canadians who died in combat, as well as all members of the Canadian Armed Forces—in all branches—who died or may die in all conflicts, past, present, and future.
The tomb has become a focal point at all commemorative events at the National War Memorial.
The original headstone of the Unknown Soldier is the sole artifact and the focal point of Memorial Hall in the Canadian War Museum. The hall was designed in such a way that sunlight will only frame the headstone once each year on the 11th of November at 11:00 am.
At the former burial site of the Unknown Soldier, a grave marker similar to the other headstones in the Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery was placed at the now-empty grave. It is inscribed with these words in both French and English:
THE FORMER GRAVE OF AN
UNKNOWN CANADIAN SOLDIER
OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR.
HIS REMAINS WERE REMOVED
ON 25 MAY 2000 AND NOW
LIE INTERRED AT THE
NATIONAL WAR MEMORIAL
IN OTTAWA CANADA.
The Royal Canadian Legion leadership pronounced that the tomb deserved a military or police guard as a symbol of respect and to protect it from vandalism and desecration. These demands were brought into focus on the night of July 1, 2006, when Dr. Michael Pilon, a retired Canadian Forces major, photographed three young men urinating on the war memorial shortly after the annual Canada Day fireworks show over nearby Parliament Hill. In the summer of 2007, the sentry programme was instituted.
On October 22, 2014, a gunman armed with a rifle shot at the sentries on duty at the tomb, fatally wounding Corporal Nathan Cirillo of The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise), before proceeding across the street and into the Centre Block on nearby Parliament Hill.. There, the gunman was killed in a firefight by then Sergeant-at-Arms of the
House of Commons. Truly a reminder of the tragedy of violence.
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