The Canadian Flag contributes to peace as a symbol that demonstrates how democratic means can promote a peaceful nation. #Canada150

The first government attempt to give Canada its own flag came in 1925 when Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King established a committee to study the question. He immediately backed down when there was a general outcry against any attack on the Union Jack. He tried again in 1945 with a joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons, but support for the Union Jack remained strong.

When Lester B. Pearson, as leader of the Official Opposition, raised the flag question again in 1960, national unity was threatened by a growing separatist movement in Quebec. Many Canadians had become attached to the Canadian Red Ensign, which they believed to be their national flag, while others still clung to the Union Jack. Since 1948, Québec viewed its provincial flag, the Fleur-de-lis, as its national emblem.

Though all parties agreed that Canada should have a flag, there was no agreement on its design. Some 2,000 suggestions were submitted in 1964 and examined by a steering committee, in addition to 3,900 others, “including those that had accumulated in the Department of the Secretary of State and those from a parliamentary flag committee of 1945–1946.”

Debate in the House of Commons lasted six exhausting months and involved 308 speeches. At last, on 15 December 1964 at 2:00 a.m., the committee’s recommendation was accepted by a vote of 163 to 78. Senate approval followed on 17 December, and the royal proclamation was signed by Queen Elizabeth II on January 28, 1965.  Canada’s national flag officially unfurled on February 15, 1965 at Parliament Hill

Ernie Coombs (aka“Mr. Dressup”) contributed to peace by teaching generations how to be humble, considerate and peaceful.#Canada150

Mr. Dressup, his Tickle Trunk of costumes and his puppets Casey and Finnegan, provided quality television for children from 1967 to 1996. In over 4000 episodes, he drew pictures and created simple crafts from construction paper, yarn and glue. His show was gentle, wholesome programming that encouraged creativity and imagination.

Ernie Coombs was lured to Canada in 1963 by the progressive ideas of the public broadcasting system, beginning his career as an assistant puppeteer on a CBC series that featured another soon-to-be-legendary kid’s entertainer, Fred Rogers. He became a Canadian citizen in 1994.

Coombs received the Earle Grey Award for excellence in TV in 1994, a Gemini award for best performance in a children’s program, and the Order of Canada in 1996.  He retired from Mr. Dressup in 1996 after which he performed charity work, appeared in theatrical productions for children and made personal appearances around the country for all his fans, young and old.  Judith Lawrence, the puppeteer who created Casey, chose to make the character gender neutral so that it would appeal to both girls and boys.

“Keep your crayons sharp, your sticky tape untangled, and always put the tops back on your markers.”      

– Mr. Dressup

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (d. 1893), an American-Canadian, contributed to peace by her anti-slavery activism. #Canada150

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher and lawyer. She was the first black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada when she started the black newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, a Toronto based weekly publication for African Americans, especially escaped slaves. She wrote many of the articles herself, and often returned to the United States to gather information for the paper.  In addition to creating a newspaper, Shadd Cary established a school in Windsor, Ontario that was open to children of all races. While living in Canada, she met Thomas F. Cary. The couple married in 1856 and had two children. He died only a few years later.

The eldest of 13 children, Shadd Cary was born into a free African-American family. Her father worked for the abolitionist newspaper called the Liberator run by famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and provided help to escaped slaves as a member of the Underground Railroad. Shadd Cary would grow up to follow in her father’s footsteps.

Shadd Cary was educated at a Quaker school in Pennsylvania, and she later started her own school for African Americans. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, she went to Canada with one of her brothers. Not long after, the entire Shadd family moved there. In 1852, Shadd Cary wrote a report encouraging other African Americans to make the trek north to Canada.

When the Civil War broke out, Mary Ann Shadd Cary returned to the United States to help in the war effort. In 1863, she worked as a recruiting officer for the Union Army in Indiana, and encouraged African Americans to join the fight against the Confederacy and against slavery. After the war, Cary became a pioneering spirit in a new direction, earning a law degree in 1883 from Howard University. She was the second African-American woman in the United States to earn a law degree.

Want to learn more? Here is a video about Mary Ann on the Toronto Sun website.

Canada’s Refugee Policy contributes to peace by welcoming the world’s displaced, especially those fleeing war and persecution.#Canada150

Mass migrations to Canada include the following:

• 3,000 Black Loyalists (1776), 35,000 Loyalists (1783), 170,000 Scots (1815-70)
• 170,000 Ukrainians (1891-1913), 119,770 Italians (1900-14)
• 250,000 displaced persons from Europe as a result of WW II
• 37,000 Hungarians (1956), 11,000 Czechs (1968-69), 7000 Muslims from Uganda (1972-73)
• 60,000 Vietnamese (1979-80)
• Canada has also welcomed large numbers of Asians, East and West Indians, Irish, Doukhobors, American war resistors and currently Syrian refugees.

The Trans-Canada Trail (now also being promoted as “The Great Trail”) and the countless people who are helping to make it happen contributes to peace by connecting Canadians to eachother and to the natural landscape.

“It’s a tangible link and a tie that binds us together. What better gift can we give to each other than a national trail that connects us all?”          -Deborah Apps, Trans Canada Trail CEO and president

• To be complete for Canada’s 150th birthday, the approximately 24,000 km Great Trail links 15,000 communities from coast to coast to coast. Spanning all provinces and territories, the Trail’s nearly 430 sections follow waterways, roadways and footpaths through urban centres and rural areas.
• The Great Trail passes through historic settlements, highlights the railway’s trestles and tunnels, and follows First Nations paddling routes.
• The multi-use trails are ideal for explorers on foot, bikes, horseback, canoes or kayaks, skis and snowmobiles.
• 80% of Canadians live within 30 minutes of the Trail.
• Imagined 25 years ago in 1992, the Trans Canada Trail is a not-for-profit organization.
• A mobile app, called The Great Trail – Explore Canada, offers three features:
  • A zoom in and out map, with self-locating GPS
  • A measure function which calculates distances from point to point
  • An activity tracker which reports the time, elevation and distance travelled.

Louise Arbour contributed to peace by her work in the field of justice, bringing justice for those maltreated by their governments#Canada150

Louise Arbour has served on the Supreme Court of Ontario, the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. Following the chairing of an inquiry into conditions at the Prison for Women in Kingston, she worked for three years as the United Nations Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

Arbour secured the first conviction for genocide since the 1948 Genocide Convention (Rwanda) and the first-ever indictment for war crimes by a sitting European head of state (Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic).

“Those on either side of the conflict who commit violations must be held accountable -not only the perpetrators but also those in command of forces which commit such acts may be subject to individual criminal responsibility before a court of law.”

We Are One Canada contributes to peace by teaching Canadian children words in Arabic to welcome Syrian refugees to our country.#Canada150

Founded by ten year-old Benjamin from Mississauga, Ontario, We Are One Canada offers a website for Canadian children to learn Arabic words of welcome to speak to newly arrived Syrian refugee children.  Ben has a passion for social justice and has experienced communication difficulties of his own.  Benjamin is on the Autism Spectrum, and despite some challenges he has faced (or perhaps because of them), he has a desire to encourage people to break through communication barriers and treat all people with respect and tolerance.  He believes that we are ALL equal, and sometimes people need to make a little extra effort to help others feel included.

“Sometimes it takes time and effort to be inclusive, but we have to try.  Let’s remove the barriers.”

All are welcome to watch Benjamin & friends’ basic arabic learning videos at  weareonecanada.ca.

Back in the spring of 2016, we got the chance to interview Benjamin for CFRC Radio in Kingston. See the full story here. 

Eva Marszewski contributed to peace through efforts promoting a restorative approach to preventing and addressing youth conflicts.

She was the founder of the group Peacebuilders in 2002 as the action plan of youths and adults who were conflict resolution trainers and practitioners from Bosnia, Canada, Colombia, Jamaica, Macedonia, Northern Ireland, South Africa and the United States. Their vision was to promote respectful, equal relationships based on positive values despite ethnic, religious, or other differences. They decided to use Talking Circles as their core methodology to include diverse participants and give them an equal voice.

In 2004 the Peacemaking Circles Pilot Project was launched with funding from the Law Foundation of Ontario. In 2006, she established Peacebuilders International (Canada), known as “Peacebuilders,” as the Canadian Charity that would continue Peacebuilders International’s mission and vision. With funding from Justice Canada, Peacebuilders launched the Youth Circles project, a restorative justice clinic that works with youths from priority neighborhoods across Toronto.

Since April 2009, Peacebuilders’ own fundraising has supported the Youth Circles Program and the development of additional programs that have led to partnerships with schools, jails, and various community organizations, as well as the establishment of the very first restorative justice clinic in Toronto.

Eva E. Marszewski is currently an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.  She was the recipient of the prestigious Law Society Medal from the Law Society of Upper Canada, the YMCA Peace Medallion in 2006, the Canadian Congress on Criminal Justices’ Crime Prevention Award in 2007, the Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice Through Law in 2009, became a Fellow of the Ashoka Foundation in 2010 and on October 3, 2013, became the first recipient of the Roy McMurtry Community Service Award. Eva was most recently awarded the 2015 Order of Ontario.

Jack Sissons contributed to peace by incorporating Inuit tradition into his work in the Court of the Northwest Territories.#Canada150

Justice Sissons spent a good part of his Judicial career administering justice in small communities in the Northwest Territories and was a staunch supporter of the rights of Native and Inuit peoples. He was Judge of the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories, 16 September 1955 – 15 July 1966.

[Legal Archives Society of Alberta]

Judge Sissons was called Ekoktoegee or “The one who listens to things”.  Judge Jack Sissons traveled by aircraft and dog sled holding trials in remote communities. He was a legend to the Inuit people as he was able to integrate the law with their traditional practices. His views were not always popular with the bureaucracy, but were admired by the people he served.

It is believed that his twice yearly circuits would total nearly 64,000 km. He hired an Inuit soft stone carver to make a carving of each prominent murder case he presided over.  He was inspired to do this when he ruled in favour of traditional justice in the case of a young boy who presented him with a soapstone carving after the trial. These carvings are on display in the Yellowknife Court House.

Walter Seymour Allward (d. April 24, 1955) contributed to peace through his design of the famous Vimy Monument in France. #Canada150

Known as “Allward of Vimy,” Walter Allward gained his reputation largely on the basis of the mammoth Canadian Battlefields Memorial in Vimy, France (1922-36), that commemorated the important Battle of Vimy Ridge (April 1917) and the over 11,000 Canadians listed as missing in action during the First World War.

Allward’s early work included the figure of “Peace” on the North-West Rebellion Monument in Queen’s Park, Toronto (1895). His reputation well established, Allward’s real talent lay in his heroic monuments.  He won the Vimy commission in 1921 and moved to London, England, the following year, where he set up a studio. He made regular trips to Vimy over the next several years. The Vimy Memorial was unveiled 26 July 1936 by King Edward VIII in the presence of 6,000 Canadians who had travelled to witness the event.