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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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NGOs contribute to peace by addressing education, poverty, equality, and environmental concerns around the world.
NGO stands for non-governmental organization. These Not-for-profit organizations have a great social impact in education, children’s lives, poverty reduction, women and girls, animals, arts and culture, the environment, peace, empowerment at home and abroad.
They are charitable organizations promoting sustainability and harmony between people, animals and nature.
Many NGOs are often entrepreneurial in solving local problems in some of the world’s toughest communities. They focus on existing projects to improve access to education or health care, create jobs or build safer homes in developing countries. They believe that local leaders understand the unique challenges of their communities and with assistance are the most effective.
The Red Cross and Development and Peace are examples of international NGOs; Operation Dismantle and PeaceQuest are examples of peace NGOs, The David Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace of environmental NGOs. Other examples are: KAIROS, Ten Thousand Villages, ACORN Canada, World Vision, and all kinds of philanthropy connections etc., etc.
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Antonine Maillet contributed to peace by chronicling the expulsion of Acadians in 1735 in The Great Upheaval. #Canada150
Antonine Maillet, novelist, playwright, translator and scholar was born in 1929 in Bouctouche, NB .
A prolific writer of more than a dozen plays and almost 20 novels, Maillet published her second play, Poire-Acre, and first novel, Pointe-aux-Coques, in 1958. Her works celebrate the dialect and heritage of the Acadian people. Maillet’s renown coincides with an Acadian cultural revival, a renewed sense of Acadian cultural distinctiveness and pride. As the author herself says, to recognize her works is to recognize the people to whom she belongs.
She earned a BA (1950) from the Collège Notre-Dame d’Acadie, an MA (1959) from the Université de Moncton, and a PhD in literature from Université Laval in 1970. She taught literature and folklore at Laval. She has also taught at the Université de Montréal, the University of California, Berkeley, the University at Albany, State University of New York, and the Université de Moncton. She has worked for CBC Radio-Canada in Moncton.
After the success of her play La Sagouine (1971; tr. 1979) and the novel Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979), which charts the triumphant return home of the Acadian people after the 1755 expulsion, Maillet dominated contemporary Acadian literature. The latter won the Prix Goncourt, bringing her fame in France, where it sold over one million copies. Maillet has famously remarked that with the publication of the novel she “avenged [her] ancestors.” Maillet’s imaginary universe is rooted in the geography, history and people of Acadia. Her novels, often reworked for the theatre, fuse adventure, desire, frustration, agony and joy to offer a new image of the original Acadia, restructured to fit an epic vision. She
Among her honours and awards:
Prix Champlain ((1961)
Governor General’s Award (1972)
Grand prix du livre de Montréal (1973)
Prix France-Canada (1975)
Prix des Volcans (France, 1975)
Prix littéraire de La Presse (Québec, 1976)
Officer of the Order of Canada (1976)
Prix des Quatre Jurys (1978)
Prix Goncourt (France, 1979)
Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques (France, 1980)
Lorne Pierce Medal, Royal Society of Canada (1980)
Companion of the Order of Canada (1981)
Médaille Gloire de l’Escolle (1981)
Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Pléiade (Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie) (1981)
Ordre des francophones d’Amérique (1984)
Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1985)
Officierde l’Ordre national du Québec (1990)
Grands Montréalais (1991)
Officier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur (France, 2004)
Order of New Brunswick (2005)
Prix Hommage 2010, Soirée des prix Éloizes (Acadie, 2010)
Antonine Maillet has received honourary degrees from more than 30 universities in Canada and internationally.
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Naomi Klein, activist, author and filmmaker contributed to peace by influencing mainstream discussion of capitalism and globalization. #Canada 150
Newsweek acclaimed Klein as one of the World’s Most Influential Women in 2010. She was born in Montreal on May 8, 1970, and brought up in a Jewish family of peace activists. Her American parents were Vietnam War resisters that moved to Montreal in 1967. Her mother, Bonnie Klein, a documentary film maker is best known for her anti-pornography documentary “Not a Love Story.” Her father, Michael, a medical doctor, is a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her brother, Seth, is director of the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Klein’s husband, Avi Lewis, (son of Stephen Lewis, politician and diplomate to the UN and journalist and activist, Michelle Landsberg), is also an activist and documentary filmmaker.
As a young teenager, Naomi was caught up in consumerism and designer labels, and was embarrassed with her mother’s strong feminist views. Then her mother had a stroke and became severely disabled. Naomi’s life changed as she and her family cared for her mother. When she entered university in 1989, the Ecole Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students proved a wake-up call to feminism.
Her writing career began, with contributions to U of T’s student newspaper, The Varsity, where she served as editor-in-chief. Eventually she left academia for journalism. Her first book No Logo, published in 2000, became for many a manifesto in opposition to the corporate globalization movement. In it, she attacks brand-oriented consumer culture and the operations of large corporations. She also accused several corporations of unethically exploiting workers in the world’s poorest countries in pursuit of greater profits. It became an international best seller, selling over a million copies in 28 languages. Her next book, Fences and Windows (2002) is a collection of her articles and speeches written on behalf of the anti-globalization movement.
Naomi and her husband, Avi Lewis made a documentary film called “The Take” (2004) about factory workers in Argentina who took over a closed plant and resumed production, operating as a collective.
Her third book, TheShock Doctrine, The Rise of Disastrous Capitalism, (2007) became a New York Time best seller, translated into 28 languages. Central to the book’s thesis is the contention that those who wish to implement unpopular policies now routinely do so by taking advantage of certain features of the aftermath of major disasters, be they economic, political, military or natural. The suggestion is that when a society experiences a major ‘shock’ there is a widespread desire for a rapid and decisive response to correct the situation; this desire for bold and immediate action provides an opportunity for unscrupulous actors to implement policies which go far beyond a legitimate response to disaster. The book suggests that when the rush to act means the specifics of a response will go un-scrutinized, that is the moment when unpopular and unrelated policies will intentionally be rushed into effect. The book posits that these shocks are in some cases intentionally encouraged or even manufactured. The Shock Doctrine was adapted into a short film of the same name.
Since 2009, Klein’s attention has turned to environmentalism, with particular focus on climate change. Klein’s fourth book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate was published in September 2014. The book puts forth the argument that the power of neoliberal market fundamentalism is blocking any serious reforms to halt climate change and protect the environment. The book won the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Then in 2015 with Jason Box, Naomi wrote, Why a Climate Deal is the Best Hope for Peace.
Since This Changes Everything was published, Klein’s primary focus has been on putting its ideas into action. She is one of the organizers and authors of Canada’s Leap Manifesto, a blueprint for a rapid and justice-based transition off fossil fuels. The Leap has been endorsed by over 200 organizations, tens of thousands of individuals, and has inspired similar climate justice initiatives around the world.
Klein is a member of the board of directors for climate-action group 350.org, and took part in their “Do the Math” tour in 2013, encouraging a divestment movement. In 2015, she was invited to speak at the Vatican to help launch Pope Francis’s historic encyclical on ecology, Laudato si’.
In 2017, Klein became Senior Correspondent for The Intercept. She is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and contributor to the Nation Magazine. Recent articles have also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, the London Review of Books and Le Monde.
Awards and Honours:
International Studies Association’s IPE Outstanding Activist-Scholar Award 2014
Sydney Peace Prize
Holds multiple honourary degrees
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Cyrus Eaton, a banker- philanthropist, contributed to peace by sponsoring and organizing Pugwash Conferences on World Peace. #Canada150
Cyrus Stephen Eaton was born on December 27, 1883 on a farm near the village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia. After graduating from McMaster University where he studied philosophy and finance, he became one of the most influential, powerful and sometimes controversial financiers in the American Midwest. However, for decades he was also known for his passion for world peace and for his outspoken criticism of United States Cold War policy.
In July 9, 1955 The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in London by Bertrand Russell in the midst of the Cold War. It highlighted the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflict. The signatories included eleven preeminent intellectuals and scientists, including Albert Einstein, who signed it just days before his death. A few days after the release, philanthropist Eaton offered to sponsor a conference, called for in the manifesto, in his birthplace, Pugwash, NS. This conference was to be the first of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, held in July 1957.
Eaton became dedicated to the quest for international friendship, disarmament and peace. He actively encouraging and promoting better trade relations between the United States and members of the Communist bloc, and by financed and supported international venues for friendly discussion about peace and nuclear disarmament.
By the time Richard Nixon became President, Cyrus Eaton and others had so influenced the political climate in the United States that not only did Nixon seek peace with North Vietnam, but laws and public policy resisting trade and cultural communications between American businessmen and Communistic countries were being changed in favour of detente, mutual cooperation on important international issues and an easing of military tensions. This was also a period when, despite bitterness and setbacks, progress was being made in the objectives first established at Pugwash Conferences supported and financed by Cyrus Eaton, objectives such as mutual curtailments in nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere and negotiations leading to the first agreements on nuclear disarmament and international teams of inspection.
In recognition of his efforts to bring scientists and other public figures from the East and West together for discussion at the Pugwash Conferences, the Soviet Union awarded him a Lenin Peace Prize in 1960. Since Cyrus Eaton`s death an International Student/Young Pugwash Group have continued his efforts for international friendship and understanding among the youth.
The Conferences have now brought peacemakers together for over 60 years. Pugwash seeks a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Moving beyond rhetoric, the participants (now over 300 strong at Conferences) foster creative discussions on ways to increase the security of all sides in the affected regions.
Besides financial support for the peace conferences, Eaton gave money to support education in Nova Scotia, particularly in Pugwash and to Acadia University. He supported the establishment of a game sanctuary in Nova Scotia on the Aspotogan Peninsula. “Cyrus Eaton has been moved to care about education, and making the planet a vibrant and safe place to live, no matter what the particulars of the politics or philosophy you grew up with,” said Alice Guilk.
Eaton’s 1950s efforts at reconciliation with the Soviet Union won him the 1960 Lenin Peace prize. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958, and was the recipient of an honorary degree from Bowling Green State University in 1969. The Pugwash Conferences and their chairman Joseph Rotblat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
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