CO-SPONSORED BY WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM CANADA AND CANADIAN VOICE OF WOMEN FOR PEACE
Please check out our peace caravan schedule as we travel across the country. Join us at our stops! See the schedule here.
Join us in Ottawa on Monday, May 27 from 4:30-10:00 pm for a peace teach-in, music, speeches and films to learn more about demilitarization, decarbonization and decolonization. Come to our peace rally on Tuesday, May 28 at noon on Parliament Hill, 111 Wellington Street to bring our messages to the federal government that we want peace and an end to the wars. We want military spending to be cut and re-allocated to social and environmental programs. See our flyer for our activities on May 27 and May 28 in Ottawa here.
Please download and share our two-page handout for why it is so urgent that we mobilize and work collectively to put Canada on a path to peace
Please download and share our resources for articles, books and films related to peace, acting on climate justice and social justice, overcoming militarism, war and patriarchy and decolonization and reconciliation.
Read Tamara’s article, New defence update and federal budget recklessly put Canada on a warpath, which was published in the Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Record and Atlantic Saltwire News.
Read Tamara’s longer article in The Canada Files: Hyper-militarist defence policy update and federal budget put Canada on dangerous warpath
Dear Friends,
If you are feeling overwhelmed or helpless by wars killing hundreds of thousands of innocents and tearing our world apart, the military’s disastrous impact on the climate and if you care about Truth and Reconciliation consider joining the cross-country On to Ottawa Peace Caravan (May 2024).
This is a call to action to bring Canadians together to talk about the interconnectedness of these mounting issues that have caused the failure of the Canadian government to address our growing social problems.
The Caravan leaves Vancouver on Mother’s Day from Grandview Park on Commercial Drive and Charles at 11 AM May 12 (Halifax May 24) and arrives in Ottawa by May 28 for a peace rally and teach-in, the day before the huge CANSEC military arms fair.
We take our inspiration from the many national cross-country caravans. From the unemployed men who rode the rails in 1919 to Ottawa demanding bread and jobs. The Abortion Caravan where hundreds of women gathered on Parliament Hill calling for women’s rights to abortion. The Action Canada Network Caravan that focused attention on NAFTA, which cost thousands of workers their jobs. Gladys Radek and Bernie Skundahl, Indigenous women, walked to Ottawa in the Walk4 Justice campaign forcing the government to set up the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. In 2005, Gim Foon Wong’s cross-country motorcycle ride to Ottawa from the Redress Rally in Vancouver’s Chinatown exposing discrimination of early Chinese immigrants as part of the Chinese Head Tax movement
The goal of the On to Ottawa Peace Caravan is to build a broad- based country-wide movement to demand that the Canadian government:
Stop spending billions of dollars on the military and development of fossil fuels that massively contribute to the runaway climate crisis.
Use taxpayers’ money to address urgent social needs such as housing, health, childcare, education, immigrants and refugees.
Act on the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 Calls to Action and the 2SMMIWG 231 Calls for Justice.
Join calls supporting ceasefires, UNRWA and support for the International Court of Justice; and initiate diplomatic and non- violence dialogue to end world conflicts.
Canadians must stand together with people around the world to call for peace, climate justice and support for human rights. If you agree, please join us on Mother’s Day in Vancouver or on the East Coast in Halifax , meet with us along the way, create a local event, or be in Ottawa on May 28 as we raise our collective voices.
On behalf of the On to Ottawa Peace Caravan,
Ellen Woodsworth & Patsy George: Co-Chairs, WILPF Canada
Lyn Adamson & Hannah Hadikein: Co-Chairs, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace
Endorsed by:
World Beyond War Independent Jewish Voices Conscience Canada
For more information, donations or endorsements, contact wilpf.canada@gmail.com
