PBI honoured to join the Kamloops Walk for Peace, the Environment & Social Justice

Peace Brigades International-Canada was honoured to participate in the 45^th annual Kamloops Walk for Peace, the Environment and Social Justice on May 9^th.

More than 70 people gathered virtually to hear speeches, music, poetry, art instruction and reflections that highlighted the intersectionality between peace, Indigenous rights, environmental protection, disarmament and human rights.

We were glad to be able to join via Zoom from 4,000 kilometres away in Ottawa on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory.

We took the opportunity to invite participants in this Peace Walk 2020 to join the World Beyond War online Divest, Disarm, Demilitarize conference on May 28-30.

This will also be an important moment to share information and discuss pressing issues including: the federal government’s intention to spend $19+ billion on new fighter jets, Canada’s increasing arms exports, and how the pandemic has reaffirmed that true peace and security does not come from spending public funds on armaments.

We also highlighted the Canadian government’s campaign to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council on June 17^th.

We noted that while the federal government has spent $1.5 million to win this UN seat, it has not yet complied with the resolution from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to stop construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory until that nation has given its free, prior and informed consent for this extractive megaproject.

We then shared via the chat box on the Zoom call this Urgent Action weblink that enables people to send an email to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling on him to act immediately on that United Nations resolution.

We also quickly reflected that the virtual Peace walk fell on what would have been the 99^th birthday of Sophie Scholl. We recalled her determination to challenge militarism through non-violence. You can read more about Sophie here.

And we noted that the virtual walk also fell the day before Mother’s Day. You can read more about the original message of the women who proclaimed in the 1870s that Mother’s Day is a day to challenge war and militarism here.

A special thank you to Michael Crawford and the Kamloops chapter of the Council of Canadians for convening this beautiful and memorable gathering!