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Correspondence with government

Canadian Pugwash Group Submission to GAC Consultation on a Feminist Foreign Policy

Posted on November 26, 2020editor

Global Affairs Canada is conducting a consultation on what should be contained in the “Feminist Foreign Policy” that the Government has promised to produce. Here is the CPG submission to this consultation.

The Canadian Pugwash Group (CPG) is a civil society organization dedicated to responding to existential threats to humanity via harnessing science broadly understood. We welcome the opportunity to provide input into this consultation and our brief will address issues which we believe merit particular attention in formulating a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP): i) conceptual understanding; ii) conflict prevention; iii) disarmament; and iv) peacekeeping.

Conceptual Understanding:

It is important that a FFP is situated in a broader context of an approach to peace and security defined by the concepts of sustainability and commonality. This in turn is rooted in active commitments to a rules-based international system, the peaceful settlement of disputes, global cooperation, respect for human rights and a security concept that places the security of humans at its core. A FFP should progress beyond the focus on increasing the participation of women in conflict resolution and peace operations, to devise policies that promote sustainable peace and common security. In this way the threats to women and girls as well as humans generally can be mitigated or eliminated.

Conflict Prevention:

The prevention of conflict should be prioritized in a FFP over the management of conflict. Government funding should prioritize support for diplomatic and civil society conflict prevention over military expenditure. Greater investment needs to be made in developing effective responses to indicators of imminent violence. Canada in concert with like-minded countries and partners in civil society should work on a variety of tools for early intervention into situations that threaten organized violence. Support for monitoring mechanisms that can warn of impeding crises could be one dimension of a conflict prevention strategy. A FFP should provide for robust mediation capacities which can be deployed to seek peaceful settlements of disputes before they boil over.

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Canada must acknowledge our key role in developing the deadly atomic bomb

Posted on August 1, 2020Setsuko Thurlow

The Globe and Mail, 1 August 2020. Setsuko Thurlow is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group.

On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, the largest bell in the Peace Tower at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa will ring 75 times to mark the dropping of the two atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The arrangement was made by the Green Party’s Elizabeth May and Canada’s Speaker of the House, Liberal MP Anthony Rota. The bell ringing by the Dominion carillonneur Andrea McCrady will be livestreamed by the Peace Tower Carillon website so that it may be heard across Canada and around the world.

As someone who witnessed and experienced the consequences of nuclear war, I very often have brutal images in my mind of the atomic bombing.

As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, I witnessed my city of Hiroshima blinded by the flash, flattened by the hurricane-like blast, incinerated in the heat of 4,000 degrees and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb. A bright summer morning turned to dark twilight with smoke and dust rising in the mushroom cloud, dead and injured covering the ground, begging desperately for water and receiving no medical care. The spreading firestorm and the foul stench of burnt flesh filled the air.

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Letter to Justin Trudeau re the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)

Posted on April 8, 2020editor

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
7 April 2020

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

The organizations below urge that Canada renew its commitment to UN peacekeeping, in particular through a substantive contribution to the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

This is a crucial time for MINUSMA. The UN Department of Peace Operations has announced new mission requirements to implement the Force Adaptation Plan. That Plan calls for certain capabilities that Canada is well positioned to offer. This includes helicopters (both Chinooks and Griffons, that Canada provided once before), monitoring capabilities, and rapidly deployable units. At a time when MINUSMA is under practical and financial pressures, Canada can help achieve the mission’s important objectives, which include buttressing a still-fragile peace process, supporting democratic governance in Mali, blunting the influence of terrorist groups and spoilers, strengthening national police capacities, and (not least) protecting civilians.

A contribution at this crucial time would help show that Canadian support for peacekeeping is constant and dependable, long-term and not episodic. We are encouraged by the Government of Canada’s often expressed support for multilateralism and a rules-based international order (RBIO). We assert that the surest way to create a better and sustained RBIO is through a well-functioning UN system. Canada pioneered the concept of peacekeeping forces and needs now to support it. As Lester B. Pearson said in his Nobel peace prize speech in 1957:

“We made at least a beginning then. If, on that foundation, we do not build something more permanent and stronger, we will once again have ignored realities, rejected opportunities, and betrayed our trust. Will we never learn?”

Canada did learn and, for four decades, continuously provided about 1,000 uniformed personnel for UN peacekeeping. If Canada is not able to renew to such a level, at least it can reach the numbers your government promised in 2016: up to 600 military personnel and 150 police officers. Furthermore, at the 2017 Vancouver ministerial, Canada pledged a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) for UN service but has yet to fulfil that promise. The QRF would make a substantial contribution to MINUSMA.

A renewed Canadian contribution to UN peacekeeping would support Canada’s bid for a Security Council seat.

We recognize that these are uniquely challenging times for Canada and the world. We urge that Canada make provision for a renewed personnel commitment to the peace support operation in Mali, including with the pledged but yet to be registered QRF. Canada can be quick and committed.

Thank you for considering this.

Sincerely,

Artistes pour la Paix
Prof. Pierre Jasmin jasmin.pierre@uqam.ca

Canadian Pugwash Group
Paul Meyer, Chair pmeyer@sfu.ca

Project Ploughshares
Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director cjaramillo@ploughshares.ca

Rideau Institute
Peggy Mason, President pmason@rideauinstitute.ca

World Federalist Movement – Canada
Prof. Walter Dorn, National President walter.dorn@rmc.ca

Letter to Hon. Chrystia Freeland re Recommendation 21

Posted on October 9, 2018Peggy Mason

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland,
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
125 Sussex Drive, |
Ottawa ON K1A 0G2
Email: chrystia.freeland@international.gc.ca

9 October 2018.

Dear Minister Freeland,

As President of the Rideau Institute and on behalf of the civil society organizations listed below, I am writing today in regards to Recommendation 21 of the unanimous report1 on Canada and NATO, tabled by the Standing Committee on National Defence on 18 June 2018. That recommendation reads:

Recommendation 21

That the Government of Canada take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving the NATO goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons. That this initiative be undertaken on an urgent basis in view of the increasing threat of nuclear conflict flowing from the renewed risk of nuclear proliferation, the deployment of so-called tactical nuclear weapons, and changes in nuclear doctrines regarding lowering the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons by Russia and the US.

The National Defence Committee has identified a constructive and timely approach for Canada to begin a long-overdue conversation within NATO on how to move away from the nightmare of mutually-assured destruction toward the vision of sustainable common security grounded in the UN Charter.

As we conveyed in a separate letter to the NDDN Committee Chair, Stephen Fuhr, this pragmatic and forward-looking recommendation also reflects a proud, but too-long neglected, tradition of collaborative parliamentary work in support of Canadian leadership in global efforts for nuclear disarmament.

The ball is now in your court, Madame Minister, to ensure that our government rises to the challenge.

Accordingly, through you, we call upon the Government of Canada to respond positively and promptly to this recommendation, including sharing its vision for realizing this work within NATO. This could include, in our view, identifying which NATO body should be tasked and which other NATO members Canada might cooperate with in advancing this important and urgent work.

Very sincerely,
Peggy Mason,
President, Rideau Institute

Alphabetical List of Supporting National Organizations

  • Canadian Peace Initiative, Chairperson Saul Arbess
  • Canadian Pugwash Group, Chair Paul Meyer
  • Group of 78, Chair Roy Culpeper
  • Project Ploughshares, Exec Director Cesar Jaramillo
  • Religions for Peace Canada, President Pascale Frémond
  • Rideau Institute, President Peggy Mason
  • Science for Peace, Rob Acheson
  • Soka Gakkai International Association of Canada (SGI), General Director Tony Meers
  • World Federalist Movement – Canada, Exec Director Fergus Watt

1 Please note that the focus of this letter is only Recommendation 21. We take issue with other aspects of the report, such as the regrettable failure to call for NATO to adopt an unequivocal No First Use of nuclear weapons policy, but that is not the subject of this letter.

Letter to the Standing Committee on National Defence, re Recommendation 21

Posted on October 9, 2018Peggy Mason

Stephen Fuhr Chair,
House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence,
Sixth Floor, 131 Queen Street
House of Commons
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6;
email: NDDN@parl.gc.ca

Attn: Stephen Fuhr, Chair, Stephen.Fuhr@parl.gc.ca
cc. Vice-Chair James Bezan, james.bezan@parl.gc.ca
and Vice-Chair Randall Garrison, Randall.Garrison@parl.gc.ca

9 October 2018.

Dear Chairman Fuhr,

In my role as President of the Rideau Institute and on behalf of the civil society organizations listed below, I wish to congratulate the Standing Committee on National Defence for Recommendation 21 of your report1 on Canada and NATO, tabled in the House of Commons on 18 June 2018, quoted herewith:

Recommendation 21

That the Government of Canada take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving the NATO goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons. That this initiative be undertaken on an urgent basis in view of the increasing threat of nuclear conflict flowing from the renewed risk of nuclear proliferation, the deployment of so-called tactical nuclear weapons, and changes in nuclear doctrines regarding lowering the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons by Russia and the US.

This pragmatic and forward-looking recommendation reflects a proud, but too-long neglected, tradition of collaborative parliamentary work in support of Canadian leadership in global efforts for nuclear disarmament.

We have today also written to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, encouraging the Government of Canada to respond positively and promptly to the Committee’s recommendation including sharing its vision for realizing this work within NATO. This could include, in our view, identifying which NATO body should be tasked and which other NATO members Canada might cooperate with in advancing this important and urgent work.

Once again, we thank you and the Committee you chair for your important and timely contribution to global efforts, both at the government and non-governmental level, to begin to move us back from the nuclear brink onto the firmer ground of negotiated reductions, mutual confidence building and, ultimately, the realization of verifiable and irreversible nuclear disarmament.

Very sincerely,
Peggy Mason
President, Rideau Institute

Alphabetical List of Supporting National Organizations

  • Canadian Peace Initiative, Chairperson Saul Arbess
  • Canadian Pugwash Group, Chair Paul Meyer
  • Group of 78, Chair Roy Culpeper
  • Project Ploughshares, Exec Director Cesar Jaramillo
  • Religions for Peace Canada, President Pascale Frémond
  • Rideau Institute, President Peggy Mason
  • Science for Peace, Rob Acheson
  • Soka Gakkai International Association of Canada (SGI), General Director Tony Meers
  • World Federalist Movement – Canada, Exec Director Fergus Watt

1 Please note that the focus of this letter is only Recommendation 21. We take issue with other aspects of the report, such as the regrettable failure to call for NATO to adopt an unequivocal No First Use of nuclear weapons policy, but that is not the subject of this letter.

CPG Conference, July 2017: Recommendations to the Government of Canada

Posted on August 20, 2017editor

The Canadian Pugwash Group (CPG) held a conference entitled “Canada’s Contribution to Global Security”, July 23-25 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The conference commemorated the 150th anniversary of Confederation as well as the 60th anniversary of the international Pugwash movement. The focus of the conference was the current and future contribution Canada could make to global security and to countering existential threats to humanity.

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