Photo (at left) of presentation of award by Alex Neve O.C., Chairperson, Canadian Leadership for Nuclear Disarmament to the Hon. Douglas J. Roche O.C. on October 23, 2025.
The video of this presentation and the lecture by Doug Roche can be found: here
“I was 16 when the atomic bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I remember Gandhi, Churchill and JFK. I was first elected to Parliament a few days before Lester Pearson died and sat in the House of Commons a few rows behind John Diefenbaker. I’ve been through Trudeau, twice. Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien all deeply affected the course of my life. I’m not much attached to politics these days, but I’m here. Perhaps I’m still hanging around because I love this beautiful and troubled planet so much and am not in a particular hurry to leave it.”
…
‘This theme of common security became, and stayed, the central tenet of my political life even though the major governments cast cooperation aside in the post- 9/11 world. The 1990s presented a golden moment to solidify a peace dividend for the world. But it never happened. NATO began its fateful expansion. The military-industrial complex, which President Eisenhower had first warned about, increased its dominance of American politics. Global military spending has increased every year for the past decade and in 2024 exceeded $2.7 trillion. Think about the contradiction the political order is foisting on us. The total amount of money countries annually spend on arms is now 750 times what they spend on the U.N…”
The full lecture has been published as a CIPS Policy Brief and is: here.
The full lecture has been published as a CIPS Policy Brief and is: here.
