The Council of Canadians Victoria chapter will be attending the ‘Provincial Peace and Disarmament Summit’ at the University of Victoria on May 12-13.
Chapter activist Barbara Pollock tells us, “The Victoria chapter is participating with the Raging Grannies in a workshop at the summit.”
The promotion for the gathering highlights, “This provincial summit aims to inspire action for a culture of peace and nonviolence and policies for disarmament. Themes: Canadian foreign policy and defence policy, nuclear disarmament, gender and militarism, peace education, art and activism!”
The keynote speaker at the summit will be Jamie Swift, co-author of The Vimy Trap: or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War. The outreach notes, “This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge [and] Swift provides a critical examination at Canada’s participation in the bloody First World War and challenges the myth that Canada came of age by war-fighting.”
Other featured speakers include former Canadian Navy sailor Nicola Peffers. In December 2016, CBC reported, “Peffers was based at CFB Esquimault, beginning in 2008. She left the forces in 2012. [She] is launching a proposed class-action lawsuit against the Canadian Armed Forces, alleging rampant sexual misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the military. …Peffers alleged she was punished after she failed to comply with sexual demands of a superior. The former sailor said she filed complaints ‘through all the proper channels’ but those complaints were not answered.”
Another featured speaker is Bill Geimer, trial attorney and author of Canada: The Case for Staying Out of Other People’s Wars. Promotion for that book notes, “Presented as a case laid out at trial, the arguments outline a new vision and challenge the prevailing myth that Canada came of age on the world stage at Vimy Ridge during the Great War. The evidence presented contains the stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians from every Canadian war, and it traces unexamined factors that have produced foolish wars and a failure to enhance security–a failure that governments of all stripes have been unwilling to admit.”
For more information on the summit, please click here.