Below is an excerpt from the letter that Pax Christi Toronto (Catholics for Peace) sent to Prime Minister Harper:

Violence has repeatedly proven inadequate and unacceptable in dealing with social and political issues. Violence not only fails to solve conflict but exacerbates and escalates it, and it serves to perpetuate injustices. We must adopt attitudes in political life governed by respect for others, for human life, and for local communities in areas of conflict.

With a focused Department of Peace, Canada can work with global partners to divert, de-escalate, and avoid violent conflict around the world. This is the role we want for our country on the world stage. Establishment of the tools and mechanisms for building peace will enable us to work towards a just and compassionate society in collaboration with others in our global community.

As stated in the Department of Peace Initiative, the Minister of Peace in Cabinet would provide the vital coordination of Canada’s peace-related activities and develop policy aimed at achieving true security based on global social, economic, and ecological justice.

Thomson provides a checklist of practical ways to challenge militarism. They include:

“Advocate for a Department of Peace that puts peace, the environment, and disarmament priorities into foreign policy and seeks to train thousands of youth and others in conflict resolution, in Canada or elsewhere.”

Tony Meers, the Executive Director, states that that SGI is very happy to work with CPA (formerly CDPI), “united in our resolve to achieve global peace and… that someday soon Canada will join with those nations that have established a ministry or department of peace.”

In 1988, SGI President Diasaku Ikeda made a proposal to the UN calling on all countries to establish a ministry of peace as a far-sighted initiative to foster a global current of popular opinion for disarmament.

“It’s high time for humanity to grow up and understand in practice that we are one people living in one world! Let Canada resume the moral credibility leadership it once had in the “free” world by being the first G8 country to establish a Department of Peace! My grandfather Lester B. Pearson would strongly support such an endeavour; I have no doubt.”

The Muslim Coordinating Council of the National Capital Region, which has 40 member organizations devoted to serving our community and our country, strongly supports the creation of a Canadian Department of Peace.

In a world that is being devastated by wars, violence, conflicts and violations of human rights, we urgently need leadership that can meet the challenge through wisdom, goodwill, compassion, respect for others and loyalty to the fundamental principles of human rights, justice and dignity without discrimination and political considerations.

Canada, with its diversity, history of accommodation and respect throughout the world, is ideally suited to participate in this exercise, and indeed to take a leadership role. We need a professional institution within Canada that will enable Canada to boldly assume the leadership in treating the root causes of frustration, despair, hopelessness and ultimately conflict. We have to build a culture of peace, justice, mutual respect, dignity and trust as an intrinsic part of our democratic principles and practices within Canada and abroad. We have to build a better world for ourselves and our coming generations. We have to replace despair with hope.

Given the continued conflicts in the world, and poverty, misery and environmental degradation we have to work vigorously for nuclear disarmament and the elimination of all means of mass destruction. We must foster cooperation among professional, peace activists, human rights workers, various governmental departments and the common people throughout Canada under the creative leadership of a Canadian Department of Peace.

Canada must not fail our coming generations, and the world.

Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan, President

Muslim Coordinating Council of the National Capital Region

“Years hence, when every country has a Ministry of Peace, people will look back and ask: ‘What took us so long?’ After all, we have a ministry for almost everything else: health, education and so on. How odd that, of all things, we have no ministries of peace. Peace is the key to accomplishing the rest.

 Peace is the global imperative. The huge challenges we face will not be resolved through aggression. Aggression got us into this global crisis in the first place. Now, even the survival of the biosphere is under threat. We are not going pull back from this catastrophe by using the very same mindset and methods that bought us to this brink. Nor is this a crisis we can resolve through good wishes alone. We need a coordinated global plan which will bring together the brightest minds, the best plans and the most gifted leadership. The backbone of that plan will be the Ministries of Peace.”

The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche,

Spiritual Leader, Shambhala International

QUESTION: What are your thoughts on the movement to establish Ministries and Departments of Peace in governments worldwide?

TUTU: It’s an extraordinary idea and, it fills one with a great deal of excitement and exhilaration, and it sounds crazy, but then I think it was crazy when Gandhi said we’re going to work so that eventually India is free. It must have been crazy when Martin Luther King Jr. also said we’re going to make civil rights a real issue in the United States, and maybe when Nelson Mandela and others said one day apartheid will be no more, that we need those like yourselves who dream dreams and say, “It is possible. It is possible for people to know that war is not natural.”
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Until very recently, many people felt that disagreements and conflicts between nations and communities could only be resolved through war or the threat of force. Although everyone wishes to live in peace, we are often confused about how it can be achieved. Violence inevitably leads to more violence. It is not the solution – certainly not in the long term. Today, more and more people realise that the proper way of resolving differences is through dialogue, compromise and discussions, through human understanding and humility. There is a growing appreciation that genuine peace comes about through mutual understanding, respect and trust.
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