Big news - new website launched!
- Details
- Published on Monday, 24 April 2017 11:00
- Written by editor
We asked for your feedback and because of what we heard we're excited to be launching a new website: http://quakerconcern.ca!You can now read articles all the way through, no more flipping between pages in a PDF file. It will be easier to read Quaker Concern on different screens, especially tablets. This new site will also make it easier to share articles with your family and friends, and we hope you will. Now on to the Spring 2017 issue of Quaker Concern:
cc-by Tim Fritz
From National to Shared Security
By Matthew Legge
An historian at Trent University recently uncovered the fact that in 1951 the Prime Minister of Canada authorized a top secret surveillance program about which Parliament was kept in the dark. The program, code-named “Picnic”, involved spying on Canadians felt to be “subversive” for reasons including in some cases that they were homosexuals. In 1954, Canada’s involvement in the Korean War, which had resulted in special powers to create national security programs like Picnic, was over. Yet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) lobbied for, and won, the ability to maintain the “emergency” wiretapping program indefinitely. Even today Canada’s Privy Council Office refuses to release key information about the program. Read more.
Workshop participants Joy Morris, Harmony Morris, and Heidi Dick chart a path that would support implementation of Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action on justice issues. Photo credit: Sarah Chandler
Workshops on Penal Abolition
By Joy Morris
It’s been over 35 years since Canadian Quakers approved a Minute on abolishing prisons, reflecting that “the prison system is both a cause and a result of violence and social injustice,” while recognising a “need for [compassionate] restraint of those few who are exhibiting dangerous behaviour.” This concept remains shockingly radical in mainstream society. A typical initial reaction is fear. After all, we hear frightening stories of crime in the news on a daily basis. Read more.
CFSC supported a recent tour to Canada by Colombian Indigenous leader Luis Fernando, who came to raise awareness and make connections. Here he meets with Cree MP Romeo Saganash in Ottawa.
Common Ground of Indigenous Struggles in Colombia and Canada
By Heather Neun
There are striking parallels between Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Colombia. This is a hemisphere where efforts have been made since contact to eliminate Indigenous Peoples through policies of physical and cultural genocide. While there are clear differences, the shared experiences are of structural discrimination and destructive policies leading to marginalization, displacement, and barriers to obtaining title and effective control over ancestral territories. Read more.
The Doomsday Clock: Can it Help the World Disarm?
By Murray Thomson
Ten years ago I gave the annual Sunderland P. Gardner lecture at Canadian Yearly Meeting on the theme Toward a Culture of Peace: Can we afford to pay the price? It was a time, like today, when the human race faced a combination of threats to our very existence. The Cold War ended long ago, yet half the world’s population still lives under governments with nuclear weapons, many on hair trigger alert. More than $12 trillion has been spent on these instruments of mass murder. And Canada’s policies are shamefully contradictory. On the one hand, Canada says it favours efforts to reduce nuclear weapons. On the other, it supports the nine nuclear weapon policies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Those policies include the most heinous of them all: that nuclear weapons can be used on the population of another country first. Further, they must be maintained indefinitely, and can be used on non-nuclear weapon states. Read more.
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