If you are feeling overwhelmed or helpless by wars killing hundreds of thousands of innocents and tearing our world apart, the military’s disastrous impact on the climate and if you care about Truth and Reconciliation consider supporting the cross-country On to Ottawa Peace Caravan (May 2024).

This is a call to action to bring Canadians together to talk about how we can create positive change in the face of these interconnected concerns and threats.

The Caravan leaves Vancouver on Mother’s Day from Grandview Park on Commercial Drive and Charles at 11 AM May 12 (from the east it leaves Halifax May 25) and arrives in Ottawa by May 28 for a peace rally and teach-in, the day before the huge CANSEC military arms fair.

We take our inspiration from the many national cross-country caravans. From the unemployed men who rode the rails in 1919 to Ottawa demanding bread and jobs. The Abortion Caravan where hundreds of women gathered on Parliament Hill calling for women’s rights to abortion. The Action Canada Network Caravan that focused attention on NAFTA, which cost thousands of workers their jobs. Gladys Radek and Bernie Skundahl, Indigenous women, walked to Ottawa in the Walk4 Justice campaign forcing the government to set up the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. In 2005, Gim Foon Wong’s cross-country motorcycle ride to Ottawa from the Redress Rally in Vancouver’s Chinatown exposing discrimination of early Chinese immigrants as part of the Chinese Head Tax movement

-The goal of the On to Ottawa Peace Caravan is to build a broad- based country-wide movement to demand that the Canadian government:

-Stop spending billions of dollars on the military and development of fossil fuels that massively contribute to the runaway climate crisis.

-Use taxpayers’ money to address urgent social needs such as housing, health, childcare, education, immigrants and refugees.

-Act on the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 Calls to Action and the 2SMMIWG 231 Calls for Justice.

–Join calls supporting ceasefires, UNRWA and support for the International Court of Justice; and initiate diplomatic and non- violence dialogue to end world conflicts.

Canadians must stand together with people around the world to call for peace, climate justice and support for human rights. If you agree, please join us on Mother’s Day in Vancouver or on the East Coast in Halifax , meet with us along the way, create a local event, or be in Ottawa on May 28 as we raise our collective voices.

See also: https://vowpeace.org/ & https://wilpfcanada.ca/