Below you’ll find Richard Sandbrook’s Globe & Mail op-ed on nonviolent defence as well as letters published commenting on the piece. Hopefully this will be one of many more such discussions. Note: Richard’s book, The Citizens Guide to Nonviolent Defence, will be available in November, 2026.

CC member Basir Bita writes:
Dear friends,

I am writing because I know that many of you care deeply about social change, peace, human rights, and the protection of our environment. One person who has demonstrated that commitment is Zain Haq, a young climate activist who took nonviolent action to protect British Columbia’s remaining old-growth forests.

Below is a 15/10/26 letter to Jeyan Jeganathan of TVO’s The Rundown. May it inspire more such letters!

Hello Jeyan,

Last evening we watched the topic “Is Canada’s Military Ready for a More Dangerous World?” 
I was concerned with your interview of Ann Fitz-Gerald from the Balsillie School of International Affairs. I was troubled by her use of the term “deter” as in we need to have this “Defence, Security and Resilience Bank” to invest in deterrence. I was expecting you to ask her what she meant by deterrence but it never happened. I find this to be a problem on other news programs where it is just assumed that Canada needs to spend $ billions on “deterrence” as is being planned by the Federal Liberal government under PM Mark Carney – actually up to 5% of GDP or $150 billion every single year by the 2030’s. 

It was only recently that the CC board found a joint open letter: Canada, oppose U.S. threats to rights, sovereignty and peace in Venezuela and the Americas (Nov. 2025) from the APGOPA (Americas Policy Group/Groupe d’orientation politique pour les Amériques). I’m grateful that this coalition was speaking out then, but discouraged that, in the “mainstream” there seems to be so few efforts to prevent the erosion of human rights, peace and justice. Then I heard the CBC Ideas episode with Sudanese journalist Yousra Elbagir, who spoke of the failure of the international community to protect people in Sudan and what that has meant on the ground. She explained that as right wing groups in countries like Canada focus almost exclusively on issues of short term material benefit, governments no longer seem willing to work to support human rights and international law. Sending UN peacekeeping missions to places where genocide was a threat didn’t bring an end to the threats but at least it mitigated those threats somewhat.

Depuis 2008 plusieurs groupes on tenté de forcer le blocus du gouvernement israélien contre Gaza. L’organisme médiatique Pivot a publié une entrevue avec Nimâ Machouf, professeure épidémiologiste québécoise qui a participé à l’action non-violente de la Global Sumud Flotilla . Elle explique une raison principale de sa participation : “le travail que nous faisons actuellement, ce sont les gouvernements qui devraient le faire, et étant donné que les gouvernements ne le font pas, on est obligé nous, humanitaires, personnel de santé, et journalistes, de le faire et de s’aventurer en mer pour éventuellement pouvoir briser le siège de Gaza.” Selon La Presse elle a été arrêtée avec d’autres membres de la flottille le 7 octobre : https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2025-10-08/flottille-pour-gaza/nima-machouf-avait-peur-mais-refusait-de-se-resoudre-a-l-indifference.php.

En cette époque où les médias peuvent être considérés une arme c’est encourageant de prendre connaissance de Pivot qui offre un journalisme rigoureux, sans prétendre à la neutralité; la “neutralité” signifie, souvent, un parti pris pour le statu quo.

In times like this, song can do some magic. How about Scott Cook’s Pass It Along? or the story of Danes coming out into the streets to sing together, after the Nazis invaded? or Holly Near’s Singing for Our Lives? 

Are there songs you’d like to share? Please do, in the comments, below.

Pass It Along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9X6rIm-RkI

A Force More Powerful (Denmark, Poland, Chile):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM695veBSUU&t=10s

Holly Near’s Singing for Our Lives : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=johabhyURIw

Montreal for a World BEYOND War opposes the proposed NSDF

– by Cymry Gomery, Coordinator, Montreal chapter of World BEYOND War
On February 5th and 6th in Ottawa, the third legal challenge to the construction of the nuclear waste disposal facility (NSDF) will be heard in Federal Court at the Supreme Court of Canada.
These legal challenges were launched by Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, who argue that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada should never have issued a permit for the NSDF, and ask that it be withdrawn.
Montreal for a World BEYOND War would like to submit this statement to the Court on this occasion.

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With the sobering reality of Trump set to become president, I [Jan] felt a need to connect with others. What follows might serve as an opening for “being together” in this time.

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So, species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate (the 6th Mass Extinction) and we face the virtual certainty of the end of civilization as we know it (the end of things like pensions, Medicare, garbage services, etc.) and the Canadian government is under intense pressure to “deliver a concrete plan next month to raise defence spending to meet NATO’s benchmark”. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-spending-trudeau-joly-business-council-canada-1.7231776?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar  (I [Jan S] could expound on the hypocrisy of the Business Council of Canada’s stance…!)

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