Conscience Canada hopes some members and supporters will take the time to share their stories of conscience and nonviolence. We hope to be able to use some of them in our next newsletter, coming out in September. For more details, contact <janslakov at shaw.ca> or see our most recent newsletter, posted on this site.

One great source for such stories is a new book, Crossing the Line: Nonviolent Resisters Speak Out for Peace .

You can learn more below.->

‘Crossing the Line‘ tells stories of dedication to nonviolence, civil disobedience
John Dear S.J. https://www.ncronline.org/authors/john-dear | Feb. 26, 2013 On the Road to Peace

Going to prison for nonviolent civil disobedience against American war-making does wonders to clarify one’s relationship with the U.S. government. I highly recommend it. When I reflect back on my life, it seems I have been preparing for civil disobedience, facing jail or trial, or undergoing probation regularly for 30 years. I’m mainly engaged in writing, speaking and teaching peace to build up the anti-war/global peace movement, but periodic civil disobedience and nonviolent protest have become for me a way of life. Along the way, one meets the best people.
Volume two of Rosalie Riegle’s massive oral history project, Crossing the Line: Nonviolent Resisters Speak Out for Peace (Cascade Books, 2013), makes me realize I’m not alone. This massive collection of interviews with U.S. anti-war resisters (along with Doing Time for Peace, which I reviewed last month) provides an unprecedented historical record of nonviolent resistance over the last five decades and shows how many of us have quietly given our lives to resisting American war-making and practicing nonviolence.

READ MORE at this link: https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/crossing-line-tells-stories-dedication-nonviolence-civil-disobedience

If you send an online Peace Tax Return through this website, you will have the option of sending a letter to cabinet Ministers and others who are responsible for tax policy, including recognition of conscientious objection to military taxation.

Your letter will automatically be sent to the Ministers of Finance and Revenue, and to the Prime Minister and Opposition leaders, as well as Alex Atamanenko, the MP who is supporting conscientious objection to military taxation through his private members bill.

You can always find out who the ministers and critics are through the Parliamentary website.  We encourage you to send letters by mail if possible, as these generally carry more weight than letters sent by email.

Below is a letter recently submitted by Conscience Canada board member Eric Unger to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance:

Dear Mr Harper, Mr Flaherty, and Mr Bruinooge,

As the violent and tragic events unfold in Syria, I am reminded again of the
results of instructing men in the ways of killing.  Can we learn anything
from these events?  It is quite possible, and even logical, to expect that
some day, unless we carefully consider and learn from them today, such
horrific events will take place within our own borders.  As military experts
provide overseas instruction and guidance in how to interrogate, torture,
and kill fellow human beings, only the blind cannot see that the results of
our labours may someday return to haunt us, perhaps repaying us many times
over.  And who will take the responsibility for such short-sightedness?

For this reason, I ask you to read the attached note.  This is a personal
plea, but others hold similar points of view.  It is the hope of Conscience
Canada that you, now occupying a majority government would quickly enact
into law a PEACE TAX FUND so that those of us who are opposed to the concept
that stronger armies bring a swifter peace may designate, for the sake of
our consciences, our hard-earned tax dollars toward more peaceful
enterprises.

I apologize for the length of the attachment, but that may serve to
demonstrate the sincerity of my plea.  It is within your power to enact such
a bill, now! Continue reading →

Board member Jan Slakov introduces a recent article by former soldier Trevor Greene:

“Some time ago I heard an interview with Trevor Greene, an interview that moved me to tears, about how he had reached a point of forgiveness following the terrible axe attack that nearly killed him.

Oddly enough, I think there is quite a profound connection between COs (like me) and soldiers. Maybe it is partly that both groups put a lot on the line in support of what they believe in. Certainly, although I would never encourage someone to join the military, for me and others in Conscience Canada, it is vitally important that our work not be seen as dismissive of the sacrifices made by soldiers.

All this to say that I am so very delighted that the democracy Trevor Greene wants to defend seems to be the same one I too want to defend.”

From one battlefield to another

By Trevor Green

(Published in the Toronto Star, Saturday, May 12 2012)

Every generation updates and renews the values that make us who we are. I once found it hard to truly understand what those in my grandfather’s generation meant when they spoke of making the ultimate sacrifice in wartime to allow their loved ones back home to live in a democracy.

Until, that is, I myself almost lost it all in a remote village in Afghanistan on behalf of the values that make us Canadian, values that I now see as under threat not by a foreign force, but by a domestic one. Continue reading →

Board member Eric Unger wrote:
I have forwarded the truth dig video (of the American war veterans throwing their medals toward the highly secured building where NATO representatives are presently meeting) to Stephen Harper and Barack Obama, along with the following note.

I am deeply impressed by the courage shown by these military/former military people. May their courage motivate others to join in their efforts to put an end to war. Continue reading →

By Mary Groh

Resolution: Be it resolved that Canada would be more secure if funding were re-allocated from the military to development at home and abroad.

Speaker for the Resolution: Professor Constance Candida
Speaker against the Resolution: Retired General Warren Shuter
Continue reading →

Last week we saw with our eyes money being scooped up and removed from the highway (Brinks truck accident on its way from the Mint). That bizarre TV image helps us visualize what we are hearing this week–Canadian tax money being scooped up. But instead of being rescued and put into useful circulation, it is being shovelled straight into a black hole (Lockheed Martin and other arms producers).

People who have been elected to operate and build up a country of peace-loving people by the intelligent distribution of our wealth have chosen instead to divert our money from what Canadians need and to shovel it by the billions into jet fighter planes. If the F-35’s ever function at all it will not be for constructive purposes.

Are our ministers in fact still free moral agents, or are they caught in the military-industrial web? If so, they must start right now to try to extricate themselves, because get out of it we must, for the health of our country and the peace of the world.

Mary Groh, president
Conscience Canada

This letter was sent to the Victoria Times-Colonist. It was inspired by Dominique Boisvert & Bruna Nota; see the post below.

Dear Editor,

“This is the most distorted hijacking of a procurement process you could ever make.” So says Alan Williams, former DND assistant deputy minister for materiel about the path leading to the proposed replacement of CF-18s with F-35 fighter jets. Continue reading →

MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OR OF WAR?

The scandal of the F-35 has lasted long enough!

Ministerial irresponsibility is not excused by the influence the military establishment or the military industrial complex exert. Nor is it acceptable for the government to lie repeatedly to Parliament and to Canadians. It was known to all (except maybe to the Government?) that the costs quoted were widely under estimated.

This is administrative improvisation. For a government that boasts its fiscal expertise, this is a resounding fiasco!

But beyond this political disaster, it is high time to ask ourselves: “Do we really need F-35?” And the response is a resounding NO. Continue reading →