Peace Alliance Winnipeg held its annual Walk for Peace and Justice on September 26, 2026. As it has done for the past few years, PAW’s walk was a part of the annual Winnipeg arts festival called Nuit Blanche. The walk was endorsed by more than 20 social justice groups in the city. Two themes dominated the event: Canadian militarism and the children of Gaza.
Canadian military spending is growing ominously, and the marchers distributed literature that explained this in some detail. A lively piece of street theatre illustrated the impact of military spending on Canada’s social programs
In recognition of the Israeli policy of targeting Palestinian children, walkers carried kite-shaped placards to symbolize the children’s kites the Israeli military has banned in Gaza.
Throughout the walk, the procession which began with spirited speeches, would pause for a poem, or a song, or a piece of theatre. The evening ended with a moving rendition of “We Shall Overcome” and a promise to return again next year, stronger than ever.
Winnipeg Lanterns for Peace is held annually to mark the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This year’s observance was sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba, Mennonite Central Committee (Manitoba), Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
The United Jewish People’s Order is 100 years old and the Winnipeg chapter celebrated this milestone at the Ukrainian Labour Temple last week. In keeping with UJPO’s social justice mission, the committee members who advised the Canadian Museum of Human Rights on its new Nakba exhibit (Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present) were honoured guests. Here’s my video of the festivities.
On June 24, 2025, members of and supporters of Peace Alliance Winnipeg rallied in Winnipeg to speak out against militarism and Canada’s membership in NATO. The rally was held in the wake of the recent illegal attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, the ongoing slaughter in Gaza by the Israeli military and plans announced by the Canadian government to greatly increase its level of military spending.
Peace Alliance Winnipeg held its annual general meeting on April 12, 2025. This year’s meeting featured a keynote address by Manitoba author Owen Schalk entitled “Confronting imperialism in the age of Western decline.” Owen is a columnist for Canadian Dimension, the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023 and the co-author of Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy with Yves Engler.
On March 20, 2025 I recorded the Winnipeg segment of the cross-country tour of Israeli refuseniks Tal Mitnick and Einat Gerlitz. The venue, Home Street Mennonite Church, was packed. The speakers were impressively articulate, poised and wise beyond their years.
In 2023, Tal Mitnick became the first conscientious objector to refuse military service after the October 7th attack by Hamas. After serving 185 days in military prison, Mitnick became a leader in the movement of young Israelis who are now refusing military service.
Einat Gerlitz was sentenced to 87 days in prison in 2022 for her refusal to join the Israeli army. An advocate for climate justice and LGBTQ+ rights, Gerlitz brings a feminist and queer perspective to her activism.
The pair were on a 12-city tour of Canada co-sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices Canada and the Mesarvot Network. Local sponsors in Winnipeg included the United Jewish People’s Order, Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba, Students for Justice in Palestine – University of Manitoba, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, MCM Palestine Israel Network, and the local chapter of Independent Jewish Voices.
On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On August 9th, the Americans dropped another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki. The immediate combined death toll of the two raids was about 200,000. Over the decades that followed, many more thousands would suffer and perish from radiation induced illnesses.
Winnipeg is one of more than 8400 cities that belong to Mayors for Peace, an organization devoted to nuclear disarmament. Annually, in early August, Winnipeggers gather to affirm their commitment to peace and freedom from nuclear terror with a Lanterns for Peace Ceremony.
Winnipeg, April 4, 2024: Members of Peace Alliance Winnipeg marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with an information picket in the Osborne Villlage neighbourhood of Winnipeg. Following is the text of the statement they distributed.
Canada Must Get Out of NATO It’s High Time and Long Overdue!
The Biden Administration and the heads-of states of other Western powers, including Canada, are preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It will be a gala affair, with much fanfare and chest-thumping among the economic and political elites. But NATO’s continued existence is nothing to celebrate; rather, it is a time for a sober reappraisal of the dangerous role of this political-military alliance, and of Canada’s membership within it.
Neither the parties in the Canadian parliament nor the mainstream corporate media are prepared to seriously examine, much less question, our NATO status. And yet it is precisely our NATO membership – and the ‘obligations’ that entails – which is the mechanism driving increased military spending and preparations for more aggression and war.
Peace activists and organizations in Quebec and across the rest of Canada, together with allies in the labour and people’s movements, need to move this festering issue to the front burner, and intensify grassroots efforts across the country to demand Canada’s withdrawal from NATO and call for the dissolution of this dangerous military pact as a whole.
NATO was formed on April 4, 1949, with Canada as one of its founding members. This aggressive alliance was ostensibly created to preserve peace and stability, and to “safeguard the freedoms of its peoples”, based on the “principles of democracy” and “the rule of law”. Its primary raison-d’être however was to prepare for war against the former Soviet Union, which it considered an existential threat to ‘Western values’, the capitalist order and the maintenance of U.S. hegemony around the world.
Ever since its founding in April 1949, NATO has served as the vehicle to spur the arms race in the name of ‘peace through strength’. In that very same year, the Truman Administration in the United States secretly developed “Operation Dropshot’ to launch a devastating nuclear ‘first-strike’ against the former Soviet Union. Throughout the ‘cold war’ years, the U.S. and its NATO allies always maintained an overwhelming military superiority over the USSR and the Warsaw Pact – a fact that they cynically concealed from public view at the time, but now readily admit.
But NATO did not dissolve when, in the early 1990s, the USSR was dismantled and broken up (along with the Warsaw Treaty). Instead, it seized the opportunity to launch a massive expansion program into Eastern Europe, right up to the borders of the Russian Federation. In February 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker promised that NATO would not expand eastward following the reunification of Germany. His famous phrase “not one inch” was followed by a relentless NATO expansion program.
U.S. imperialist wars, taken under the mantle of NATO, have included the 78-day aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in October 2001, and the toppling of the Kaddafi government in Libya in 2011, to name only a few examples.
At its core, NATO is the muscle enforcing class domination on behalf of Western monopolies and banks, and reflects the colonialist, supremacist policies of its ruling elites. Through its ‘Partnership’ program, NATO is extending its tentacles far beyond the North Atlantic. And it is now openly preparing to launch an Asian variant of NATO, extending its sphere of operations to the Far East to tighten the encirclement of the People’s Republic of China. In today’s world, NATO has become the primary obstacle to peace and stability. Its policies of confrontation are global in scope. Take the war in Ukraine, for example. In the early days of that horrendous conflict, Washington dispatched its NATO puppet, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kyiv on April 9, 2022 to block a potential peace treaty between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The proposed treaty would have seen the Russian Federation withdraw its troops in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality but NATO insisted on trying to bring Ukraine into the alliance. The results of NATO meddling have been catastrophic for Ukraine with hundreds of thousands killed and injured.
The USA is aggressively pursuing a similar approach in south-east Asia. With support from Canada and other NATO powers, the U.S. empire is trying to provoke a confrontation with China over the province of Taiwan. This provocation includes “academic exchanges” with Taiwanese military personnel being trained at NATO’s Defence College in Rome and training its fighter pilots in the United States, selling weapons to the island province dating from 1979, stationing U.S. troops and regular navy war ships and aircraft passing through the Taiwan Strait. Clearly such actions promote instability in the region and can certainly lead to another war.
NATO promotes instability, aggression and war around the world. On behalf of U.S. imperialism, it threatens, intimidates and uses military might to plunder any country or region in service of its economic and geopolitical interests. It is a monster driving a new round of militarization, bringing humanity to the precipice of nuclear annihilation. It must be dismantled, and Canada must free itselffrom its shackles and move towards a foreign policy of peace and disarmament, based on the UN Charter and international law. Canada’s membership in NATO comes with an incredibly high price-tag. It chains our country to an aggressive, militaristic alliance dominated by the United States, and makes it virtually impossible to deviate from foreign policy decisions made in Washington DC. For instance, NATO’s nuclear “first-use” policy is routinely trotted out as an excuse why Canada (and other NATO countries) must refuse to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Canada’s NATO commitment also drains massive amounts of budget resources away from desperately needed social programs such as health, education, housing and environmental protection. NATO demands member countries commit 2% of their annual GDP to war and aggression, euphemistically referred to as “defence spending”. Currently Canada wastes $35 billion on war preparations, but with Canada’s $2.9 trillion GDP, that means $58 billion annually must be diverted away from social programs and services like education, healthcare, affordable housing and environmental protection.
The Canadian Peace Congress and the Mouvement Québécois pour la Paix are organizing a country-wide campaign to get Canada out of NATO (as well as NORAD and the ‘Five Eyes’ spy network). This will include organizing public protest actions on Saturday, April 6, 2024 in as many cities and localities as possible. We are also producing leaflets and posters denouncing NATO, educational activities to expose the true nature of this criminal organization, and other initiatives. We appeal to our local Peace Councils and affiliated members, and to other anti-war, labour, women’s and youth organizations to support and join these anti-NATO actions, and to help promote cooperation in building a stronger, more effective peace movement across Canada.
Canada Out of NATO! No to war, Yes to Peace!
Winnipeg, April 4, 2024: Members of Peace Alliance Winnipeg marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with an information picket in the Osborne Villlage neighbourhood of Winnipeg. Photos and video by Paul S. Graham
Winnipeg, August 9, 2023 — Winnipeggers held a Lanterns for Peace Ceremony to mark the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These ceremonies are conducted each year to help keep alive the memory of these attacks so that current generations understand we must never allow nuclear weapons to be used again.
This year, our focus is on the need for Canada to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the UN July 7, 2017. Winnipeg is now one of 19 Canadian cities to support the treaty. Thus far, 92 countries have signed the treaty; Canada’s federal government refuses to support it.
Winnipeg Lanterns for Peace 2023 was sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
On Thursday, June 22, 2023, Canadian lawyer, journalist, and peace activist Dimitri Lascaris spoke in Winnipeg about his recent trip to Russia and the need for Canada to promote a peaceful end to the conflict in Ukraine. Lascaris was on a 10-city Canadian tour entitled “Making Peace with Russia, One Handshake at a Time.” The tour was organized by the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network; Peace Alliance Winnipeg hosted the Winnipeg portion of the tour.
