“We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.”—Maria Mitchell
Learning strengthens the work of justice and peace.
We often talk about the importance of partners to our work. This year that value was on display in a big way. For one thing, CFSC staff undertook a major trip to Eeyou Istchee where they witnessed the work of the Cree Nation Government in action. This was such a great learning opportunity for our team! I hope you had the chance to read each of their reflections on our website.
Our staff came away inspired by generations of place-based relationships between Cree people and the waters and lands around them. They also gained many fresh insights about how transformative justice and guaranteed income programs can happen in practice to benefit communities. CFSC is much richer from what everyone witnessed.
This learning is already being brought to conversations in Ottawa with government officials and with other partner organizations. In the seats of power, we represent you and your peace and social justice concerns, tirelessly, each and every day. We do it by being a calm, reasoned, and positive presence. We do it by learning from experts and impacted communities and by building relationships.
This year we’ve spent time with partners educating politicians and their staffers about peace as part of the multi-day Peace Train. We’ve joined like-minded organizations to meet with government officials and discuss improving respect for human rights in the justice system. And we’ve worked alongside partners to advocate for crucial changes to laws that limit the human rights of Indigenous Peoples.
This work isn’t easy, and it isn’t always successful in the short-term. But here and there we see positive changes happening, which is always so exciting. And we know that sometimes more takes place than we’re fully aware of.
Again this year we sent hand-decorated cards to each and every Member of Parliament. The beautiful cards reminded them to listen and to govern for the good of all, not just their base.
Our peace and social justice work happens across the country, and online, where our social media presence continued to grow as we offered hundreds of new educational (and sometimes even funny!) posts and videos.
Your donations made it possible to so take many Indigenous rights, transformative justice, and peace actions. You’ll read all about them below.
Your gifts make this happen. Will you give again today?
With thanks,
Ro Fife, Clerk,
Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers)
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Transformative justice
The main goal of CFSC’s transformative justice work is to eliminate the punitive mindset that pervades society and justice systems by transforming harmful approaches to ones that are healing.
Throughout the year we shared short videos of Lisa Dawn Bowden telling her story of incarceration. These hit on both some of the things that are so horrifying and maddening about the carceral system, and what can be done better. Especially Lisa’s experiences in an Indigenous Healing Lodge offer a vision of what real healing and justice could look like.
Lisa joined us at multiple conferences where she shared the voice of someone with lived experience and shared her beautiful beading skills with participants. These sessions were rich and people found them very moving. This was so much more than the graphs and talking heads many conference participants get used to.
Our learning about what a healing justice system might look like has continued through visits to Indigenous courts, and seeing a community of “Tiny Homes” for people leaving incarceration in Eeyou Istchee.
This year we launched our groundbreaking Following the money: cui bono report, an analysis of who profits financially from Canadian federal carceral institutions. Audiences have been intrigued to learn not only which companies are profiting from incarceration, but also how difficult it is to find out. A big part of what we learned through the report was that Canada’s official data platform gives wildly inconsistent figures, ones that seem to change whenever they’re collected.
The report got media coverage for our work and has helped us continue to strengthen relationships with a broader range of groups who care about transforming the broken “justice” system.
We continued to send educational information and resources to many incarcerated people and chaplains across the country.
We’ve advocated in Ottawa on key issues including doing our best to counter a disturbing effort to make parole much harsher. This would be exactly the wrong direction if Canada is serious about human rights, public safety, or even just using financial resources well. Parole improves safety.
We also continue our work in Ottawa and through media coverage to advocate for a guaranteed livable basic income, recognizing that so many of the issues related to incarceration are really about poverty.
We gave financial support to advance the work we believe in through grants to:
- A gardening project for women incarcerated at Nova Institution (Truro, Nova Scotia)
- National Associations Active in Criminal Justice for human rights advocacy with government.
- Restorative Justice Association of Manitoba for their restorative justice work.
- Candace House to provide support in a comforting environment for those who have lost a loved one to violent crime
- Rittenhouse to advance transformative justice work in the legacy of the well-known Quaker prison abolitionist Ruth Morris.
Peace
The main goal of CFSC’s peace work is to identify, engage constructively with, and transform conflicts.
This year Canada’s military spending continued to skyrocket. This trend is deeply troubling. We became co-chairs of the Canadian Peace Partners Network and met with other members and with government.
We researched and developed a major new position paper that’s all about rethinking what security and national defence should mean, so Canada isn’t focused on acquiring more and more weapons systems.
We took part in the first ever Peacebuilding Week at the United Nations in New York. We made submissions to government about budget and foreign policy priorities. We took part in a multi-day event to educate Members of Parliament and their staffers about peace. These and other efforts focused on doing what we can to make Canada more peace-oriented role on the world stage.
In addition to advocating for policy change, we’re still doing lots of grassroots peace education. This is the work of getting everyday people to understand what peace is, and how we can each use our power in more peaceful ways.
We led a very popular book club on how nonviolence is used by social movements and even in national defence. The club had hundreds of participants online, most who didn’t know much about the content.
Our peace program also continues to give talks and workshops at libraries, churches, and even to members of the Canadian Arms Forces around a camp fire.
Our practical advice, backed by many years of research, regularly impresses and surprises audiences. In addition to the in-person trainings we blog for Psychology Today. And people continued to sign up for and use our free Weekly tips for better conflicts to develop their peace skills.
We joined with partners to host educational webinars about Canada’s involvement in arms trade, and to protest North America’s biggest arms fair, CANSEC.
We held a silent meeting for worship, help up banners, and passed out flyers with simple questions about war and militarism. At least one person who was there for the arms fair told us that after reading our flyer she felt so moved that she had to leave.
We’re still raising our voices for Gaza and our partnership with American Friends Service Committee allows us to continue funding vital humanitarian relief there so that farmers can grow food.
And we’re supporting young Israelis who decide for reasons of conscience to refuse to serve in the military.
We gave educational bursaries to three students this year. These bursaries helped support them in their peace and social justice education. Most importantly, they will help them be able to bring their learning outside of the classroom and into activities to spread peace in their communities.
Our funding helped the Canadian Peace Museum open to the public this year. Unlike trust in other sources of information such as media and politicians, trust in museums is high. And people are interested to learn more about peace. So this museum is an important peace education opportunity. CFSC staff were thrilled to be able to visit and see the extensive collection.
In Toronto once again we funded timely support services for refugees and other newcomers, free of charge.
Indigenous Peoples’ human rights
The main goals of CFSC’s Indigenous rights work are the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and greater engagement by Canadians in the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).
This year we said goodbye to Jeremy and welcomed Sarah our new Indigenous Rights Program Coordinator! Sarah has hit the ground running in helping to coordinate the Coalition for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples and learning all about CFSC’s work and advocacy for Indigenous rights. But it isn’t her first time doing this type of work, having previously attended the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and having a related Master’s degree too.
We were pleased this year to release a major new resource all about reparations. It explains some big topics: truth, reconciliation, and most importantly, what reparations could look like in your own context—from learning and relationship-building to advocacy, land return, financial restitution, or support for cultural revitalization work. The resource includes not only clear steps you can take, but also inspiring case studies from several faith communities that are at different places on the journey.
As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report reminds us, making individual and collective reparations is a critical part of reconciliation. We’re glad to be contributing to moving this forward amongst Quakers and have received positive feedback on our resource beyond Quakers as well.
We also made the decision to dedicate an additional 1% of our annual budget to reparations, with a focus on supporting Indigenous-led organizations in Ottawa and Toronto, where CFSC’s offices are. This decision reflects our commitment to putting reconciliation into practice through meaningful local relationships, accountability, and support for Indigenous-led priorities.
To continue advancing Indigenous rights we stayed active at the United Nations in both New York and Geneva alongside Indigenous partners and other human rights organizations. We took part in joint statements and submissions. We also made a joint submission to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
And we took part in a day-long dialogue on human rights at the invitation of Canadian Federal, Provincial, and Territorial cabinet ministers.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the framework for reconciliation. We once again helped people to learn what the UN Declaration is actually about. This has become particularly important in a moment of fear-mongering and political attacks against the Declaration, especially in British Columbia. We know that there is much more work ahead on this and a need to stay vigilant.
In addition to publicly speaking out, we sent out thousands of pocket-sized copies of the Declaration to Indigenous nations, organizations, schools, and interested individuals.
We’ve also been pleased to remain active with a broad network of partners, including Indigenous Peoples and academics, advancing research on implementing the UN Declaration in Canada. This work has been funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We funded grassroots cultural revitalization activities through our Reconciliation Fund again this year.
Your values at work in the world
All of these efforts toward justice and peace are yours. Please, donate now.
In closing
This report has been all about learning and building relationships. Relationships are foundational to everything we do, and to the world we want to live in. Please continue and deepen your relationship to justice and peace by making a donation today.