For the third time since 2023, 42 people from across Canada travelled to Ottawa on the Peace Train.
Participants started their journey in Vancouver on Oct. 22, when they boarded VIA Rail’s The Canadian, a long-distance passenger train that runs between Vancouver and Toronto.
Their goal was to ask the prime minister to establish an independent centre for peace focused on research, policy, diplomacy, peace education and peacekeeping — and for this centre to be seen as a fundamental part of Canada’s increased commitment to defence and security.
After arriving in Ottawa on Oct. 28, participants attended an evening reception sponsored by MPs from across the political spectrum: Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Conservative MP David Epp, Liberal MP Ernie Klassen and NDP MP Gord Johns.
The Peace Train participants were welcomed to the reception by Klassen, who praised them for “bringing forward a vision for peace on earth to Ottawa.”
“Peace is not a partisan issue,” Johns added.
As the federal government increases its military spending, Canada must show it can also lead on peace, Johns said.
“If we can invest in war, we can surely invest in peace.”
Bloc Québécois MP Andréanne Larouche agreed, noting it is important for Canada not just to “promote war, but also promote peace.”
Others noted concern that Canada has increased its military spending so significantly.
Last year, Ottawa raised spending to meet NATO’s two per cent target for the first time in decades. In June 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney also committed Canada to spending five per cent of GDP on defence and defence-related infrastructure by 2035.
NDP MP Heather McPherson expressed frustration that Canada is “massively investing in the military and shutting down peacekeeping and cutting international development spending.”
Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies at Royal Military College and Canadian Forces College, noted that Canada has relinquished its role as a peacekeeper.
Dorn noted that Lester Pearson came up with the idea of peacekeeping 70 years ago, during the Suez Crisis, when he was then foreign minister. For decades, Canada provided thousands of peacekeepers for United Nations missions.
Today, there are just 26, Dorn says — and that number will be reduced to four or five soon.
“That’s unthinkable,” Dorn said, noting Canada has the capacity to do more and that “Canadians want us to do it.”
But the federal government, he said, “is not giving them a chance to do it.
“Let’s make sure government knows this is an important part of Canadian identity, and important for our world.”
Donald MacPherson, national president of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, noted that peacekeeping has changed greatly since he was involved in peacekeeping missions, and that recent results have been mixed.
Despite that, it would be “a mistake” to give up on it, he said.
A national peace centre could make it possible for people to “get together and come up with a plan that will work,” he added.
In her reception address, Bernadette Wyton, the Peace Train organizer, said she supported the efforts of MPs to form an all-party peace caucus to raise peace issues in Parliament.
She called on Ottawa to commit “at least 0.1 per cent” of its total military spending to creating a peace centre that would work “in the service of its population and universal security.
“Who would object to one tenth of one per cent for such a critical asset?” she said.
During this challenging time internationally, “the contribution of every individual, especially every political leader, to tip the scale in favour of the prosperity and power of peace is critical,” she said.
