Emily Greene Balch was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as poverty, child labor, and immigration, as well as settlement work to uplift poor immigrants and reduce juvenile delinquency.
Canada did not officially participate in the Vietnam War. However, it contributed to peacekeeping forces in 1973 to help enforce the Paris Peace Accords.
The Pearson Medal of Peace is an award given out annually by the United Nations Association in Canada to recognize an individual Canadian's "contribution to international service". Nominations are made by any Canadian for any Canadian, excluding self-nominations. The medal was first announced in 1979 and named in honour of Lester B. Pearson, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Canada's fourteenth Prime Minister. The medal was to be selected by a jury of "eminent Canadians" and awarded by the Governor-General of Canada on United Nations Day, October 24. After the 2004 medal was awarded to Roméo Dallaire, it was not awarded again until it was revived in 2011 to honour peace activist Ernie Regehr.
Hanna Newcombe was the co-founder of Peace Research Abstracts and Peace Research Reviews, was the recipient of the 1997 Pearson Medal of Peace and was elected a member of the Order of Canada in 2007 for her work in peace research and international relations.
Muriel Helen Duckworth was a Canadian pacifist, feminist, and social and community activist. She was a practising Quaker, a religious denomination committed to non-violence. Duckworth maintained that war, with its systematic violence against women and children, is a major obstacle to social justice. She argued that money spent on armaments perpetuates poverty while reinforcing the power of privileged elites. She believed that "war is stupid" and she steadfastly refused to accept popular distinctions between "good" and "bad" wars.
Murray McCheyne Thomson was a Canadian peace activist
Lois Miriam Wilson was a minister of the United Church of Canada who served as the first female Moderator of the United Church (1980–1982), the first woman president of the Canadian Council of Churches (1976–1979), and the first woman president of the World Council of Churches (1983–1991). Wilson also served in the Canadian Senate for four years (1998–2002).
Count George Pavlovich Ignatieff, was a Russian-born Canadian diplomat. His career spanned nearly five decades in World War II and the postwar period.
Ursula Martius Franklin was a Canadian metallurgist, activist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years. Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. She was the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures; The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks; and Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, containing 22 of her speeches and five interviews between 1986 and 2012. Franklin was a practising Quaker and actively worked on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She wrote and spoke extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice. Franklin received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. In 2012, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, as well as Ursula Franklin Street on the University of Toronto campus, have been named in her honor.
Rosemary Sullivan is a Canadian poet, biographer, and anthologist. She is also a professor emerita at University of Toronto.
Ruth Rittenhouse Morris, CM was a Canadian author and legal reformer.
Dame Elizabeth Mary Cadbury was a British activist and philanthropist. Her husband was George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer.
Lester Bowles Pearson was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th Prime Minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as MP for Algoma East, whose largest municipality was the then-new City of Elliot Lake.
Metta Spencer is a Canadian sociologist, writer, peace researcher, and activist.
Ernie Regehr, is a Canadian peace researcher and expert in security and disarmament. He co-founded Project Ploughshares, a peace research organization based in Waterloo, Ontario, with Murray Thomson in 1976 and served as its Executive Director for thirty years. Project Ploughshares is an ecumenical project supported by the Canadian Council of Churches. Regehr has been a Canadian NGO representative and expert advisor at numerous international disarmament forums including UN Conferences on Small Arms.
Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, also known as the Voice of Women or VOW, is a Canadian anti-nuclear pacifist organization that was formed in 1960. The organization was created in response to an article in which Lotta Dempsey, a journalist for the Toronto Star, called out for action against the threat of nuclear war and asked women to work together for peace. After the article was published, a group of women contacted Dempsey and formed a women's organization called the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace. The organization's work has spanned multiple decades and is Canada's oldest feminist peace group.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker)-founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by American members of the Religious Society of Friends to assist civilian victims of World War I. It continued to engage in relief action in Europe and the Soviet Union after the Armistice of 1918. By the mid-1920s, AFSC focused on improving racial relations, immigration policy, and labor conditions in the U.S., as well as exploring ways to prevent the outbreak of another conflict before and after World War II. As the Cold War developed, the organization began to employ more professionals rather than Quaker volunteers. Over time, it broadened its appeal and began to respond more forcefully to racial injustice, international peacebuilding, migration and refugee issues, women's issues, and the demands of sexual minorities for equal treatment. Currently, the organization's three priorities include work on peacebuilding, a focus on just economies, and humane responses to the global migration crisis.
Wilson A. Head was an American/Canadian sociologist and community planner known for his work in race relations, human rights and peace in the United States, Canada and other parts of the world.
Ruth Lor Malloy is a Canadian activist, journalist, travel writer, and photographer.
