150+ Canadians Day 152: Your Suggested Names!

Canada 150 … The Conversation Continues!

On February 1 of this year, PeaceQuest announced its Canada 150 project, an ambitious effort to post on social media brief biographies of Canadians who, over the decades, have made a contribution to making Canada, if not the world, a more peaceful place.

At the same time, we invited YOU to get involved by suggesting other people who have done the same … and you have responded!

Below is a list of those names, along with a brief descriptor of their contribution to peace.  Consider finding out more about them.

Don’t see someone on the list that you feel should be there?  Then drop us an email with your nominee and a short rationale.  We look forward to updating this list from time to time until the end of 2017.

Thank you for joining in and enriching the conversation.


Alex Neve – Secretary General with Amnesty International

Debbie Grisdale – former ED at Physicians for Global Survival, now on Ploughshares Board

Bishop Susan Johnson and Archbishop Fred Hiltz – have brought their churches closer in justice efforts

Izzeldin Abuelaish – author, I Will Not Hate

Ian Mackay and Jamie Swift – authors, Warrior Nation (2012) and The Vimy Trap (2017)

Joanna Miller – social activist from Saskatoon who gave her life to efforts for peace.

Beth Robinson – worked as a therapist at Ste. Anne de Bellevue after WW2; author, Please Write

Akua Benjamin – Congress of Black Women of Canada

Marjorie “Maggi” Hodgeon – leader of international networks to fight aboriginal substance abuse

Doreen Spence – founder and Director of Canadian Indigenous Women’s Resource Institute

Landon Pearson – children and youth advocate

Julia Morton Marr – educator for peace, justice and the environment

Koozma Tarasoff  – Dukhobor peace activist from Ottawa, author & curator of anti-war blog The Spirit Wrestlers

Bill Bhaneja – chaired nonkilling panels at the European Consortium for Political Research in Budapest (2005) and at the IPSA World Political Science Congress, Santiago de Chile (2009); co-chaired with Mairead Maguire the First Global Nonkilling Leadership Forum, in Honolulu, Hawaii (2007); member of the Canadian Pugwash Group, Science for Peace, Civilian Peace Service Canada and co-founder of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative

Claire Culhane – peace activist during the Vietnam War; a 50-year old hospital records librarian and grandmother whose first-hand experiences in Vietnam propelled her into an eight-year public activist campaign

 Christi Belcourt  – indigenous artist who coined the #Resitance150 hashtag

Rosalie Abella – Supreme Court Justice

Rose Henderson – feminist, socialist and labour activist and widowed mother, tirelessly worked for peace between the two great wars

Agnes Sharpe – contributed to peace by joining the National Council of the Canadian League against War and Fascism

Michael J. Sharp – 34 years old; killed on March 27, 2017 while leading a team from the UNs group of Experts on a peace building effort in Congo; peace worker with Mennonite Central Committee

Peace / Bully Prevention Programs in Schools – giving children the tools to retore and make peace

Neil Young – singer, song writer and social activist

Elaine Harvey – helped to create the International Criminal Court

Daniel G. Hill – Human Rights Commissioner

Dianne Dowling – part of the leadership of the non-violent Save the Prison Farm movement and President of National Farmers Union Local 316

Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul – tending to the needs of the poor and marginalized has been one of their founding charisms, work that they have tirelessly continued

Gregory Baum – academic who has contributed to inter religious dialogue and understanding

June Callwood – author and social activist

Bob Rae – former leader of Ontario NDP; MP; social advocate

Ernest Lapointe – helped draft Mackenzie King’s policy against conscription for overseas service in 1939

Raoul Dandurand – served as President of the League of Nations Assembly in 1925 and was Canada’s delegate to the League from 1927 to 1930

André Laurendeau – opponent to conscription during WW2

Margaret Ells Russell – Nova Scotia born activist, key organizer of 1961 anti-nuke rally in Washington by Women Strike for Peace; also involved with the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) ; activist against Vietnam war

Goldwin Smith – anti-imperialist, historian; opposed Boer War; influenced Bourassa and William Lyon McKenzie King

George Wrigley – early socialist, opposed imperialism and Boer War

Charles Yale Harrison – author, Generals Die in Bed

Mackenzie King – Canadian Prime Minister whose aversion to war influenced Canadian policy during WW2

Will R Bird – veteran of WW I, Nova Scotia writer whose work is critical of the war

Dr. Lucille Teasdale-Corti (1929–1996) – served as a war surgeon in Uganda

James Gareth Endicott (1898–1993) – social activist and advocate for peace