You are viewing an archive of information posted by PeaceQuest Kingston between 2013-2019. For the latest information about the PeaceQuest Leadership and Education Initiative, visit our new website at https://www.peacequest.ca.

Meet the Team!

In Kingston, where PeaceQuest was founded in 2012, we are comprised of a core Steering Committee of ten, a part time administrator, and a wide circle of project-specific volunteers and friends.  Read on to learn more about our Steering Committee – PQ’s core decision-making body:


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Sister Pauline Lally – Co-Founder & Faith Stream Liaison

PeaceQuest evolved from  Sr. Pauline’s dream of holding a peace conference specifically in the Kingston/Katarokwi region, long known as Canada’s first capitol, with its significant military presence and several correctional institutions all on traditional Anishnawbe and Haudenosaunee Peacemaker Territory – making it a deeply relevant setting for such an event.

For more than two decades, Sister Pauline Lallly staged weekly protests at Kingston City Hall against cut-backs to Social Assistance Programs. She opened and operated a Group Home for Girls in the 1970s and over her life has held numerous roles at Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul including General Superior and Director of Justice and Peace.


IMG_289(2)7Jamie Swift – Co-Founder & Policy Stream Liaison

Jamie is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, and activist and co-founder of PeaceQuest with Sr. Pauline Lally. His body of work has focused largely on issues of social justice, economy, environment, globalization, and politics. Swift has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Globe and MailThe Montreal Gazette, The Kingston Whig Standard, and Briarpatch. Throughout the 1990s, he was a regular contributor on CBC’s radio series Ideas. Most recently, Swift co-wrote a book with noted Canadian historian Ian McKay entitled Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, released in May 2012. He currently lectures at the Queen’s School of Business.


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Michael Cooke – Treasurer

From 2013-2015, Michael served as the Coordinator for Keep The Promise, a national campaign designed to renew Canada’s commitment to ending child poverty. He is a member of the Board of the Carold Institute, a national foundation devoted to advancing adult education, voluntary action and citizen engagement. He was a founding member of Project Ploughshares and former Director of the Christian Movement for Peace. Michael was the Vice-President Academic at George Brown College from 2000 to 2011 and the chief executive of the George Brown College Foundation, which raises funds for student aid and capital projects at the college. Prior to joining George Brown College, Michael worked for 15 years in the field of international development and adult education. He also spent 12 years as a teacher and administrator in schools in Saskatchewan, Ontario and France.


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Bronek Korczynski – C0-Chair

Bronek is a retired Catholic educator, a former Coordinator of Religious Education for an Ontario Catholic school board and has served as an Adjunct and On-line Instructor in Catholic Education at Queen’s University, Faculty of Education. He continues to serve as a consultant to Catholic educational organizations. He has been a social justice activist since a teenager, protesting above ground atomic testing and the war in Viet Nam. Over the years he has been active with the causes of refugees, the environmental movement, political action and public education.  He has been the Co-Chair of PeaceQuest since 2015 and continues to serve with a number of other social justice organizations.


IMG_2415 (2)Judi Wyatt – Affiliate & Partner Liaison

Judi Wyatt is a retired high school teacher, employed in Odessa, Ontario and also in Lima, Peru.  She now considers herself a full time champion for social causes. Last year she was the recipient of the Kingston YMCA’s Peace Medallion in 2014. Judi is a creator of The Poverty Challenge. The project has taught her a lot about what it is like to live in poverty in Kingston.  She is also currently working to  make dental health part of Ontario’s basic health benefits.


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Barbara Linds – Culture Stream Liaison

Barbara is a retired union activist who worked for 30 years for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union in Toronto before relocating to Yarker, Ontario where she helped her husband Eric DePoe run the Waterfall Cafe. In addition to PeaceQuest cultural activities, she is  involved with a number of Kingston area cultural organizations, including Theatre Kingston, the Thousand Islands Playhouse and Writers & Friends.


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Ann Boniferro – Co-Chair

Ann oversees educational resources and projects.  After 32 years in education, she recently retired from her role as Coordinator of Religious and Family Life Education with the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board.  She continues to work as an adjunct instructor at Queen’s University Faculty of Education.  Ann has been involved in a variety of peace, justice and equity activities, including The Poverty Challenge, Roots of Empathy, and of course supporting schools to qualify as PeaceQuest schools.


IMG_2893(2)Elaine Berman – Administrative Advisor

Elaine was born, raised and educated in New York. During the 1960’s, influenced by her parents’s social justice values and academic foundations in history, she participated in many anti-war and women’s rights marches. After moving to Kingston with her family in 1971, she worked with organizations which mirrored and expanded these interests, particularly CUSO in international development (1979-89) and the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA (1998-2014).  Elaine was invited to join the Steering Committee just as she was retiring in 2014. She reports that she feels that she’s learned more from her participation in PeaceQuest activities than she has given.


IMG_2964 Laurie Davey-Quantick – Fundraising Committee Liaison

Laurie owns and operates Verde, an environmental alternatives general store in downtown Kingston.  Her charitable organization, Omwaana Ono International provides ongoing funding for a sewing program for girls and young women in a small, rural, eastern Ugandan village.  She has been involved in peace, environmental and social justice issues over the years, both in the local community and internationally.  Her work with PeaceQuest is a natural extension of her belief that we can make a difference in the world.