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Mayors for Peace Campaign Re-Launched

On September 21 – United Nations International Day of Peace – Peace Quest officially re-launched its bid to persuade John Morgan, Mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), to join the international Mayors for Peace campaign for a world without nuclear weapons. At a public information session held at Cape Breton University, a petition was opened for signature, noting that “over 1,700 towns and cities from 122 countries, including 57 municipalities across Canada” have so joined ‘Mayors for Peace,’ and urging Mayor Morgan and CBRM to lend their voice to this fast-growing “global chorus of protest against the obscenity and waste of nuclear weapons and the growing threat of their proliferation and use in the 21st Century.”

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Peace Quest’s first Mayors for Peace campaign, launched in 2004, ended in partial success when the Mayor and Council designated the 60th Anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an ‘Official Day of Remembrance.’ To our surprise and dismay, however, no decision was taken on joining Mayors for Peace, and Mayor Morgan, with no explanation, subsequently dropped the issue.

On September 12, Peace Quest wrote to the Mayor, informing him of our new campaign and urging him to respond positively not just to our appeal but that of so many municipal leaders around the world, united in their opposition to these obscene and immoral means of mass destruction.

Speaking to reporters on September 19, the Mayor expressed concern that endorsing the initiative might be seen as disrespectful or insensitive towards members of the Canadian military or their families. Two days later, in an interview on CBC Radio’s Information Morning, Peace Quest Campaign Coordinator Sean Howard responded:

“Mayor Morgan, it is not anti-military to be anti-nuclear. Indeed, one of the most prominent and enthusiastic supporters of Mayors for Peace in Canada in recent years has been a retired General, Senator Romeo Dallaire...who said earlier this year: ‘No new nuclear weapons are acceptable, period. I have seen with my own eyes genocide by machete. Just imagine what nuclear genocide would look like. We have reached a fork in the road of humanity. The one path leads to certain apocalypse; the other, to a peaceful, cooperative world.’ That’s all Mayors for Peace is saying, and that’s all we’re asking Mayor Morgan and CBRM to support.


To read and print the Petition, click HERE.

For a Fact Sheet on our Mayors for Peace Campaign, click HERE.

For the text of our letter to Mayor John Morgan, click HERE.