(above: Hosts Steven Staples and Anne-Marie Grondin)
On December 7, 2017, politicians, peace organizations and others gathered in Center Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to celebrate Setsuko Thurow and ICAN, days before the latter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. CUSJ’s Québec chapter was invited in its capacity as an International Peace Bureau member, and Board member Cym Gomery and former Board member Christina Duvander were pleased to accept. CUSJ member Eryl Court was also in attendance.
Setsuko Thurow was en route to Oslo, but she was present in spirit!
Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes, MP, welcomed the attendees.
After the speeches, the co-founder of Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, Murray Thomson, was presented with a birthday cake in honor of his 94th birthday.
There were several speakers including Nancy Covington (board member of Physicians for Global Survival) and the Ambassador of Kazakhstan, for whom the ICAN victory had a particular significance, since Kazakhstan was the site of Soviet nuclear bomb testing, which had a devastating toll on the people of that country, of whom 1.5 million suffered from radiation poisoning.
Cym and Christina were pleased to meet Steven Staples, long known to them through social media, and Canadian Voice of Women for Peace member Diane Mcintyre. VOW is also a member of the IPB.
For more photos of this event, click here.
For Setsuko Thurow’s fantastic acceptance speech and animation, click here.
For an interview with the indomitable ICAN director, Beatrice Fihn, click here.