National Roundtable and Toronto Hub

February 6, 2026 Muhammad Huzaifa
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National Roundtable

As part of the Peace-First National Roundtable and Toronto hubs, we have hosted two gatherings in Toronto, one held in April 2025, and the other in October. The most recent one, held in a hybrid format in October 2025, had 20 in-person participants who joined from Toronto and the GTA, and 8 individuals joined virtually, from other Canadian cities-like, Vancouver, Regina, Winnipeg, and Halifax.

The invitation for participants was to share their experiences, as well as their thoughts and feelings, about peace and peacebuilding, what this means to them and why it matters. We asked them to visualise, each one from their singular point of view, what a peaceful society ideally looks like, and what it might contain. A range of responses emerged; and some of the descriptions may be summarised as it being a space where individuals experience safety, social justice and equal rights, where people feel accepted by each other, their identities validated and their opinions valued. Some participants expressed feelings of anxiety and social isolation- living in turbulent times where social media conversations lead to polarization, communication breakdowns  and negative feelings. Others took a broad view, seeing the persistence of structural inequities as `negative peace’ (positive peace only being possible when there is equal distribution of resources in communities, and issues like poverty, homelessness, unemployment and displacement no longer exist). Some asked a key question, can there be peace without justice?

Being in early days of 2026, a brand-new year, this should be a time for renewal and promise in the future, but is it? Yet we seem to be living in times that are fraught and anxious where peace has gone missing. Perhaps the next few Peace-First gatherings will be an opportunity to learn more deeply from those who gather round the table, how they are experiencing this moment in history, and what their thoughts are about peace and peacebuilding. Hopefully the act of gathering with one another can help foster some safe spaces for mutual conversations and deep listening, leading to synergies where we learn from each other; and we also figure out how we can support each other in meaning-making, and in collectively finding shared purpose, solidarities, and some hope.  

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Purpose

The Purpose of These Peace-First: CollaborationNet Pages These pages exist to share what we have learned. Over the past year, Peace-First: CollaborationNet has operated as a time-limited demonstration initiative, which is a space to test ideas, host conversations, and discover what might grow when peace is placed at the center. Conversations took root in informal Peace-First Hubs across Winnipeg, Thompson, Brandon, and Portage la Prairie, with related gatherings in Vancouver and Toronto. Toronto now helps convene national roundtable conversations, linking local dialogue with a broader Canadian exchange. What began as small, local discussions has become more connected — not through expansion or centralization, but through coherence. Across regions, shared themes, tensions, and hopes are emerging. This webpage documents that journey. It gathers reflections, materials, and learning from Hub conversations so others can understand what has been explored and carry it forward. From the beginning, Peace-First was designed as a seed-planting initiative, formally concluding March 31, 2026. Its focus has been to explore how individuals and cultural communities understand inner peace, collective vision, community cohesion, and cultural dignity and visibility. The Hubs are volunteer-led spaces where community connectors and members gather to listen, reflect, and imagine what a peaceful geographic and cultural community might look like in practice. Along the way, we developed background papers, reflection documents, and practical toolkits shaped by lived experience in Manitoba and beyond. This page now serves as a living repository within the Peace-First Library, offering capacity-building tools, framing papers, hub guidance, and shared learning that communities can adapt to their own realities. The purpose is not to centralize authority, but to make learning accessible. Peace-First Hubs are community-led and partner-supported — grounded in relationship, not hierarchy. Supported by ACOMI, ECCM, Palaver Hut, MIA, cultural community members across the country, and allies such as MANSO, Mediation Services, CanU Canada, and PCHS, this work moves through partnership rather than control. This initiative has been made possible through the principal financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, with a supportive role played by The Winnipeg Foundation. Their investment has allowed these conversations, materials, and connections to take shape. These materials are not instructions to replicate. They are tools to adapt. This page is more than documentation. It is an invitation. Peace-First is not about imposing a uniform model. It is about strengthening conditions for dialogue, cohesion, and shared responsibility before a crisis. If this resonates, we invite you to explore further, join a national roundtable call, or consider what it would mean to host or support a conversation in your own community. Join a national roundtable call. Complete the survey. The seeds have been planted. What grows next depends on all of us.

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