Dear Readers and Friends of the Coalition,
I hope you are taking good care of yourselves and of one another.
The past few months have been difficult for all of us as members of a global community. At the same time, we recognize that for many regions and peoples around the world, these challenges have been far more intense, catastrophic, and life-threatening than for others.
On behalf of the CMCCF team, we hope you continue to find the strength to face whatever difficulties come your way, while also finding the capacity to offer kindness, hope, compassion, and care to those whose burdens may be even greater than your own. In times such as these, these simple human gifts matter more than ever.
Saying Goodbye…
It is with mixed emotions that I write this final blog post for the Peace-First project.
While this article reflects on the final National Peace Roundtable that we hosted nearly two months ago, on April 28, 2026, it also marks the conclusion of my own writing journey for the Coalition’s website—a journey that began with the JEDI Project in 2023.
Perhaps that is why writing this final post has been more difficult than I expected. For reasons I could not quite explain, I found myself delaying it week after week. Looking back now, I realize I may simply have been resisting saying goodbye.
Below is a reflection on the final National Peace Roundtable that my colleague Cyrus and I had the privilege of facilitating. Although this marks my last full reflection on the project, one brief post will still follow, where I hope to share some of my personal reflections on what peace has come to mean to me through this journey.
A Brief Reflection on the Final National Peace Roundtable
Our final Peace Roundtable was held in Toronto as an inter-provincial gathering using a hybrid format. Participants joined us in person from Toronto while others connected virtually from Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Thunder Bay.
Many of CMCCF’s long-standing partners and collaborators from Manitoba participated, including Martin and Steve, whose leadership has been both visionary and deeply sustaining throughout the Coalition’s many community-engaged initiatives over recent years. Their commitment has been life-giving for the work and for the many relationships that have grown through these projects.
Most of the Toronto participants joined us from the Global Migration Institute (GMI) at Toronto Metropolitan University, and having Steve present with us in person at the GMI offices made this final gathering especially meaningful.
It was genuinely inspiring to share space with participants whose lives have been devoted to community engagement, peacebuilding, social justice, research, advocacy, and public service. Many have spent decades working within civil society, carrying forward movements for peace and justice that began many years ago and continue to shape their work today.
They are, in many respects, the original members of what one participant affectionately described as the “peace tribe”—people who continue to carry the fire of hope, justice, and social transformation despite the many challenges our world continues to face.
We salute them for their unwavering commitment.
As we went around the room introducing ourselves and sharing our life journeys, participants spoke openly about the grassroots peace work that had become the focus of much of their lives. Listening to these stories allowed all of us to experience the remarkable energy, wisdom, and sense of purpose present in the room. The commitment was genuine, the hope contagious, and the motivation deeply inspiring.
What Does Peace Mean to You?
As with every Peace Roundtable, we began with a simple but profound question:
What does peace mean to you?
We also asked participants what role individuals, families, communities, and organizations can play in helping create a more peaceful world.
The timing of this conversation made these questions particularly significant. On April 28, 2026, the world found itself exactly two months into the conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran. As I write these reflections today, the global context remains marked by wars, humanitarian crises, economic uncertainty, environmental instability, rapid technological disruption, growing polarization, and increasing threats to democratic values.
Long-term uncertainty has become part of our collective reality.
The possibility of large-scale displacement caused by armed conflict and climate change continues to grow, with consequences extending far beyond the regions immediately affected. These realities increasingly shape our communities, our institutions, and our everyday lives.
Against this backdrop, we asked participants—individuals with extensive lived experience and decades of community leadership—
What are you thinking about peace today?
Why does peace matter even more now?
And from wherever we stand, in both large and small ways, how can each of us contribute to building a more peaceful world?
Voices Around the Table
Participants offered thoughtful and deeply personal reflections.
For some, peace simply meant that no one should go to bed hungry.
For others, it meant waking each morning without fear that their borders would be invaded or that bombs would fall on their neighbourhoods; knowing that their children could safely attend school and experience something resembling an ordinary childhood.
Again and again, participants reminded us that peace is far more than the absence of war.
Peace also requires kindness, respect, dignity, equity, inclusion, human rights, stability, opportunity, and a society where every person—not simply the privileged few—has the opportunity to flourish.
What Is Positive Peace?
These reflections naturally led us toward the concept of Positive Peace.
Participants discussed how a society may appear peaceful because active warfare is absent, while structural inequities, discrimination, poverty, exclusion, and systemic oppression continue to create daily experiences of violence and injustice.
Issues such as homelessness, unemployment, unequal access to resources, discrimination, and marginalization affect some communities far more than others. These realities undermine both social harmony and individual well-being, making it difficult for people to experience genuine inner peace.
This led us to one of the central questions of the afternoon:
Can there truly be peace without justice?
Participants explored approaches to conflict transformation that move beyond punishment and retribution toward restorative justice, dialogue, community engagement, and culturally grounded approaches to healing relationships.
Many believed that stronger community-based approaches could help cultivate compassion, accountability, inclusion, belonging, and ultimately more sustainable pathways toward peace.
Everyday Actions for Building Peace
The conversation also explored the importance of peace within our everyday relationships.
Participants reflected on the powerful call of “Women, Life, Freedom,” which emerged in Iran and has since become a global symbol advocating for dignity, safety, and human rights for women everywhere.
Gender-based violence and domestic abuse were acknowledged as ongoing realities affecting families across many communities. Participants emphasized that peace must begin at home.
Adults have a responsibility to model peaceful relationships, emotional regulation, respect, empathy, and compassion so that children and young people experience safety and learn these values through everyday life.
Several participants reflected that one of the greatest contributions each of us can make is learning to manage our own anger, aggression, and conflict in healthier ways. By doing so, we help create families and communities where future generations can learn that peace is not merely an ideal—it is a daily practice.
Dear Policymakers… Are You Listening?
As the discussion drew to a close, one insight became increasingly clear.
Because each person’s life journey is unique, so too are our understandings of peace.
For some participants, peace meant social and economic justice.
For others, it meant living in harmony with nature.
Some described peace as the opportunity for every person to live with dignity.
Others believed that lasting external peace can only emerge when individuals experience inner peace.
Participants also highlighted the importance of sharing meals together, learning from one another, building relationships across differences, and creating strong, supportive communities.
Others emphasized that peace requires meaningful participation in decision-making. Having a genuine seat at the table—and the ability to influence decisions affecting one’s community—was seen as essential if marginalized voices are to be heard and if power is to be shared more equitably.
This final Peace Roundtable was rich with wisdom born not only from lived experience and struggle, but from decades of leadership, advocacy, scholarship, and practical problem-solving.
As I listened throughout the afternoon, I found myself wishing that policymakers and decision-makers could have been sitting quietly in the room, simply listening.
There was so much practical wisdom here to learn from.
A Final Thank You
And so, the moment has finally arrived.
Thank you.
Thank you to everyone who participated in these conversations over the past several years.
Thank you to the Coalition, to my colleagues, to our partners, and to every participant who generously shared their stories, hopes, questions, and wisdom.
It has been a tremendous privilege and a deeply humbling experience to help create these spaces for dialogue, reflection, and collective learning.
Although this chapter is coming to a close, I hope the conversations continue—in our communities, within our organizations, around our family tables, on street corners and in coffee shops, and in the many places where people gather, continuing to believe that another future is possible.
Until next time, I wish each and every one of you the best of health, courage, hope, meaningful relationships, and peace.
Take good care of yourselves—and of one another.
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