Canadian Civilian Peace Service

Civilian Peace Service Canada (In Cooperation with CICR – the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution; CIIAN - the Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation; and TRANSCEND International Institute)

Johan Galtung Will Open Peace Conference: Peace as a Profession in the 21st Century

Johan Galtung, leading authority in peace studies and research will open a two day conference in Ottawa on creating peace professionals. The Civilian Peace Service Canada (CPSC), supported by the Canadian Institute of Conflict Resolution (CICR), is holding its third conference at Saint Paul University, April 3-5, 2007. The focus of this year's conference will be on the development of competencies needed for a peace profession.

The case for a civilian peace service has heightened within Canada and globally within the last 10 years. Yet, since 9/11, Canadians have watched politicians choose military aggression to face issues in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a consequence, a greater number of Canadians are searching for viable alternatives to a military response to aggression. Defining this viable alternative has become the mission of the CPSC. With a goal to build a sustainable peace at home and abroad the CPSC will engage in the facilitation of recruitment, training, and deployment of qualified civilians to promote and facilitate the non-violent resolution to a conflict.

The Civilian Peace Service Canada, established in 2004, strives to bring together experts in the field of peacebuilding to review the theory and implementation of non-violent approaches to conflict in the local, national and international communities.

In this third conference, facilitated discussions on the concept of a “peace professional” will take place with a view to determining a) whether this is in fact a desirable concept and b) how best to develop and implement the concept, if it is found to be desirable. The intent is to produce a white paper following the conference based largely upon the findings and conclusions of the conference.

The Conference will begin at 7 p.m. on April 3 with a presentation by world renowned authority in peace studies, Dr. Johan Galtung. Dr. Galtung, regarded as the father of modern peace research and education, is the founding director of TRANSCEND, an international peace and development network. His work integrates rigorous scholarship and research, the development of innovative educational programs, social activism, and high level consultation/mediation in many of the world's major trouble spots.

Dr. Galtung has highlighted the need for the role of peace professionals throughout his career. In July, 2006 Dr. Galtung spoke to the International Peace Research Association in Calgary, Alberta. His talk included a bit of personal history. He described his frustration early in his professional career with the contradictory nature of a government approach to conflict that he described as being of “bullets and bombs” and experiencing

1 similar angst with the peace activist movement that he thought was based on “words”. His experience generated the concept of a peace professional.

Further to the idea of a peace professional, he explained that the values inherent to this new role would involve the “idealism of the heart” combined with the “realism of the brain”. The result of this marriage of heart and mind, would be in his words

“Concretely, this leads to PEACE BY PEACEFUL MEANS, rejecting violence less on moral grounds than on pragmatic grounds. Violence does not work.”

Dr. Galtung will set the stage for two days of discussion and planning to further the creation of a peace professional in Canada. The panel discussions to be held April 4-5 at Saint Paul University, 223 Main Street, Ottawa, will focus on the global context for peace professionals, major challenges in the field and strategies required to meet them. A key component of the conference will be a presentation and discussion of core values and key competencies required by those who aspire to become peace professionals.

For more information and to register contact Dominique at 613-235-5800