Peace Tax

Please note that there is an electronic version of the "Declaration of Objection to Military Taxes" statement that will just take you a few seconds to complete and send: consciencecanada.ca/eptr/

"Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." - Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of State, June 12, 1982.

Peace Signs, April 2009

April 21, 2009 Number 62

In this month's issue:
Lord, our people need a second line • Leo Hartshorn
Our boys • Susan Mark Landis
Houses without people, people without homes • Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach
MCC ACTION ALERT: Co-Sponsor Iran Resolution • Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach
The sounds of peace • Max Ediger
Cluster Bomb Postcard Campaign
Keeping the Faith • Leo Hartshorn
Review of Pax Avalon: Conflict Revolution
Earth Day 2009 • Tom Beutel
Talking about finances and foreclosure • Melonie Buller
Women going to the tomb • Susan Mark Landis

Prayers for Peacemakers: Pray for Asubpeeschoseewagong

Pray for Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows First Nation). Their youth are walking to Toronto, raising awareness of the environmental destruction of Mother Earth. Despite the community's continued resistance to logging of its territories, the Ontario government has announced a logging plan. May God's creation be protected.

Forum on Sri Lanka

QPIRG McGill presents a public forum on the current situation in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka: Genocide and Repression

Monday April 27, 2009, 6pm
3480 McTavish Street
Shatner Building, Lev Bukhman Room

As the world watches the continuing siege of the Tamil region of Vanni which has thus far resulted in the killing of over 3,000 civilians between January and March 2009, and the displacement of over 300,000 civilians, tens of thousands of Tamils have marched on the streets all over the world demanding justice. At the same time, we’ve witnessed an unprecedented amount of media repression with journalists who dare to report on the war being killed, imprisoned or forced to leave the country. This event will provide background information about the current situation in Sri Lanka, as well as a critical look at Canada's role. All are invited.

The panel will be moderated by Dolores Chew, co-founder of the South Asian Women’s Centre. Featured speakers include:
Father S.J. Emmanuel, a Tamil Catholic priest and human rights advocate who is in exile in Germany.
Gamini Viyangoda, a Sinhalese journalist, also in exile since Lasantha Wickrematunge, former editor and chief of the Sunday Leader, was murdered on January 08, 2009.

For more information contact: qpirg@ssmu.mcgill.ca (514) 398-7432

Earth Day 2009

For an inspiring interlude on Earth Day 2009, watch this video:

Prayers for Peacemakers: Pray for a peaceful election in India

Pray for India as the country goes through a month-long process of general elections, with 714 million eligible voters casting their ballots. The BBC reports that at least 17 people have been killed when insurgents attacked polling stations and kidnapped voting officers. May the world's largest exercise in democracy unfold without more bloodshed.

Working for peace, paying for war

by Janet Plenert, executive secretary of Mennonite Church Canada Witness

Can we mobilize a thousand Mennonites to declare themselves to be conscientious objectors to military taxation this year? Would the government take note? Would this encourage other nonviolent, peace-loving people to do likewise? Would it make a difference in diverting our tax dollars out of military spending and into community peacebuilding uses? We don’t know.

We do know that 8.5 percent of the income tax we pay is used to fund Canadian military activities. In 2007-08 this amounted to $18 billion dollars! Paying for this seems inconsistent with our commitment to a God who came to us humbly in a child, in a manger; who taught us to turn the other cheek, and to work to bring two sides into one new humanity (Ephesians 2:14), and to restore all things under Christ (Ephesians 1:10,22).

For several years, Mennonite Church Canada has encouraged and promoted the work of Conscience Canada, a group that has worked tirelessly to legalize conscientious objection to taxation for military purposes for 30 years. Together with this group, we helped create Bill C-460 that would allow conscientious objectors to divert all of their taxes to non-military use. The “Act respecting conscientious objection for the use of taxes for military purposes” was introduced into Parliament, but had not received a second reading when the 39th session of Parliament ended.

As Bill C-460 awaits introduction into the current session of Parliament, the timing is right to increase our witness to government and ask it to take this issue seriously. Will you prayerfully consider submitting a Peace Tax declaration form along with your income tax form this year? The declaration (available for download as a PDF or by calling MC Canada toll-free at 1-866-888-6785) outlines two possible courses of action:

• A declaration of conscience; or
• A declaration of conscience and a redirection of all or part of military taxes.

Both options helpfully and simply guide us in witnessing effectively to our government, and provide additional suggestions and tools to make our declaration even stronger.

I encourage each one of us to consider one of these courses of action as a way to practically witness to our Anabaptist faith convictions. If you do submit this form, I would appreciate you dropping me a brief note indicating this. Let’s get a thousand Mennonites to witness to their faith in this way, this year! Be one of them!

If you need more information, send me an e-mail at jplenert@mennonitechurch.ca, or visit the Conscience Canada website at www.consciencecanada.ca.
(from the Canadian Mennonite, Volume 13, No. 5, Mar. 2, 2009)

Prayers for Peacemakers: Easter prayers for all peacemakers

The Lord is risen! Pray with joy and thanksgiving for all peacemakers — those throughout history who have forged new ways of thinking, and those around the world today who are creating peaceful responses to conflict. May we learn from them as we follow Christ. The Lord is risen indeed!

Bits & Peaces #31

The April edition of Bits & Peaces is here! Download the PDF.

This month's issue contains

• updates on the War Resisters Campaign,
• a new peace resource,
• info on taxes for peace,
• info on the upcoming KAIROS gathering,
• and of course, much more.
  

Feel free to pass it along to your friends, and to send any comments or feedback to AnnemarieSawatzky@mennonitecc.ca

Settlers beat children

CPTnet
5 April 2009
AT-TUWANI: Masked settlers beat three Palestinian children, shoot at Palestinian shepherds for the second time in ten days.

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]

(Juwayya, South Hebron Hills, West Bank) At 4:00 pm on 5 April 2009, Israeli soldiers and the Ma'on settlement security guard took three Palestinian boys—ages ten, eleven, and fourteen—and transported them Ma'on settlement. Soldiers delivered the children to six masked settlers who kicked and punched the children. At 4:45, the children arrived back in their village, after the settlers allowed them to leave to walk home through the hills alone.

Earlier the same day, settlers shot at a teenage Palestinian shepherd as he grazed his sheep near Juwayya. This is the second time settlers have shot at Juwayya residents over the last ten days. On 25 March, twenty Israeli settlers left the settlement of Ma'on and shot at Palestinian shepherds grazing their sheep on land belonging to the village of Juwayya. During the incident, four Israeli soldiers and the security guard of the Ma'on settlement were present and did not interfere with the settlers. The shepherds refused to leave their land, despite the danger.

"Feel my heart beat," the mother of the children said to a Christian Peacemaker Teams worker. "Really, we are afraid of the settlers."

Prayers for Peacemakers: Pray for the poor

Pray for the poor, whose numbers are swelling daily in the global financial crisis. This past week the powerful rich elite met in London in the midst of massive protests, while the unemployed and malnourished of the world suffered in silence. May their voices be heard at last.

Peacemaker goes to court

CPTnet
3 April 2009
BROCKVILLE, ON: Peacemaker goes to court for refusing to participate in Lockheed-Martin census

by David Milne

“Jesus calls us to make peace. Because Lockheed-Martin is involved, if I cooperated with the census I would violate my own religious beliefs.” Todd Stelmach gave this testimony on 5 March 2009 in a Brockville, Ontario courthouse packed with reporters and supporters, including members of Christian Peacemaker Teams. Stelmach, who participated in CPT’s November, 2008 Aboriginal Justice Delegation to Algonquin Territory, cited passages from the Old and New Testaments to support his testimony and defend himself against the charge of not completing the census, an offence punishable by up to three months in prison or a fine of up to $500.

Peter Morrison, the Director General for the census program, took the stand before Stelmach. He maintained that according to the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), which the government of Canada signed, Lockheed-Martin had the right to bid on the contract to do the support work needed to complete the Canadian census of both 2006 and 2011. Morrison stated that as Lockheed-Martin’s bid was the best one in a fair and open process; refusing to award it to Lockheed-Martin would have violated NAFTA. The Canadian government will pay Lockheed-Martin $49 million for the census of 2006 and $18 million over five years to update this software for the census in 2011.

Morrison outlined the importance of the census to federal and provincial governments for assessing needs in fields such as health care, education and social assistance. Stelmach, an occupational therapist who also works with homeless people and youth, agreed. “Health programs rely on information the census provides. I support that. But it’s wrong for the world’s largest arms maker, one that makes weapons that kill innocent people, to be involved.”

The Crown Attorney tried to distance the census from Lockheed-Martin by saying that the entity conducting the census was Lockheed-Martin Canada. He also referred to the claim that Lockheed-Martin is a weapons’ manufacturer, as “hearsay” (inadmissible). Stelmach pointed out its own website confirms it is a weapons manufacturer.

The judge accepted the Crown Attorney’s argument that it should reject Stelmach’s defence based on the Charter of Rights' guarantee of freedom to practise one’s religion. When the Crown Attorney asked Gary Castle, Stelmach’s pastor, if he had completed the census in 2006, he said “I did. But I’m thinking about whether I’ll do it again.”

Citing the complexity and novelty of the case the judge reserved his decision to 6 April 2009 at 10 a.m.

------------------------------