The Canadian Friend

November-December 1998


Canadian Friend home page

Inter-Church Coalitions,
The Growing Edge of the Churches in Witness to Peace and Justice,
A Unique Canadian Ecumenical Institution

Fred Franklin

As I follow with amazement and some satisfaction Pinochet's adventures in Britain, it all comes back to me: the Inter-Faith workshop on social change on Grindstone Island I attended in the summer of 1973, the military coup on Sept.11th.1973, that violently overthrew Salvador Allende's duly elected democratic Government in Santiago, Chile; the emergency meeting at the Ecumenical Forum on the following morning where we all came together to share the news and to ask ourselves "what do we do now?"

Largely out of that gathering came the initial church response — a joint statement by the United, Anglican and Catholic churches requesting the Canadian Government to protest the coup in the strongest possible terms, and not to recognize the military junta as a legitimate Government.

Little did that group gathered at the Ecumenical Forum realize or even care that they were to become the core of the Inter-Church Committee for Human Rights in Chile (later expanded to Human Rights in Latin America). What mattered was to address the injustice and to save lives. The Inter-Church group, using their own connections and expertise, assisted by the resource library of LAWG, the Latin American Working Group, set to work supplying background information and detail to the CBC and the print media (there was little available at that time), to educate and involve their own church constituency, and to encourage and support church leaders to send briefs and delegations to the Canadian Government to pressure them to provide safe conduct and asylum to Chileans fleeing for their lives and to protest the Human Rights violations. Eventually special measures were introduced to accept the refugees directly. However Canada recognized the Pinochet Government after only 18 days.

I became personally much involved in the weekly "crisis meetings," with assisting, organizing and helping to settle the incredibly distraught group of refugees when they finally began to arrive. This was ecumenical teamwork at its very best, exhilarating and exhausting.

Not all of the coalitions have quite as dramatic a beginning. However this very personal account may illustrate some of the reasons and the general atmosphere in the 70's when most of the coalitions came into being. "In the spirit of Ecumenism church leaders saw, that it is possible to do together things that it may have been impossible to do alone."

Herewith a listing of all eleven of them:

Aboriginal Rights Coalition.(ARC) Founded in 1975 as Project North.

Inter-Church Coalition on Africa.(ICCAF). 1984.

Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility.(TCCR) 1975.

Canada-Asia Working Group.(CAWG) 1977.

Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice.(ECEJ)

Founded in 1973 as Gatt-Fly.

PLURA.(Presbyterian,Lutheran,R.C.,Anglican)Domestic Poverty.1972

Ten Days for Global Justice. Education/Action. Canada wide.

Founded in 1973 as TEN DAYS for World Development.

Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America. (ICCHRLA) 1973.

Inter-Church Committee for Refugees.(ICCR) 1979.

Project Ploughshares.1976. Disarmament, Conflict Resolution, Arms Trade, Weapons Registry, Common Security.

Inter-Church Action.(ICA) Global Development and Emergency Response (recently formed through amalgamation of the Inter-Church Fund for International Development,1974, and the CCC Development and service committee.)

Canada China Programme. Founded in 1972 as China Working Group. Has recently been laid down.

Every one of the Coalitions began with a person or persons under the burden of a social injustice or an occasion of gross Human Rights violation too big to be addressed by one agency or church body alone. A group of like-minded people, drawn from church staff and activists from a number of denominations, would meet together and pool talents and resources, eventually achieving legal status with a properly constituted Board,obtaining minimal funding and hiring staff. Each coalition has its' own distinctive origin, history and characteristic working style. Because coalition boards depend on the participation of national church staff most of them meet in Ontario or Toronto where church head offices happen to be. (as well as the offices of the Canadian Council of Churches)

Thus as a member of Toronto Monthly Meeting I was privileged to be the Friends representative first on a number of CCC committees and subsequently to become part of the excitement as a representative or founder-member of several of these new,issue oriented,creative groups. Serving with them and growing up with them has greatly contributed to my orientation and development as a Friend, as much as my contributions on Friends ways (non-voting, consensus,silence on occasions of tension or for reflection, etc.) have become part of their life.

Because of our simple Meeting for Worship and absence of religious creed or dogma and outward symbols, Friends have found it relatively easy to be accepted and to work with people of other faith backgrounds.

My longest and most deep-rooted attachment has been to ICCHRLA, followed closely by ICCR. Both Coalitions have been blessed with remarkably talented staff, and boardmembers from a wide spectrum of Canadian churches; from Christian Reformed to the Russion Orthodox Church, to representation from the Catholic Bishops as well as the continuing presence and support of the Catholic Orders.

A number of times the boards have had to grapple with tough and difficult decisions perhaps involving personal risk for board or staff members, sometimes the safety of our partners in Latin America as well. Again and again I have been astounded and pleased to find how well we have come to trust and respect each other while working together on a common cause. The fact that we come from such varied religious and social backgrounds becomes totally unimportant, rather it seems to contribute to right decisions.

That to me, is what Ecumenism is all about.

The annual reports by Nancy Pocock and myself to Yearly Meeting and to Canadian Friends Service Committee over the last twenty years have described in detail the many briefs and visits to the Canadian Government as well as regular trips by ICCHRLA staff to our partners in Latin America; of return visits by some impressive personalities from Central America in order to speak to church audiences and government officials.

Lately concern over detention and removal practices of Canada Immigration,after our letters to the Minister seemed to fall on deaf ears, compelled ICCR to make use of the existing formal complaints mechanisms to the United Nations in Geneva and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington,presenting them with compelling cases and asking for their help. ICCR made submissions also towards the drafting of a new Immigration Act and appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (1998).

Over the years Friends have been appointed by YM to represent us on a number of the Inter-Church Coalitions. Their reports to YM and to CFSC provide a picture of the amount of work and commitment these Friends have given to the Coalitions. They gave of their time and energy generously during a time of optimism and in the hope and with some assurance that policies of corporations and Government could be changed.

Some Friends, as for instance Murray Thomson and Hanna Newcombe, have become identified with project Ploughshares; Elaine Bishhop, Betty Peterson and Phyllis Fisher with Aboriginal concerns. The Churches Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC), while not formally an inter-church coalition, is an Ecumenical body to which such Friends as Elaine Bishop, Ruth Morris and Anne Thomas have made significant contributions.

In preparation for this article I looked again at Coalitions for Justice, the story of Canada's Interchurch Coalitions, a collection of essays edited by Christopher Lind and Joe Milhavc and published in 1994 by Novalis, Saint Paul University. This book, which I urge Friends to read, chronicles this extraordinary period in the life of the Canadian Churches,a period during which close and trusting relationships were formed among social activists from both Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, working together on the common task of keeping Justice and Human Rights a priority for decisionmakers at home and abroad.

In their introduction to the book, the editors already in 1994 recognized how global market economy is changing the power balance away from national governments towards transnational corporations, and warn of the implications for the churches' mission for Justice. They state "Strategies which relied on the willingness and ability of governments to lead in the struggle for justice need to be reassessed. Similarly, assumptions about the dominance of church voices in Canadian society need to be rethought."

Indeed all Coalitions have been wrestling with these implications ever since. One illustration; ICCHRLA has commissioned and published this year a special report on Trade, Investment and Human Rights in Latin America. The eighty-five page report documents the inconsistencies, both at home and abroad, between the Canadian Governments' solemn International commitments to Human Rights and Social Justice and its' continuing support of companies and organizations whose activities are shown to be detrimental to Human Rights and Social Justice.

Times are darker now and turbulent. The present reality is such that the conditions prevalent in the third world which the Coalitions fought against, are now appearing in our own Country. Structural Adjustment and compliance with International financial regulations are imposed on our Citizens, as they have been on our overseas partners.

The future effectiveness of the Coalitions will much depend on the clarity of their vision, the strength of their solidarity developed over the last two decades and the depth of faith of their communities.