Continuing “Walking Together for Peace” begun in September 2024 in Nova Scotia
Supporting the UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
A core group of planners and walkers are seeking more people ready to join a 20 km walk from Scarborough to the Peace Garden at Toronto City Hall. The goal is to bring awareness to the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear war, even 80 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With awareness of the devastatingly. destructive impacts of these weapons on people and land, both in the deployment and in the testing, we hope to engage more citizens in the work for abolition and the signing and ratification of the most effective instrument at this time to bring about abolition, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Citizens in Toronto wishing to grow in knowledge of nuclear weapons and their impact, in advance of the Walk, are invited to visit the Photo Exhibit in the Rotunda at Toronto City Hall from September 22-26. September 26 is the UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Photos from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum give a stark picture of the aftereffects of the bombings of the two Japanese cities in August, 1945. Further photos offer the Canadian dimension of the creation and use of the bombs: Canada supplied much of the uranium needed to create the bombs, and this uranium was refined in Port Hope, Ontario. The Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, joined with Prime Minister Churchill of the UK and President Truman of the United States, in making the decision to use the bombs.
This Walk is inspired by Setsuko Thurlow, well-known survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, and life-long advocate for nuclear abolition. She has devoted herself to making the world aware of her experience and the continuing destructiveness of nuclear weapons. Partnering with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), their work resulted in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This Treaty formally entered into force on January 22, 2021 after its ratification by 50 states. In 2025, 73 states have now ratified it.
Using Petitions on the Walk, we hope to pressure Canada to sign and ratify the TPNW.
For more details on Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Peace Walk, please click here.