Peggy Mason, President

Peggy Mason’s career highlights diplomatic and specialist expertise in the field of international peace and security, with a particular emphasis on the United Nations, where she served as Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament from 1989 to 1995.

Since 1996 Ms. Mason has been involved in many aspects of UN peacekeeping training, including the development of ground breaking UN principles on the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former fighters, the reform of UN arms embargoes and the dramatic evolution of UN peacekeeping in the 21st century. Until 2014, she regularly brought the UN political/diplomatic perspective to a range of UN, NATO and EU training exercises to help prepare military commanders for complex multidisciplinary peace and crisis stabilization operations.

For 10 years Peggy Mason was a Senior Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University, where she lectured, participated in training for Iraqi and Kuwaiti diplomats and chaired the Advisory Board of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance (CCTC). She has long been active in a range of Canadian non-governmental organizations engaged in foreign policy, peacebuilding and global governance issues. A graduate and gold medallist of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Common Law, Peggy Mason was inducted into its Honour Society in September 2003. In October of 2019 Peggy Mason was elected Vice-Chair of the prestigious Canadian Pugwash Group. In June of 2020, she joined the Advisory Board of a new progressive foreign policy think tank, the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy.

Bruce Campbell, Secretary-Treasurer

Bruce Campbell is the former Executive Director (1994-2015) of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). He was awarded the 2015 Law Foundation of Ontario, Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship, and spent 2016 as Visiting Fellow, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. His latest book: The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied, was published, October 2018, by James Lorimer & Co. He is currently Adjunct Professor, York University, Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Robin Collins

Robin Collins has been active in many civil society organizations as a board or committee member since the early 1990s — Including the National Capital branch of the UN Association in Canada; Mines Action Canada; World Federalist Movement Canada; Group of 78; Canadian Pugwash Group; and Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, of which he is currently co-chair.

Kathleen Ruff

Kathleen Ruff is a former director of the Court Challenges Program and a former director of the BC Human Rights Commission. She was the founding editor and publisher of the Canadian Human Rights Reporter and host of the CBC TV program Ombudsman. She is presently Coordinator of the Rotterdam Convention Alliance, which represents environmental and health organizations around the world that are working to defend and promote the Rotterdam Convention. She is founder of RightOnCanada.ca and Senior Advisor on Human Rights to the Rideau Institute.

Steven Staples, Vice-President

Founder of the Rideau Institute and a Board Member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Peace Bureau, the world’s oldest and largest peace network, Steven Staples is an accomplished policy and research strategist, published author, and award-winning peace and social justice advocate with over 25 years of experience in community organizations and the labour movement. He is the owner of Public Response, a digital agency that services non-profit organizations and trade unions in the fields of online engagement and government relations.

Craig Martin, S.J.D.

Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, and the Co-Director of the Washburn International and Comparative Law Center. Bio here.

Nipa Banerjee, PhD

Visiting Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of International Development and Global Studies

Walter Dorn

Professor of Defence Studies, Royal Military College of Canada and a leading expert on UN peacekeeping

Peter Langille, PhD

Director, Global Common Security and specializes in peace research, conflict resolution and initiatives to improve UN peace operations

Bill Robinson

Former Program Associate, Project Ploughshares and editor of Ceasefire.ca

Hon. Douglas Roche O.C.

Author, former Ambassador for Disarmament, parliamentarian and senator (retired)

Jeremy Wildeman, PhD

Member of the Human rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa where he specializes in the Middle East