White Peace Dove campaign is meant to complement poppies

Photo by Vince Fedoroff

As Remembrance Day draws near, Laird Herbert is hoping Yukoners and others throughout the country will be thinking of peace.

To do that, he’s making white peace dove badges available in the city as part of the national White Peace Dove campaign.

It’s a venture that actually started several years ago with white poppies to symbolize peace.

However, with a lawsuit threatened by the Royal Canadian Legion over the copyright of the poppy in 2006, the white poppy was replaced with the white doves in Canada.

The UK, however, continues to have a white poppy campaign.

“White Peace Doves are designed to complement or act as an alternative to the Remembrance Day poppies,” Herbert said in a statement.

“The message of the White Peace Doves is that we must all actively work for peace and that we must remember all the victims of war.”

As Herbert noted, it’s a slightly different message than that of Remembrance Day, Nov. 11, when soldiers are remembered.

The dove campaign was officially launched in Edmonton on Sept. 21 – World Peace Day, though the doves just recently became available in Whitehorse at Baked and the Bent Spoon, both on Main Street.

The doves are being sold, and future years will see funds go to the White Dove Peace Association for projects promoting peace.

As Herbert explained Wednesday, this year the cost of the molds to create the doves was quite high, so they aren’t expecting to make anything off this year’s sales. In future years though, the money will be used for projects.

“We hope to raise several thousand (dollars),” he said of the Canadian campaigns.

While previous years saw the Legion take issue with the white poppy campaign, Herbert noted there hasn’t been as much conflict this year with the move to doves over the white poppies. Keeping the campaign low-key, Herbert said, there won’t be a separate ceremony around the white peace doves.

“This is in no way designed as an affront to the Remembrance Day Poppy Campaign or the Royal Canadian Legion,” Herbert said.

“We simply wanted a symbol that Canadians could wear on Remembrance Day which directly and unconditionally emphasized peace. War and killing is a terrible, terrible thing and must be avoided.”

Local Legion branch president Red Grossinger argued though that while peace is always the goal, sometimes you have to have soldiers to bring about peace.

More than 120,000 soldiers have given their lives for peace and freedom since the First World War, he said Wednesday.

While he acknowledged he doesn’t know a lot about the white dove campaign, Grossinger argued that perhaps those involved with it should go to Afghanistan and see how the Taliban react.

He doesn’t expect the dove campaign will have any impact on the local Remembrance Day activities set for next Wednesday, and believes most people will mark it as they normally do.