For almost 30 years, COAT has published Press for Conversion!  For its first decade our magazine dealt with the conversion of military industries and bases to civilian uses. Since the late 1990s, each issue has focused on a different anti-war theme. Our goal is to debunk the national myth that Canada is a global force for peace, human rights and multiculturalism.

COAT has organized peace rallies, marches, vigils, conferences and campaigns to oppose the arms trade, militarised "air shows," war toys, CPP investments in war, and the role of Canadian governments and NGOs in aiding US weapons programs (like "BMD") and imperial wars that are camouflaged as "humanitarian" by the UN's so-called "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. 

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland's Grandfather,
Michael Chomiak, the Nazi's Top Ukrainian Propagandist:
Fake News, Mighty Wurlitzers, Historical Amnesia and the Elephant (or Bear) in the Room

Click here (or the image above) to access COAT'S free online report.

"It takes a village
to raise a Nazi."
(Old African proverb, slightly modified)

This report is not just about one Nazi skeleton in Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland's family closet. This research has also exposed many other skeletons that the ultranationalist Ukrainian-Canadian community, the
Government of Canada, and the mainstream media would rather keep hidden.

Please share this through social media, websites, blogs, listserves and cite it in articles.  Thanks! 
Here is a summary email article.

Click the cover image above for a better view

Captive Canada
Issue #68 of Press for Conversion! examines Canadian slave labour camps during WWI, as well as other Canadian examples of mass civilian captivity from the genocidal reservation system and Indian residential schools, to WWII internment, the Depression-era "Relief Camps" that imprisoned radicals between the wars, and the Cold War program called "Profunc" through which the RCMP targeted thousands of "Reds" to be rounded up in case of war or some vaguely-defined social disorder. 

This issue also looks at how progressive people are induced to turn a blind eye to state crimes, and even take active roles in justifying, committing, or covering them up.  To achieve huge, institutionalised injustices - like genocide - many well-intentioned individuals, NGOs and movements must be co-opted.  This is achieved with myths and narratives that, for example, evolve to disguise wars as humanitarian peace initiatives.  (Such is the case with the cleverly-branded UN doctrine, "The Responsibility to Protect," which cloaks US/NATO interventions as missions to defend victims of repression.)

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Here is the introductory cover letter that was mailed with this issue.
Here is a sample of the letters mailed (May 1, 2016) to all NDP MPs with a copy of this issue.
(Not a single NDP MP ever replied to this individually addressed letter.)

Captive Canada:
Renditions of the Peaceable Kingdom at War,
from Narratives of WWI and the Red Scare
to the Mass Internment of Civilians

The Canada Syndrome, a Captivating Mass Psychosis

There are more than a dozen years of COAT's anti-war magazines online!
Click here to read Back Issues of
Press for Conversion!

Here are a few interviews with COAT coordinator,
Richard Sanders, author of "Captive Canada"
Pasifik.ca  May 4, TV4 in BC, with host Pedro Mora
The Shake Up  May 6, CJAM Windsor/Detroit, with host Paul Chislett
Global Research News Hour  May 14, CKUW Winnipeg, and several community stations, with Michael Welch
The Red Eye  May 26, Vancouver Coop Radio, with host James Mainguy
Gorilla Radio  June 8, CFUV Victoria, with host Chris Cook

In this video, Richard Sanders does a powerpoint presentation on  "Escaping the Canada Syndrome" which describes how "evil" can triumph when "good," well-meaning progressives are rendered hostage by deceptive narratives. The talk looks at how some activists have been captivated by Canada's towering peace mythology.  Examples include how residential schools were inflicted to promote "civilization," how the "Famous Five" promoted eugenics and sterilization, how the world's top arms-exporting governments and some large mainstream peace, human rights and development groups are pushing the UN's Arms Trade Treaty, and how the Liberal Party: (1) helped oust Diefenbaker in a US-backed constitutional coup that brought American nuclear weapons to Canada, (2) used "Peacekeeping" as a cover for Haiti's 2004 regime-change invasion, and (3) played midwife to the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine which uses humanitarian-sounding pretexts to rally progressives into supporting US- and NATO-led wars.
 

CPP: Making
a Killing! 
Holding Stock in
War Profiteers
and Canada's
Peace Mythology

By Richard Sanders, COAT Coordinator and editor of Press for Conversion!

When wars are launched, or flashy new missiles fired, investor confidence in the arms trade soars skyward like a blazing rocket, and so do the profits of war industries.

Most Canadians have no idea that thanks to our Canada Pension Plan (CPP) we are forcibly conscripted into an institutionalised confidence scheme tied to the age-old racket of war.  In this scam however, even the con artists and shills who run the con game are often unaware that they are drawing us into a vast criminal enterprise.

As long as it's all supposedly "legal" and there's lots of money to be made, the CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) says it will hitch our wagon to any corporate star that will benefit our retirement savings.  Even if these investments contradict our so-called "Canadian values," or undermine official government policies, it makes no difference.  In fact, the more a corporation's practices conflict with Canada's self-righteous myths about peace, democracy, human rights, protecting nature and preserving our health-care system, the more likely that they'll be able to turn us a quick buck. 

As a result, the CPPIB has happily invested our pension monies in a wide range of companies that profit directly and indirectly from war. 

The most egregious examples of this can be found among CPP investments in the world's largest weapons manufacturers.  Our government-sponsored retirement portfolio includes about $1.4 billion worth of stocks in some of the world's largest 100 war industries.  The bigger the weapons producer, the more likely we are to be invested in it.  For instance, while the CPP has stakes in 41% of the top-100 weapons manufacturers, our shares include 48% of the top 50, 80% of the top 20, and 100% of the top 10. .....

Click here to continue reading

This article for the Summer 2017 issue of Canadian Dimension magazine...

Here are some COAT tables detailing CPP investments in  2017:
* $1.4 Billion in 41 of the World's Top-100 War Industries
* $451 Million in 14 Nuclear-Weapons Producers
* $495 Million in 14 F35-Warplane Contractors
* Top Mining ($980 Million), Oil ($1.4 Billion), & Tobacco ($1.7 Billion) Companies
* $8.38 Billion in the "World's 20 Worst Companies"

COAT tables on CPP's 2016 investments:
* $11 Billion in banks making US$313 billion available to 26 nuclear-bomb makers
* $5.5 Billion in firms supporting Israeli Apartheid
* $6.8 Billion in banks making US$18.7 Billion available to 7 cluster-bomb makers.

Canada's largest weapons bazaar, CANSEC,
is returning to Ottawa,
May 31-June1, 2017. 

CANSEC is organised by the Canadian Association of Defence & Security Industries.
Read their overview.

As Canada's biggest arms bazaar, CANSEC is the most blatant manifestation of this country's largely-hidden participation in the global arms trade. As such, CANSEC is a potent symbol of Canada's particularly offensive brand of hypocrisy:  While we preach peace and so-called "Canadian values," we profit from the lucrative business of selling tools for war and repression.  Showcasing their deadly wares at Ottawa's arms bazaar this spring will be over 330 of Canada's most profitable military and "security"-technology exporters.  Many of Canada's largest corporations selling the tools of war and repression are -- not surprisingly -- American-owned.  Most Canadian military exporters rely heavily on sales to our number one military and economic ally, the United States. Canada's military and "security" exports to the US amount to about $4.5 billion per year, far outnumbering our exports to Saudi Arabia.  Browsing the glitzy CANSEC exhibits will be thousands of government buyers and military users not only from Canada and the U.S. but from around the globe. This year, CANSEC organisers are bragging that their event will attract 76 "foreign decision makers." Ottawa, being Canada's base for foreign embassies, is just the locale for this country's number one arms export bazaar.  Please join COAT and others in exposing and opposing CANSEC. 
 

Don't believe the Hype about the UN's Arms Trade Treaty
Sadly, the UN's much-heralded Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is not at all what it appears.  Many of the world's largest mainstream peace, human rights and development groups are pushing for the ATT.  However, the world's biggest warmongers and leading weapons-exporting governments are also cheerleading and funding the ATT! 
Click here to read a series of articles that explain why the ATT is doing more harm than good.