What do Joe Clark eating cake, strangers welcoming strangers and a debate in the Senate about the nature of Mennonites have in common? These are all points where MCC advocacy, through the Peace & Justice Office in Ottawa, working together with Christians across Canada, have created significant change in the direction of peace, justice and human dignity for the last 50 years, based on our principles of bringing people together.
In preparation for our 50th anniversary, I’ve been going through the archives on the bookshelf in my office. The unassuming white binders contain over 50 years of records of MCC communication to government and also communication within the MCC system, including reports to the boards.
In 1976, the year after the MCC Canada board approved the creation of what was then called a “listening post” in Ottawa, the first director, Bill Janzen, penned these questions. “In setting up the Office, the MCC community wondered, will it facilitate the community’s desire to be a people of God, will it bring a better understanding of government policies and promote a right involvement in Canadian public life, can it lead to helpful contact with government and with other national groups, will it serve needs that persons and organizations in the MCC community are facing and how will it affect the unity that is coming to the MCC community?”
As I sit at my desk, accompanied by half a century of work, I am inspired by how much we are still asking ourselves exactly those same questions. Some of the nature of our work has changed over the decades, but our advocacy has remained centered on MCC’s tangible experiences of working for relief, development and peace around the world, and our belief in the power of relationships and connecting people.
The binders lining my office walls contain hundreds of stories illustrating the changes that MCC’s work in Ottawa have helped bring about. Here are some of the lessons we have learned that can be applied to the challenges we are facing in this current moment.
In 1979, headlines were filled with news of the forced displacement of people in Vietnam and of refugees fleeing the Vietnam War. MCC supporters wrote to MCC asking what they could do to tangibly help. Bill Janzen was tasked by the board of MCC to come up with a solution. Together with a host of civil servants, Bill sat down and crafted an agreement that allowed private citizens to host refugees for a year when they first arrived in Canada, in what became known as private refugee sponsorship. Today, almost every community across Canada has had the joy of experiencing the transformation that comes with following the biblical imperative of welcoming the stranger. Not only has this program benefited millions of newcomers, it has also fundamentally changed the way Canadians understand what it means to welcome. This is a strength to draw upon as our current conversation about immigration becomes increasingly fragmented.
Not all of our advocacy has been as wide-reaching in Canada, but our focus on relationships and experience has shaped change in ways that the readers of that original report could not have imagined.
In 1989, for example, then-Conservative foreign minister Joe Clark was interested in having informal conversation with Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and other Palestinian leaders as a step towards recognizing Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Those leaders were cautious about a formal meeting with the Canadian government. However, MCC representatives Kent and Linda Stucky were able to use their relationship with those leaders and invited everyone to a meeting at the MCC office in East Jerusalem. Over a homemade cake, the Canadian government took, in Joe Clark’s own words, “an essential step leading to Canada’s decision to formally recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination. That was an important development in Canadian foreign policy, which may well not have happened without the good offices of the Mennonite Central Committee.”1
MCC continues to join with supporters to do relational advocacy, based on offering hospitality. For example, supporters in Ontario have been baking bread and taking it to MP meetings in the Niagara region, advocating for Canadian policy to support buns, not bombs. Here in Ottawa, in October 2024, we took our current MCC reps to meet with policymakers over Gaza, complete with homemade cookies, to continue the legacy of meeting over food to create positive change.
In a third example, due to the relational work of the Indigenous Neighbours program, many Anabaptists in Canada know that we are guests in this land and that advocacy can play a role in reconciliation work. In 2018, thousands of MCC supporters sent letters to senators, asking for passage of bill C-262, a private member’s bill to enshrine the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in law. The passing of the bill was largely seen as hopeless when it was first introduced into the House of Commons. However, advocacy, especially led by Mennonites working in partnership with Indigenous lawmakers, pushed the bill through the House of Commons and into the Senate. As an election loomed, MCC encouraged Canadians to use the tool on our website to send letters in support of the bill to the Senate, where C-262 was stuck. Enough letters arrived that there was public debate in the Senate about the role of Mennonites in Canada, a rare occasion to see our advocacy in action. And while the bill didn’t pass, due to a federal election, there was enough momentum that the incoming government was able to create new legislation that successfully enshrined the UN Declaration into Canadian law.
Whether through providing tools and information to supporters that has allowed them to advocate, through deep partnership with civil servants, or through connecting policymakers with MCC expertise and relationships in the countries where we work, MCC’s advocacy efforts have created change in Canada and around the world. As we look to the next 50 years, we continue to ask questions and we also know that the answers are found in the work we do, together. But, really, it’s all about cake.
Join us!
You can join our advocacy! We’ve compiled some of the inspiring stories that have emerged from advocacy over the last 50 years, along with lessons we have learned about doing advocacy, into a toolkit that is free to download and use. Start advocating today.
MCC's Advocacy Toolkit
