Award-winning peace and security expert receives 16th annual Arts Alumni Achievement Award
Ernie Regehr (BA ’68, English) is the recipient of
the 2013 Faculty of Arts Alumni Achievement Award. Ernie has spent the better part of his life in the pursuit of the demilitarization of security, establishing one of Canada’s premier peace and security NGOs. He is a senior fellow in Arctic Security at The Simons Foundation of Vancouver; and a research fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies,
at Conrad Grebel University College. He is also
a co-founder of Project Ploughshares, an NGO that works with churches, governments, and civil society in Canada and abroad, on peace and security issues.
Ernie has served as an NGO representative and expert advisor on numerous Government of Canada delegations to multilateral disarmament forums. He has travelled frequently to conflict zones, especially in East Africa, and is on the Board of Directors of the Africa Peace Forum, in Nairobi, Kenya. He has published widely on peace and security, and in 2003, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada. Ernie is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the World Peace Award, Queen
Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the University of Waterloo’s 50th Anniversary Alumni Award. In 1990, he received an Honorary Doctor
of Laws from Wilfrid Laurier University.
On making a difference
“One initiative that particularly pleases me is the work on international arms trade controls. When I began writing on the arms trade and trying to engage federal officials on the issue back in 1975, one kindly, senior
gentleman in the Department of Foreign Affairs, suggested that I should stop bothering him and go and find something useful to do with my life. Canada has now signed the newly-minted Arms Trade Treaty – it took a long time and involved many people and organizations, and it was a privilege to be a part of it.
Looking back
“A fond memory and profound influence of the University of Waterloo came in the form of Professor Walter Rintoul Martin of the English department. I entered university with the intention of majoring in political science, but a first year English literature survey course taught by Professor Martin derailed all that. He introduced me to a world of story and experience, and especially a way of reading, that was entirely new to me; he guided his class through detailed readings of texts that taught us to detect nuance, sub-texts, and allusions in ways that brought the printed word to a new kind of life for me.”
"Limits to Force: Why Contemporary wars are rarely won"
Arts 2013 Alumni Achievement Award Recipient, Ernie Regehr, gave a special presentation on March 26, to a full house at Conrad Grebel University College. In his lecture, Ernie explored fundamental questions about contemporary war, the limited utility of military force, and the implications for national and international security policies.