End the Arms Race-Fund Human Needs

A Vancouver philanthropist is giving peace 1,443 more chances.

Harry J.C. Walker, with a donation to the Canadian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, has ensured the distribution of End the Arms Race-Fund Human Needs (Soules Publishers, $9.95) to all 1,443 high school libraries in Canada.

Edited by UBC doctors Thomas Perry and James Foulks, the book features speeches by Helen Caldicott, John Kenneth Galbraith, Bishop Remi J. De Roo, David Suzuki and over 20 other internationally renowned educators at the Vancouver Centennial Peace and Disarmament Symposium held at the Orpheum Theatre in April of 1986.

The special printing of End the Arms Race Fund Human Needs is in keeping with Harry Walker's financial support of numerous worthwhile causes and charities. Born in Victoria, the 85 year old former commercial boatyard owner is an avid bookman who believes institutions frequently stifle independent thinking.

"I feel that practically every difficulty we have here in Canada," says Walker, "can be cured if the people were educated. We don't have very many educated people in Canada. The school system can't operate outside the political system."

End the Arms Race -Fund Human Needs is one of four books on peace published by Gordon Soules Book Publishers Ltd. of West Vancouver. A fifth title for children is forthcoming. The newest release this fall is The True North Strong and Free? -The Proceedings of a Public Inquiry into Canadian Defence Policy and Nuclear Arms ($9.95). The True North Strong and Free? was the title of an Edmonton conference spearheaded by Mel Hurtig and sponsored by the Council of Canadians and the Physicians for Social Responsiblity in November of 1986.

"Our aim is to be the world leader in publishing books on peace," says Soules, a Vancouver publisher since 1970, "Now we're looking for distribution of End the Arms Race in Russia." Co-editor of End the Arms Race, Dr. Tom Perry, visited Moscow for a conference this year and discovered the Russians could not buy copies of his book fast enough.

Soules says his first peace title, Nuclear War: The Search for Solutions ($9.95), sold only 500 copies. In only a few years the market for books about preventing a nuclear war has greatly changed.

[BCBW Spring 1987]