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DO YOU LOVE CHILDREN AND THIS PLANET?

IF YOU DO -

Join in commemorating the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Sunday August 6, and/or

Wednesday, August 9, at Nathan Phillips Square

(the site is the Peace Garden in front of New City Hall)

IF YOU THINK NUCLEAR BOMBS WILL NOT BE DROPPED AGAIN, THINK ONCE MORE (and see below*)

A thirty-minute program starting at 6 pm during the IRIE Music Festival at Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday August 6 will feature dub poet Clifton Joseph, the Yakudo Traditional Japanese Drummers, the reading of the Toronto Peace Message from Mayor David Miller, and the reading of the Peace Message from Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba by a granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor.

On Wednesday August 9, the Nagasaki commemoration will take place near the Peace Garden on Nathan Phillips Square from 6:30 to 9 pm with Phyllis Creighton as MC. The program begins with Origami paper cranes folding and storytelling for children, the Yakudo Drummers, the reading of the Toronto Peace Message and the Peace Message from Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh, featured speaker Mel Hurtig*, Shakuhachi bamboo flute playing by Bonchiku Hoshi, a reading of Kurihara Sadako's poem, "Bring Forth New Life," and Yusuke Tanaka singing "Don't Let It Happen Again". There will also be announcements from Mayors for Peace and a declaration from recent World Peace Forum in Vancouver. Dub poet Clifton Joseph, student Yuki Otsuji and the Raging Grannies will also contribute to the program. The evening closes with a Lantern Ceremony accompanied by bamboo flute playing by Bonchiku Hoshi.

* Mel Hurtig is an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been awarded honourary degrees by six Canadian universities. Among his many other awards and honours are the Lester B. Pearson Man of the Year Peace Award, the Speaker of the Year Award, the Royal Society of Canada's Centenary Medal, and, on two occasions, the Canadian Book Publisher of the Year award. He has been the National Chairman of the Committee for an Independent Canada, and is the founder and former Chairman of the Council of Canadians. Mel Hurtig also founded and published The Canadian Encyclopedia. He is the author of several bestsellers, and his latest book Rushing to Armageddon: The Shocking Truth About Canada, Missile Defence and Star Wars, was termed by the Globe and Mail "perhaps the most important book published in Canada this year."

140,000 Japanese were killed in the first American atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. In Nagasaki 74,000 were killed and another 75,000 injured on August 9, 1945 when the U.S. dropped the second atomic bomb on that city.

Further info? Call Michael Nevin (416-463-9163), or Anton Wagner (416-863-1209)