Rights

 Continuing where I left off yesterday. This glove belonged to Rick Hansen, who suffered a spinal injury. He didn't let that keep him down, launching the Man in Motion tour where he went in a wheelchair around the world in the 1980s, raising money for spinal cord research and becoming a national treasure along the way.

Sledge hockey sticks used by Canadian Paralympians are seen here, as well as a model for a wheelchair friendly playground.

One of our best ideas came from one of our greatest prime ministers, years before he occupied that role. Lester Pearson was the foreign minister during the Suez Crisis. It was his proposal to the United Nations that neutral soldiers serve as peacekeepers to resolve tensions that won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

One of the many Canadian peacekeepers who followed that example is Mark Isfeld, whose mother made little knitted dolls for children he met in his work clearing mine fields. He was killed on duty in 1994, but to this day, soldiers and humanitarian workers continue to give "Izzy" dolls.

The Peacekeeping Monument resides in Ottawa.

Canada is part of NATO, but has also advocated arms control, especially landmines, which continue to kill decades after war has ended.

The push for human rights on the world stage became an important matter for Canadians following the Second World War.

Lotta Hitschmanova dedicated her life to that cause. A refugee from Europe who came to Canada in 1942, she established a Canadian branch of the Unitarian Service Committee and spent her life working with those affected by war.

This is her service uniform.

For decades, the South African government's policy of apartheid resulted in opposition within and without the country. Canadian governments consistently spoke out against it. By the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney advocated for economic sanctions in the Commonwealth, a policy of principle that put him at odds with his allies Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, who would have preferred a less strident approach.