Our mission at Development & Peace - Caritas Canada is to address the root causes of poverty, oppression and inequality by working with partners in the global south and mobilizing Canadians in the common struggle for justice & dignity. Our annual education and advocacy campaigns on global justice issues are key to realizing this mission. As we move towards the end of the Jubilee year, I have been thinking about these campaigns in light of the title of the Papal Bull that announced it, Spes Non Confundit – Hope does not disappoint. 

Every advocacy campaign we carry out begins with the hope that through our collective action, we can create meaningful cultural and political change that favours the poor and oppressed. From a purely secular point of view, there is not a convincing reason to continue to have that hope year after year in campaign after campaign. If our hope was only in concrete results, it would most definitely disappoint. 

Without listing them, many of the objectives of our various petitions over the years remain unfulfilled. Even the ones where we do find success carry an asterisk. For example, we have campaigned several times over the years for a Canadian ombudsperson to investigate complaints of human rights and environmental abuses committed by Canadian companies operating overseas. 

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In April 2019, the federal government created the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE). However, the office was not given the necessary mandate or powers to be able to be truly effective. 

In two recent campaigns, we have been calling for Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence legislation. This legislation would require Canadian companies to respect the environment and human rights across their global supply chains. To support this goal, we collected 28,000 signatures for our “People & Planet First” campaign in 2022. 

The campaign created some hopeful developments, including a public commitment by the government of Canada to introduce such legislation by the end of 2024. The Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA) put together model legislation that the government could easily use as a template. 

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To put added pressure on the government to make good on its promise, we worked closely with the CNCA in our fall 2024 campaign, “Reaping our Rights.” This time we collected over 52,000 signatures. As of this September there is still no due diligence legislation on the horizon.

To create additional pressure, we held a ‘signature delivery’ event on September 26 on Parliament Hill. The aim was to amplify the voice of those 52,000 signatures. Over 70 of our members and staff were present with 10 boxes filled with signatures on postcards and petition sheets. The event featured a beautiful art installation made up of images from our campaign materials and signed postcards. It was created by Montreal Artist Melissa Torres. 

Originally from Honduras, her own family was impacted by destruction caused by a Canadian mining company. Carl Hétu, our Executive Director, delivered strong words at the event saying, ““For too long, we have heard from our partners all around the world that Canadian businesses are responsible for destroying the environment and introducing violence in communities. In Canada, it’s easy to think we’re a gentler country than some other wealthy countries, but in the Global South, Canada has a different reputation. We are proud to be here with our friends from the CNCA to show that Canadians in faith groups, labour unions, and other organizations all agree that Canada must do better.”

Whether or not we are successful with the CNCA in obtaining a strong due diligence law in Canada, we will continue to act in the hope that our collective action matters. We are acting with hope in our current 2025 jubilee campaign focused on global debt, and we will act with hope in every future campaign we carry out in the years ahead.

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This is not because we are naïve or content to be ineffective. The reason for our hope is because ours is not a secular hope, but a Christian one. In Spes Non Confundit,  Pope Francis writes, “Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love…Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life.” 

And so, we press forward with the hope that cannot disappoint us.