Brian Ruhe

I was branch president from 1989 - 1992 and we held meetings at the UNA office on Broadway. Dr. Dave Dyment worked closely with me. We also had a past president who was an art professor at UBC. Fergus came from head office in Ottawa on a tour and visited our group. Mary June Pettyfer in Victoria was very helpful and supportive and I spent a weekend visiting at her home in Victoria.

The biggest event that I was responsible for organizing was done jointly with the UNA since I was on their Board of Directors at that time and I was the chairman of the International Law committee. We organized an event of UN Day, Oct. 24, 1990 called International Law and the Environment. We held this at the beautiful Law courts downtown in the dining area by the glass walls. We had almost 100 lawyers in attendance as we targeted them. The event was a success! Prime Minister Mulroney's close friend Arthur Campeau was our speaker. He was the Special Advisor on External Affairs to the Minister of the Environment. He flew in for the event and I picked him up at the airport and spent time with him. The night before his talk we went over two different speeches that had been written for him for this event. I gave him some advice on it and he decided to combine the two.

The talk was later televised by Rogers TV. I introduced Mr. Campeau and he gave quite a good talk and his questions and discussion later was lively and animated. He talked about global warming as one of the most serious issues of the day and he called the 1990's the 'turn around' decade, saying that if we don't turn around our handling of the environment now, in the 1990's, it may be too late. He even shared a personal feeling that maybe the coming of the millenium year 2000 is making people think more seriously about the future of the world.

Dave Cadman, President of the Canadian UNA was in attendance at the talk and it was his idea for me to organize this event. I wanted to do something about World Federalism but we went for the environment instead. Dave Cadman was a very good president to be working with and I appreciated him very much.

Around this time I published an article in 'The Advocate' which is the BC lawyers magazine. It was on 1990 - 1999 The UN Decade of International Law.

Douglas Roche also came to Vancouver. He was Canada's ambassador to the UN. We helped him promote his new book and I spent the day driving him around to radio stations, like the Rafe Mair Show. I even quoted him in my book 'Freeing the Buddha' in the chapter 'Buddhism and UFOs'. I wrote about the time I was driving Doug Roche back to the airport and he started talking about UFOs. He asked "What are they doing up there? Why don't they help us? The world has so many problems! Why don't they do something!"

In 1991 I became a Buddhist and at my last meeting of the WFC and the UNA I explained that I was resigning and also quitting my job as a financial planner after eight years and I was moving to a Buddhist Centre in Vermont. That was the end of my involvement in the WFC but I have never renounced my support for them and my political views remain the same. I just don't have time for it now since I am trying to earn a living as a Theravada Buddhist teacher and I am successful in doing this. I felt that politics tries to help the world from the outside but Buddhism and meditation helps the world from the inside by going to the core problems of the human ego. I think we need people doing both but I must devote all my efforts to just the one. I bless the efforts of the WFC Vancouver branch. Keep up the good work! In fact it was your president Dr. Leonard Angel who first taught be Buddhist sitting meditation in 1990! We have some close karmic connection that way and he is a philosophy teacher as well. I am quite fond of him.

I am now the director of the Theravada Buddhist Community of Vancouver, our website is pages.istar.ca/~bar/ if you want to see what I'm up to these days. My schedule is there and I teach classes most nights of the week. Good luck with your group efforts and I wish you well!

Sincerely,

Brian Ruhe