John Lennon and Yoko Ono give a press conference in Montreal

John Lennon and Yoko Ono had flown to Toronto, Canada on 16 December 1969 to begin a peace campaign. On this day they travelled to Ottawa, stopping briefly in Montreal.

Eager as ever to garner publicity for their campaign, they gave a press conference to local journalists. It took place at Montreal’s Château Champlain hotel.

We think this was a positive decade, not a depressing one. This is just the beginning. What we’ve got to do is keep hope alive, because without it we’ll sink.

Lennon and Ono dressed in black and were surrounded by War Is Over posters. A brief colour clip from the conference was later included in the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon.