Official Officials: Simon Wexler

Simon Wexler is the First Secretary for Political Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN and a very articulate young man. No surprise. He was a kind host for the VOW delegation to the Canadian Mission and we are grateful for his time.


However, I was surprised, when I looked up his credentials, that he had also worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. From it's website, the IAEA is "strongly linked to nuclear technology and its controversial applications, either as a weapon or as a practical and useful tool." I wonder how his views have been shaped by that experience.

As  we walked through the Canadian mission en route to  our meeting, we passed a room with a name plate on it that read 'Margaret Atwood." I did then ask where Joni's room was, and as yet it has not been named. This is a place for the spoken and written word, not the sound of music.

There was ample evidence of art work. The beautiful mask Hawk Hawk by Simon Dick. Reading about Simon was heartening, particularly that he is fluent in Kwakwaka'wakw language. His masks often relate to current social and political concerns, including environmental issues. The mask leaves me with many questions. Maybe about how we are representing and how Canada is using indigenous art to market herself to the world... Maybe about the hidden stories.

It was noted that another meeting was given up for us in our welcome and we were honoured to have Ray Acheson with us.   He showered us with analysis and information of the Canadian political views that are crisp and clear as they swirl through the tangled halls of diplomacy.

I found a quote from Simon that is applicable to the many political spaces that have closed in on themselves. He said,  “The risk of the echo chamber is real.” Is there room for conviction? Is the political world always weighing the potential of any opinion and action that it has in the voting booth? I am grateful for this quote because it is a political reality. Another way to say the same thing is found in the wisdom of Lewis Carroll, as Humpty Dumpty explains in this Library Walk plaque:

In these meetings, the smoothly honed political language that tumbles out like a waterfall cannot easily be diverted. Silver tongues. It is an image that also implies immobility. Country mouse, city mouse. We - the women - show up once a year and lay the table. No one eats. Well, we are gathered around a table waiting to ask questions but there is no real space for them. The real meat and potatoes dining is done somewhere else. So, we did ask a few questions but this meeting left me very hopeless. Just for a short time, of course.


Doing business as usual will not work in the decades to come.  To right the sinking ship the bureaucracy needs women of courage to demilitarize, to sign onto the Nuclear Ban Treaty, to build a Department of Peace ---- after we have clean drinking water on our reserves. I am tired of the bullshit. Don't get me wrong. Simon is a nice guy , but the conversation was missing...







We are a hopeful bunch though.
We hang our hat on the knowledge that anything we have brought up in the meeting must be noted and reported.



Rana speaks about Islamophobia and demilitarization and our involvement in military aggression that is not reported.



Janice speaks about Korea and supporting the UN ... and how military spending is depriving the international community of adequate resources to invest in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Change


I speak about the desire of the canadian people to sign onto the Nuclear Ban Treaty, to demilitarise, to spend resources on life giving rather than live taking.


Ray Acheson spoke volumes. Go Ray! I particularly like this quote. "There is the “ubiquitous weight of gender” throughout the entire nuclear weapons discourse and the association of nuclear weapons with masculinity described by Carol Cohn in her groundbreaking work on gender in nuclear weapons discourse." Oh, and I did look up Carol's work. Seems there is some unravelling to do between masculinities, spent weapons, loaded guns, emissions, rockets, patting the bombs etc. Why have women become silenced over and over again - marginalizing in their anti nuclear perspectives? Read on! Carry on! I support you Ray Acheson!