VOW and the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) Canada recently held a meeting with Senator Mobina Jaffer and met in August with Senator Marilou McPhedran. We discussed our concerns about the rise of military spending in Canada, the federal government sending weapons to Ukraine and prolonging the war, and Canada’s failure to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We discussed the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and our position that Canada should withdraw from NATO, a US-led military alliance that is undermining WPS. We explained that militarism and war are blocking progress on the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We want Canada to join the TPNW, end the war, reduce and re-allocate military spending to social needs and climate action, and to invest in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
You can read our letter to Senator Mobina Jaffer here and the letter to Senator McPhedran here.