Canada’s peacekeeping efforts equal to Armenia’s

Canada’s personnel contribution to peacekeeping in the world has fallen to its lowest level.

A total of 81,820 military and police personnel from different nations were engaged in 13 United Nations peacekeeping missions worldwide as of the end of August 2020.

Canada’s share comes to 34, which ties it with Armenia for 76th place, two spots behind Switzerland.

Bangladesh tops the list of 119 countries providing uniformed personnel, with a contingent of 6,731.

Following first, for second to fifth places, were Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nepal, and India.

Michael Byers, a professor with UBC’s department of political science, describes Canada’s presence in peacekeeping as “almost nonexistent”.

“It’s the lowest ever since UN peacekeeping was created by Lester B. Pearson in 1956 during the Suez crisis,” Byers told the Straight in a phone interview.

“So Canada’s greatest diplomatic contribution ever in our history was the creation of UN peacekeeping by a foreign minister who later became prime minister from the same party that has allowed the number to drop to 34,” he wryly added.

The expert on international law and politics was referring to the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Peacekeeping has been a source of national pride in Canada.

Pearson won the Nobel Peace Price in 1957 for his idea of a UN Emergency Force (UNEF) that stood between Egypt and armies of Israel, France, and Great Britain. Canadian officer Lieut.-Gen. E. L. M. “Tommy” Burns commanded the UNEF.

Canada had deployed about 80,000 troops to various operations in the world by the time UN peacekeepers were awarded the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize.

The back of the Canadian $10 bill issued in 2001 features a female soldier with a blue beret, the colour of UN peacekeepers. She is looking through binoculars under a bilingual inscription that says, “In the Service of Peace”.

“The United Nations is more involved in peacekeeping than at any time in its history,” Byers noted. “The world is a complex and dangerous place.”

Byers pointed out that peacekeepers by definition “prevent war and, therefore, suffering”.

“It’s a very important contribution,” he said. “That’s why Pearson created it.”

Byers said Trudeau recognized that Canadians are proud of their peacekeeping history. When Trudeau campaigned to become prime minister in 2015, he promised greater involvement by Canada in UN peacekeeping efforts.

In the fall of 2017, journalist Lee Berthiaume with the Canadian Press reported that the number of Canadian peacekeepers in UN missions fell from 112 in August 2016 to 68 in September 2017.

“By comparison, Canada’s smallest contribution to peacekeeping under Stephen Harper, who made no secret of his dislike for the UN, was 88 soldiers and police officers in October 2014,” Berthiaume wrote.

Berthiaume also noted that Trudeau’s Liberals promised in the summer of 2017 to make as many as 600 soldiers and 150 police officers available for future UN peacekeeping missions. However, they had yet, at the time, made “any concrete commitments”.
Between August 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019, Canada provided transport and gunship helicopters for civilians and UN peacekeepers in the strife-torn African country of Mali.

In the 2019 fall federal election campaign, Trudeau’s platform again promised to improve the country’s efforts in world peacekeeping.

“This is one of the broken election promises,” Byers said, “and when they did decide to contribute to the peacekeeping in Mali, it took them several years to make that decision and they decided to contribute in the safest possible way by providing helicopters.”

Byers traced the decline of Canada’s involvement in peacekeeping to a “lack of real support for multilateralism”.

“We’ve seen our national governments become less interested in the world,” he said. Before, “there was a common sense of the importance of the outside world.

“That disappeared with the arrival of Stephen Harper and hasn’t really changed much under Justin Trudeau,” Byers said.