In 2016, at a United Nations conference in London, Harjit Sajjan, then Minister of National Defense. made a commitment to his fellow representatives from 70 countries: that Canada was prepared to deploy up to 600 members of the armed forces to support future international peacekeeping operations.
Combined with the 133 military and police officers already on the ground in December of that year, Canada’s peacekeeping contributions were poised to reach a 20-year high, not seen since the reduction of deployments in the Balkans amid the 1990s.
“Canada is committed to leading international efforts in peace support operations,” Sajjan said in a 2016 statement about the conference.
“I am confident that our unique whole-of-government approach will make tangible contributions to peace support operations around the world.
UN data shows that in the seven years since the London conference, Canadian peacekeeping operations have failed to live up to Sajjan’s pledge.
And according to troop totals from July of this year, there were only 57 active Canadian peacekeepers worldwide, split between missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, South Sudan, Haiti, Cyprus , in Kosovo, Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
UN totals for peacekeeping personnel may differ from those calculated by contributing countries, as they generally reflect the number of people whose expenses have been reimbursed by the UN.
For example, the most recent UN figures show 29 members of the Canadian Armed Forces active in peacekeeping operations, but in response to a CTV News investigation, Canada’s Department of National Defense has counted 28 military personnel in this role, with 57 others engaged in non-UN peace missions.
In a written statement to CTV News, Defense Minister Bill Blair highlighted Canada’s contribution of “military personnel, capabilities and funds,” as well as training, to UN efforts abroad.
Blair highlighted the December 2021 announcement of $85 million in contributions and related projects “to continue to meet the needs of UN peace and peacebuilding operations.”
“For decades, Canada has played a key role in supporting United Nations peace operations – and this will continue,” the statement said.
But for retired lieutenant general and former senator Roméo Dallaire, who served as force commander for UN peace operations before and during the Rwandan genocide, Canadian peacekeeping has changed a lot.
“This country is failing miserably to take the lead,” said Lt. Gen. Dallaire in interview with CTV News. “We used to; we don’t do it now.
Walter Dorn, a professor of defense studies at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) and the Canadian Forces College, says the country is lagging not only behind its own past peace efforts, but also compared to those of dozens of his compatriots today.
“For many decades, Canada has been the go-to source. We were the only country that contributed peacekeepers to every UN mission during the Cold War,” he said in an interview. “Now the UN can no longer count on us to provide such close figures.”
More recent comments from the prime minister and cabinet officials have highlighted Canada’s financial and political support for peacekeeping, including efforts to include women and a set of guiding principles formulated at the United Nations conference of 2017 in Vancouver.
“The Government of Canada continues to support efforts to make peacekeeping more effective and inclusive,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement last August. “Canada’s leadership in peacekeeping is a source of national pride.
Dorn says this falls short of previous commitments.
“The rhetoric remains lofty on paper and in speeches, but the Canadian government has yet to translate its words into action,” reads Dorn’s continuing analysis of Canadian peacekeeping. “Canada has not kept its promises and is not leading by example. »
Peacekeepers have been declining for decades
The recent lows are the latest in a decade of decline in peacekeeping operations in Canada.
UN figures show a 30-year peak of more than 3,000 active military personnel in the early 1990s, the majority of whom were deployed to the Balkans during and after the breakup of Yugoslavia as part of the Protection Force United Nations.
But by the end of 1997, registered troops had fallen by more than 90 percent, to 254 soldiers. Brief increases followed at the turn of the millennium, amid conflict in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and in the mid-2000s, amid political stabilization efforts in Haiti.
But in 2006, following the withdrawal of peacekeepers from the Golan Heights, the number of troops fell below 200 troops, a level that would stabilize over the following decade.
In a 2019 review for the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Graeme Young of the University of Glasgow describes the “politics of disengagement” during the Harper years, as Conservative governments pursued a “Canada first” approach that seen increased militarism amid the “war” led by the United States. on terrorism” after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but the disappearance of peacekeeping from party programs.
“The (Harper) government’s turn away from liberal internationalism and concerted efforts to reorient Canadian foreign policy around the use of force…embodies a fundamental lack of commitment to the maintenance of peace as a good public in the international system,” Young wrote.
The subsequent Liberal government campaigned on a promise to “recommit to supporting international peace operations with the United Nations”, but as Dorn points out, the decline in peacekeeping continued.
“Before his election in October 2015, Trudeau criticized Stephen Harper’s Conservative government for the decline in the number of uniformed personnel (66th on the list of contributors),” reads Dorn’s analysis. “Surprisingly, under the Trudeau government, the contribution would further decline for over two years until Canada reached its lowest rank in history: 81st. »
In the most recent significant increase in 2018, Canada deployed peacekeeping forces to Mali, as part of Operation Presence. However, the following year, personnel would begin to leave the country, leaving a permanent roster of 10 peacekeepers, starting this year.
Canada was once a leader in the field
Last July, Canada ranked 66th among United Nations participating countries for its contributions to peacekeeping, down from December 1992, when it ranked third in the world, behind France and the United Kingdom.
Lt. Gen. Dallaire says it’s a question of priorities shifting away from sustainable global peace and more toward national interests.
“During the Cold War, peacekeeping was really the preserve of rich countries,” Lt. Gen. said. said Dallaire. “When the great powers no longer needed all these small countries and the numerous dictators took over; the frictions of the past have exploded. We found ourselves in an era we are still stumbling through, characterized by the implosion of failed nations and states, mass atrocities and even genocide.”
The path to lasting peace, the former force commander said, is an altruistic one – beyond the self-interest of any participating nation. This sense of responsibility to protect others, he said, was a strong point of Canada, but mentalities have changed.
“What we still see today is a reluctance to take risks, a fear of victims, and a failure to provide the level of resources and people capable of not only stopping a conflict, but also of prevent it from bursting,” he said.
“That, I fear, is still a long way to go.”
Edited by Phil Hahn, CTVNews.ca producer