Like you and most of the people at this dinner, I had hoped to hear Charley Fox tonight. He was a Guelph boy who joined the Air Force in 1940 and had a distinguished record, flying Spitfires and earning a DFC and Bar. Perhaps he is best known for strafing Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's car and almost causing the death of the German general. All of Guelph was shocked and saddened by Charley's death a few weeks ago.
It is my hope that I will convey some of his thoughts in my talk tonight. I know he was concerned about the current war in Afghanistan. Like me, he realized that our country was divided as to whether we should have troops there or not. But the fact is that our governments decided to be part of the NATO operation. That decision is questioned by many people on the basis that they believe Canada should be involved only in peacekeeping operations. In the light of that, perhaps it is important to review our military history over the last hundred years. Our theme this year, is the 90th anniversary of the Armistice, 90 years since the end of WW1. Let us ask:
What did we do during that horrific war of mud and blood? Canada with a population of roughly 8 million, had 640,000 people in uniform including my grandfather and father - 72,000 were killed and 175,000 wounded (one of which was my father at age 16)
It is useful to remember that even before WW1 Canada was part of the Boer War. We sent 8,000 troops, including my grandfather, of which 250 died.
In the Second World War, Canada's population was 12 million with 1 million in uniform, including me and my father and many more people present here tonight. Fifty thousand were killed and about 60,000 wounded. Many of my friends were among the 50,000 killed.
In the Korean War, we had 34,000 troops in Korea, more than most people think, with 500 killed.
In Afghanistan, you may disagree with the war but all Canadians should acknowledge and pay tribute to our exceptionally impressive troops. We have had 98 casualties, the third highest casualty rate of the participating nations. You will see that Canada has usually been at the sharp end in Wars.
Let me return to peacekeeping which we did so well for 30 years or more. Peacekeeping assumes that there is peace to keep. That has not been so in recent history. There was no peace in Rwanda and the UN could not field a sufficiently strong force to be much help. We Canadians remember Somalia, where peacekeeping did not work.
In Darfur, once again, the UN is not an effective organization to bring sense and peace to the area. In the Balkans, the UN was nominally a peacekeeping force but people were being killed and in order to survive UN troops were forced to act as peace makers. In Afghanistan the mission is led by NATO, because once again, the UN could not act. It is worth remembering that for the UN to act there must be a unanimous resolution from the Security Council and then countries must volunteer the troops to keep peace. The UN has really been silent on peace -making.
Nothing I have just said is good news and I see difficulties ahead. First, most recent issues have been within a single state or country and the UN is very reluctant to act or unable to act and will probably remain so because of the structure of the Security Council. Second, if there is a conflict between two or more countries, it will be impossible to stop the fighting to send peacekeepers in.
In the future will NATO or Europe be willing or allowed to be that force? Even now in Afghanistan we see NATO divided as to the role that each country will take but once again Canada is in the dangerous zone along with the United States, Britain, Netherlands and Denmark. Many NATO countries will not allow their troops to be in the really dangerous areas.
In summary, I doubt that we will see much peacekeeping in the future except perhaps for very small conflicts. The Canadian role will have to change. We will find ourselves peace making and our government will have to decide in each case whether or not we are part of a mission. If we stay at the sharp end, as is our tradition, there will be more deaths to remember and Remembrance Days will be even more poignant as conflict continues in the world.
