John Ivison: Self-congratulatory Trudeau fails to live up to his UN peacekeeping commitment
Even peacekeeping is now considered too dangerous for the Canadian Forces — we are happy to enable soldiers from emerging nations to take those risks
John Ivison
November 15, 2017
8:27 PM EST
For all the fine talk about the Liberal government “bringing Canada back to peacekeeping,” the calculation has always been how to minimize the commitment while still appearing to do something.
A seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2020 is at risk, after all.
The Prime Minster’s announcement at a peacekeeping conference in Vancouver was a typically self-congratulatory affair, but it is unlikely to have gone down as well with UN officials, who might have foolishly believed the 600 troops and 150 police pledged last year might end up bolstering an existing mission somewhere like Mali.
Instead, all they got was the offer of a Canada-based rapid-reaction force of up to 200 soldiers, a C-130 military transport plane to be based in Uganda and an unspecified number of armed helicopters.
There were add-ons for domestic consumption, such as the $15 million to help deploy more women on UN missions, new principles to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers and the ubiquitous promise of more training.
But the opposition’s calls last year to hold a parliamentary vote on a deployment to Africa now look faintly ridiculous.
At this point, there is no deployment. Even peacekeeping is now considered too dangerous for the Canadian Forces — we are happy to enable soldiers from emerging nations to take those risks.
As Trudeau put it, Canada will pioneer an innovative approach “showing the way to others through our capabilities and specialized skills.”
Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was not impressed by Trudeau’s “tap-dancing performance.”
“He had a lot of nerve to make that presentation. I found it so condescending to hear him say we’re going to throw money at the problem so other people can do the heavy lifting,” he said.
The military is unlikely to be happy either. Back in July 2016, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance said the army would be deploying to Africa “very soon.” That hasn’t happened and, as Vance knows well, armies that don’t deploy end up with low morale and even lower budgets.
The Liberals were faced with a dilemma and, as always in such situations, opted for the choice most likely to offer political advantage.
At the conference in Vancouver, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN’s undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, said additional efforts are needed for the mission in Mali to fulfil its mandate. There are big gaps when it comes to helicopters and armed personnel carriers to support the 15,000 troops from Burkino Faso, Bangladesh, Chad and Senegal.
At the same time, it’s highly dangerous, with insurgent groups targeting peacekeepers. Of the 170 killed while serving on UN missions since the beginning of 2013, 86 were in Mali.
It’s clear Canada could do a job there. We may yet. But Trudeau is probably correct in judging it politically toxic for even one Canadian soldier to come home in a body bag. The Dutch defence minister was forced to resign last month after two troops died in a training exercise in Mali.
“Risk is acceptable if the cause is just. I’m not sure how you drag a just cause out of Mali,” said MacKenzie.
Mali and South Sudan are probably best avoided.
But there’s enough misery in the world for Canada to find an honourable role protecting civilians in a country like Central African Republic, where the UN also has a mission.
The Liberals used to have a leader in Michael Ignatieff who advocated the responsibility-to-protect doctrine the UN later adopted. “We should have the guts to stand by it when the going gets tough,” he once said.
The current crop of Liberal leaders have a more cautious approach.
Trudeau concluded his speech by saying Canada will lead institutional change on peacekeeping at the UN and be “agents of peace in a world that sorely needs it.”
But what can we really teach the world about peacekeeping? There hasn’t been a Canadian military unit rotated in a UN peace operation since 2001; the number of uniforms committed to missions is the lowest in 40 years.
No matter how many times Trudeau says his government will live up to its promise to deploy 600 Canadian Forces personnel and 150 police “over time,” it’s clear that Canada has not lived up to its commitments.
The Irish and Norwegians competing for that Security Council seat in three years will be cheered by the news.
• Email: jivison@nationalpost.com | Twitter:
