Canadian Peacekeeping

It is important to the Canadian government and to Canadian citizens that Canada plays a visible role on the world stage. Canadian military’s peacekeeping efforts were a way that Canada was able to achieve this status in the past. In 1956, Canada’s ambassador to the U.N., Lester B. Pearson organized the first peacekeeping mission with the United Nations (UN) which helped show the world the meaning of peacekeeping. This first mission was to solve the issue during the Suez Crisis, and was very successful (Anderson). Even though Canada has played a critical role in the development of peacekeeping, they have lost status and respect by changing this unique Canadian contribution to the world. This was largely due to major Canadian peacekeeping failures in Bosnia and Rwanda which led them to decrease their peacekeeping efforts throughout the world and have since changed the missions into something that no longer resembles peace.

Canada was known as a world peacekeeping leader, (Peacekeeping and Peace Building Operations) participating in every UN peacekeeping mission from the mid 1950s until the mid-1990s (Veterans: Peacekeeping). In the 1990s, however, Canadians participated in dramatic peacekeeping failures in Rwanda and Bosnia.

In 1994 in Rwanda UN peacekeepers stood by while the ethnic group Hutu slaughtered 800 000 Tutsis. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire led the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda and was informed of risk of this massacre days before it happened. He then requested troops to immediately assist the UN peacekeeping troops. Most governments did not offer any help. This meant their peacekeeping force was too small to deal with this issue and stop the massacre (Simon).

In 1995 in Bosnia, the UN declared “safe areas” for...

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... of war or violence” (Canadian Oxford Dictionary). When Canada revised their peacekeeping methods, they became violent, which is the exact opposite of peace.

The world’s understanding of Canada’s proud military traditions began with former Canadian leaders; however the respect Canada once had for being a peacekeeping leader was lost after losing interest in contributing to the world in this way. The failures in Bosnia and Rwanda were the first step to Canada’s contributions falling apart. Their peace efforts continued to decrease when recent leaders have lost the sense of importance in this unique contribution. In recent years Canada has changed the meaning of peacekeeping to something people wouldn’t call “peace”. The world once admired the ways that Canada contributed to the world, although as their efforts have been fading, so has the respect for their country.