Canada to spread out peacekeeping
Trudeau says he won’t deploy troops to just one UN spot, will offer training, support
OTTAWA— Critics say a federal Liberal government plan to spread Canadian peacekeeping military and police resources around any number of global hot spots over the next five years breaks a promise and risks having little impact.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday he will not deploy 600 military or 150 Canadian police officers to any single United Nations peacekeeping operation.
Instead, Trudeau said his government will take a “smart pledge” approach that will offer training and air support to other nations, boost female troop deployments, and target the demobilization of child soldiers. The announcement — made at an international peacekeeping conference in Vancouver — ends months of speculation about whether highlyskilled Canadian soldiers and police officers would be sent to tackle conflict in Mali, Congo, Central African Republic or South Sudan.
But it will be many months yet before the Liberal government decides how Canadian troops might be sent to support UN peace missions, frustrating critics who say there’s an urgent need now.
Trudeau said his government will offer:
About 50 or so military, police and civilian trainers to train other UN troop-contributing countries in how to be more effective in conflict zones, for example in field medical aid or counter-IED operations.
A quick-response force of up to 200 personnel deployed for up to 12 months, used for medical evacuations or defending UN peacekeeping troops who increasingly come under attack.
Airlift capability that includes two medium utility and four armed helicopters and “tactical” airlift capacity, each for up to 12 months. Trudeau did pledge a transport aircraft to UN operations in Uganda, surprising military officials who had said that decision was still up in the air.
Other significant training and leadership support to one or two asyet-unidentified countries that want to boost the number of women they deploy on UN peacekeeping missions.
To this end, Canada has pledged new spending of up to $21 million on its latest gender-boosting initiative.
Trudeau declared that the strategy marked Canada’s reengagement in UN peace operations.
But observers, even those who support Trudeau’s stated commitment to boosting women in peace and security operations, slammed the decision to not actually deploy troops to an ongoing UN mission.
Walter Dorn said there are clear needs for the deployment of skilled Canadian troops in hot spots such as Mali, where he said the Dutch were
“It’s a broken promise, not only to Canadians but towards the UN and the international community.” HÉLÈNE LAVERDIÈRE NDP MP AND FORMER CANADIAN FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER
“pleading” for Canada’s support.
He said there is already a rotation of multinational troops in the African nation.
“Why haven’t we plugged ourselves into that. We could be doing one or two tours,” said Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College. “Instead we’re saying we’ll pick and choose and do the really safe stuff.”
Monique Cuillerier, who is a Canadian representative with the Women, Peace and Security Network, said “it’s hard to see how Canada can actually fulfil many of their recentlyannounced ‘Women, Peace and Security’ priorities if Canadian peacekeepers are sitting on the sidelines.”
Conservative MP Erin O’Toole, a former Air Force navigator, said in an interview it is an “admission” the Liberals were never going to meet their promise or live up to their “romantic” rhetoric of returning to the Pearsonian ideal of peacekeeping.
He said that’s because there is no UN mission that has a clear mandate, a clear end-date and is in Canada’s clear national interest. Haiti might have been one, but the UN is ending its mission there in October. That’s why the Conservatives proposed sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, he said. But the Liberals have chosen instead to “cobble together enough operations” to say they’ve met their pledge.
NDP MP Hélène Laverdière (Laurier—Ste-Marie) said Wednesday’s announcement was a “letdown” that fell short of the Liberals’ own promise to return Canada to UN peace- keeping.
“It’s a broken promise, not only to Canadians but towards the UN and the international community,” she said.
She predicted that it would undermine Canada’s credibility on the world stage. “There are needs. If Canada really wants to show it’s back on the world stage, it needs to act,” said Laverdière, a former Canadian foreign service officer.
On Wednesday, Trudeau recast his pledge made in August 2016, which promised 600 troops and 150 police officers for UN peacekeeping.
“We are fulfilling that commitment over time through a series of smart pledges,” Trudeau told a gathering of more than 500 delegates in Vancouver. “This is the best way for Canada to help and it offers the greatest chance of success.”
As part of it, Ottawa will provide $6 million to United Nations funds already devoted to increasing female participation in peace missions. It will also provide $15 million to establish a separate trust to boost the deployment of women not just in greater numbers but in “meaningful” and more senior roles under what Ottawa calls the “Elsie initiative,” named after Elsie McGill, the first Canadian woman to design and oversee the production of aircraft during the Second World War.
When “women and girls are participants in the peace process, the peace is more sustainable,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau said the traditional view of peacekeeping — deploying blue beret soldiers to conflict zones — is a nostalgic throwback that is at odds with modern peacekeeping, a more dangerous and deadly endeavour. He said Canada won’t engage in “piecemeal commitments,” but wants to make “profound change” by closing “institutional gaps” in training and leadership.
The plan doesn’t completely rule out Canadian participation in difficult missions in countries such as Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo or the Central African Republic, if that’s where the UN and Canada’s allies deem the need to be greatest.
However, it anticipates no lengthy commitments of personnel or equipment in those regions.
Canada is not looking to send its military and police men and women into violent conflict zones where their lives are at risk in endless missions where there is no peace to keep.
Rather, Canadian military trainers are likely to go into UN peacekeeping training centres established in Uganda, Kenya or Ghana, and Canadian trainers could accompany other forces on their deployments to monitor progress.
A senior military official, who briefed reporters, said all details of where, when and how Canadian military and police personnel will be dispatched are still to be worked out in discussions with the United Nations and these talks are expected to take at least six months. Canada has gathered commitments from 53 other nations at the conference to “operationalize” what it calls “the Vancouver principles,” an initiative to be led by retired general and senator Romeo Dallaire to train UN peacekeepers to deal with, disarm, demobilize and reintegrate child soldiers into civilian life, Trudeau said.