Broken promises: the Trudeau government let down the world
on UN peacekeeping
With the U.S. losing its moral compass, Canadian leadership is needed to revitalize this key tool for international mediation.
Originally published in The Hill Times, 3 March 2025
https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/03/03/broken-promises-the-trudeau-government-let-down-the-world-on-un-peacekeeping/452716/.
As Canada redeploys its peacekeepers from the Congo to neighbouring Uganda, Canada is showing its long-standing reluctance to help the United Nations in desperate war-torn areas of the world. It is further evidence of a long decline in Canadian peacekeeping under the Trudeau government. With the end of that government, it is now possible to make some historical observations.
Before winning the 2015 election, Justin Trudeau criticized then-prime minister Stephen Harper for the paucity of peacekeeping contributions.
During the leaders’ debate on Sept. 28, 2015, then-opposition leader Trudeau criticized Harper: “The fact that Canada has nothing to contribute to that conversation today is disappointing because this is something that a Canadian prime minister started, and right now there is a need to revitalize and refocus and support peacekeeping operations.” At the time, Canada had 116 uniformed personnel in UN peace operations. The number had fallen from 380 when Harper first took over from then-prime minister Paul Martin in 2006.
And the contrast with Canada’s historical contribution is even more striking. From the time of the first peacekeeping force—created at the initiative of the country’s then-foreign minister Lester Pearson to resolve the 1956 Suez Crisis—Canada continuously provided for 40 years about 1,000 military personnel to UN operations. But under the younger Trudeau, Canada fell to an all-time low: just 17 in July 2024. According to the UN’s latest figures, Canada is at just 22 military personnel, and eight police officers.
Trudeau also broke his Vancouver promise to provide a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) to the United Nations. Trudeau made the pledge in person in front of more than 80 nations in 2017. But Canada has not even registered a QRF with the UN’s capability readiness system.
In 2017, when Chrystia Freeland became foreign minister, she deprioritized peacekeeping. She failed to gain cabinet approval for a Canadian general to be force commander for the mission in Mali, even as the UN had left the post open for months expecting a Canadian candidate. The Canadian Armed Forces had selected a general for the position, but that name was not conveyed to UN Headquarters. Canada dithered and delayed.
As foreign minister from 2017 to 2019, Freeland’s main effort in peacekeeping was to champion women under the banner of the Elsie Initiative, but Canada provided an extremely poor example. Canada sometimes failed to reach even the UN’s modest targets. And currently, not one Canadian military woman is deployed in UN peacekeeping. A few months ago, it was only one.
No wonder that Trudeau’s Canada could not secure a seat on the UN Security Council in 2020, given that a country’s contribution to international peace and security is a key factor, according to the UN Charter.
Looking back, it is clear to see that the oratory of the Trudeau government was high, but the delivery was low. The lack of action reinforced the reputation in Europe that the Trudeau government was giving Canada: “grand parleur, petit faiseur” (big talker, small doer).
Still, the UN kept asking Canada for help. And when the United States administration under then-president Joe Biden asked Canada to lead a mission against gang violence in Haiti—a major tragedy in our own hemisphere—Canadian military leaders advised “strategic patience”; that is, to do nothing. The politicians obliged. The passivity was disheartening to desperate Haitians needing rescue.
In a world crying out for help in many quarters, Canada has a vital role to play in making peace operations more effective and responsive. Many current conflicts need UN peacekeepers to reach a stable and sustainable peace. Given the skill of Canada’s men and women in uniform, Canada could once again become a responsible and reliable leader in UN peace operations. But the country needs action-oriented politicians to make it so.
With the U.S. losing its moral compass on international peace and security, timely Canadian leadership is needed to revitalize this key tool for conflict resolution and international mediation. Canada helped create the first peacekeeping force in 1956, and the practice of peacekeeping has evolved considerably since then.
With major changes happening at both the national and international levels, Canada has an opportunity to make a difference. The challenges to world order call upon us to build not only a better Canada, but also a better world.
Dr. Walter Dorn is a professor of defence studies at Royal Military College.