HAS CANADA'S ROLE AS UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPERS BEEN A SOURCE OF NATIONAL PRIDE OR SHAME?
This paper explores the following question: "Has Canada's Role as United Nations peacekeepers been a source of national pride or shame?" As Canada is a complex nation performing a difficult task in a dynamic world, formulating an answer to this question is difficult. The answer to this question, of course, is: "It depends". The answer depends on time and place. The answer depends upon one's conception of Canada and one's perception of the nation's global role. The answer depends upon whether one view's Canada's peacekeeping in a holistic context or whether one focuses on specific missions. The answer depends upon who one asks. To develop a rational answer to this question in this paper, it is necessary to consider some aspects of each of these qualifiers. Importantly, however, it is necessary to place Canada's United Nations peacekeeping functions in a Canadian perspective, because this is the lens through which Canadians evaluate the nation's peacekeeping role,
Canada's Historical Role as United Nations Peacekeepers
Canada did not, as some writers aver, invent peacekeeping. Peacekeeping, under a variety of names, has been around for much longer than the United Nations and predated the League of Nations. Canada did, however, motivate the United Nations to adopt a peacekeeping mission, thereby insinuating the peacekeeping process into the post-Second World War world order. Canadian External Affairs Minister (and later Prime Minister) Lester Pearson proposed that the United Nations create a peacekeeping force to intercede between the United Kingdom, France, and Israel, on the one hand, and Egypt on the other in the disputer in which the former three countries were attempting by force to prevent Egypt from gaining control of the Suez Canal. The United Nations adopted Pearson's recommendation, and Canadian General E. L. M. Burns...