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“Is there any indication the UN is better equipped today to govern military forces trying to implement what are impossible mandates?” he asked. “I don’t think so. Until that is fixed, history will repeat itself.”

Grenier became a passionate advocate for mental health after witnessing shocking barbarism when more than one million Rwandans were slaughtered in the genocide in that country in 1994.

What Canada was most lacking, he said, was training for soldiers, diplomats and other government workers to deal with what he called the moral conflicts that arise on such missions.

“Because our soldiers are Canadian, and mostly raised in Canada, they live their lives according to a moral compass that is calibrated to Canadian values, to a sense of what Canadians think is right or wrong. When you put them in another country which has a very different perception of what is right or wrong, there is an issue.

“There is no way right now to adjust our moral compass to that other reality. The principles that we establish for our missions don’t apply there. It becomes a real challenge to maintain your moral compass.”

Grenier spoke of standing beside a boy as the youngster was shot by the Interahamwe (a Hutu paramilitary organization) in Rwanda, and the mental anguish that some Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan suffered after hearing the cries of young boys who were being abused by Afghan troops on a joint base.

“All the resiliency training and briefings in the world do not to this date help us to recalibrate our compass for things like that,” he said.