OTTAWA — The Trudeau government has promised to get Canada back into the peacekeeping business, but a new report from two independent think tanks says the military is ill-prepared for the task. The study by the Rideau Institute and the Centre for Policy Alternatives was penned by Walter Dorn, a professor at the Canadian Forces Staff College and one of Canada's leading experts in peacekeeping. For the last decade, he says, the army has specialized in counter-insurgency warfare because of the combat mission in Kandahar and other skill sets — once second nature to Canadian training — were relegated to the back burner. Dorn says the complexities of modern peace operations require in-depth training and education, on subjects including the procedures, capabilities and limitations of the United Nations.

Canadian peacekeepers prepare for a parade at Maple Leaf Camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Nov. 28, 1997. (Daniel Morel/The Associated Press) He says Canada is currently far behind other nations in its readiness to support the United Nations and train for modern peacekeeping. "Special skills, separate from those learned in Afghanistan and warfare training, would need to be (re)learned, including skills in negotiation, conflict management and resolution, as well as an understanding of UN procedures and past peacekeeping missions," said the report. "Particularly important is learning effective co-operation with the non-military components of modern peacekeeping operations, including police, civil affairs personnel and humanitarians, as well as UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the local actors engaged in building a viable peace." The focus of training at both the Canadian Forces Command College in Toronto and the army staff college in Kingston, Ont., is on "taking part in 'alliance' or NATO-style operations," Dorn concluded.