Throughout the general election campaign of 2015, the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau did everything in its power to put as much distance as possible between itself and the Harper government. This was true of a host of files running from major investments in infrastructure projects to unmuzzling government scientists and officials. A new Liberal government would be pro-active, engaged and transparent. And by and large, the Liberal government lived up to its hype. It took many important initiatives in the realms of economic policy, environmental policy and social policy. It, of course, fell flat on its face when it was confronted with the challenge of implementing its promise to reform the electoral system. That said, the Trudeau government can look back with some satisfaction on the headway it has made on domestic policy issues.

What of foreign policy? Here the record is somewhat more mixed. The Liberal government has handled the challenges posed by the election of Donald Trump with intelligence and skill. No government could have done better in deploying its political and diplomatic assets to cope with the often outrageous behaviour and demands of the current occupant of the White House. In one international environmental conference after another the Trudeau government has done much to repair the damage done to Canada’s reputation by the Harper government. And in a variety of international fora Trudeau himself has emerged as a respected leader among those advocating for a liberal international order and one committed to free trade.

Somewhat less successful has been the government’s record in fulfilling its promise to re-engage fully with the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. Canada’s standing in the United Nations had been done immense harm by the words and actions of Stephen Harper and John Baird. Restoring Canada’s once stellar reputation at the UN was going to be an uphill battle. The Trudeau government has taken some steps in the right direction, but much remains to be done. Under both the Chretien and Harper governments, Canada’s financial commitments to international development assistance fell to an all-time low. That is a metric by which Canada will be judged by developed and developing countries alike. So far the Trudeau government has done nothing to redress the situation despite disbursing hundreds of billions of additional dollars on domestic priorities. A couple of billion of those dollars allocated to the official development assistance budget would do much to restore Canada’s tarnished image.

It is in the realm of peacekeeping that the government’s performance has been most puzzling. During the election campaign the Liberals promised to return Canada to its traditional role as a significant contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. In so doing it was tapping into a good deal of sentiment evident in the Canadian electorate. Canadians had tired of the costly and futile combat mission in Afghanistan and many were yearning for a return to the halcyon days when Canada was the world’s pre-eminent peacekeeper. There was in all of this a blend of mythology and nostalgia which the Liberals exploited to their advantage. Once in office, however, the new government came face to face with some hard realities.

The sort of peacekeeping which so many Canadians yearned for no longer existed. Gone were the days when blue berets or blue helmets, unarmed or lightly armed, patrolled well defined zones between the armies of former combatants whose governments had agreed to a ceasefire. Gone too were the days when commanders and governments agreed to cooperate with the United Nations in maintaining the peace, UN missions are now deployed into areas of conflict where none of these conditions prevail. In most cases the combatants belong to no organized force or army. Their leaders do not recognize the authority of the United Nations or see its role in constructive terms. On the contrary they view the UN forces as obstacles to their achieving their goals. In other words they see the UN as their enemy and are prepared to fight it at every turn.

UN forces are no longer in the business of peacekeeping but in that of peace enforcement. They are deployed to protect the governments and citizens of fragile states against the threats posed by ethnic militias, Islamist extremists and criminal gangs. In carrying out their mission they are required to fight those entities and to try to defeat or incapacitate them. The idea of UN troops using armed force only in self-defence is long gone. Now they are frequently required to take offensive actions against their adversaries. In short, what are now referred to as UN "peace support" missions are in fact low level combat missions with all the risks that these entail, including casualties.

It took the Trudeau government a full two and a half years to digest these new realities, which had been evident to most outside observers for a very long time. But at the end of that prolonged gestation period, what the government produced was a mouse. In early March it was announced that Canada would deploy six helicopters and 250 troops to the UN mission in Mali. To say that this announcement was underwhelming would be an understatement. It represents a pathetically small contribution to the work which the UN is trying to do in Africa. It certainly pales by comparison with Canada’s past contributions, when the country deployed anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 troops to UN operations. And it makes a mockery of the Liberal government’s proud boast that "Canada is back".

The best that can be said about the government’s announcement is that in selecting the Mali mission it made the right choice. Most of the other major UN operations in Africa are dead ends in which Canada has only very limited interests at stake. Mali is somewhat different. Over the years when the country was viewed as one of Africa’s model democracies, Canada made substantial financial contributions to its development. Canadian companies have not insubstantial investments in mining enterprises in Mali. Of even greater importance is that the principal adversaries confronting the UN force are Islamist extremists more or less closely affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It is in the interests of all Western countries, including Canada, to seek to eliminate the threats which they pose. If left unchecked, they might well use Mali as a base to launch terrorist attacks against Western Europe. In addition to the security imperative, there is also a diplomatic advantage at stake. Participation in the Mali mission will enhance Canada’s relations with France, which has made the most significant military contribution to that mission for several years and which has been urging Canada to join it in the field.

It remains to be seen whether this very modest contribution to UN operations will do very much to improve Canada’s reputation and image at the United Nations. There is little doubt that a commitment of a reinforced infantry battalion of 1,000 or more troops would have had far more impact. It is true, of course, that this would have increased the risks of casualties, but in the domains of security and diplomacy there is no such thing as a free lunch. Only time will tell whether what is essentially a piece of tokenism will help Canada’s candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University.

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