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In the same period, Canada’s contribution to UN operations hit a modern low. Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping who teaches at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., says the 63 Canadians currently assigned to peacekeeping efforts is the fewest since 1990.

Photo by Cpl Genevieve Lapointe

“The Liberal government has been dithering and delaying on a UN mission, both to the detriment of Africans and to the detriment of the United Nations,” says Dorn, currently on a one-year assignment with the United Nations looking at innovation and protection technology for missions. “They just don’t seem to be able to make a commitment.”

The coming days will make it harder for the Liberals to continue that dithering. On Nov. 14, some 500 officials and other delegates from 70 governments will meet for this year’s UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial conference. Canada is hosting the summit in Vancouver, defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s hometown.

Those nations attending are expected to produce new and concrete pledges of support for peacekeeping missions. In the run-up to the conference, the UN has released a list of what it needs: transport helicopters, special forces, rapidly deployable battalions, bomb-disposal teams and francophone police units, among other capabilities.

Canada could provide any of those. But over the last two years, the Liberal government has stumbled as it has tried to meet its election promise. Those in Canada and abroad who took Trudeau at his word when he promised a renewed involvement in United Nations operations can be forgiven for being frustrated and impatient, and for asking: why can’t Canada make a decision? The lack of action, say military sources, is the result of a still-new government overwhelmed by efforts to meet its other election promises that is realizing what it would mean to join a UN mission that could see Canadians coming home in body bags.