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Well, um … yes. Except it appears that, somewhere along the line, the lofty pledges got misplaced — perhaps in a closet with other abandoned promises for electoral reform and limited deficits — and the new government discovered it couldn’t find anyplace quite suitable to offer Canada’s “specialized capabilities.”

As of Tuesday, according to the UN, Canada had just 68 active peacekeepers out there, stabilizing the world. The number was down from 112 in August 2016, partly due to the UN reducing its mission in Haiti. Of those 68, 40 are police, which leaves just 28 actual troops or military experts. Given the enjoyment the prime minister gets from giving speeches at the UN, offering ringing declarations of Canada’s intention to do universal good, it’s a bit disconcerting to discover that his government hasn’t managed, in two years of trying, to find anywhere all that goodness could be put to practical use.

Now the pressure is on

Now the pressure is on. The conference in Vancouver is intended specifically for countries that have delivered concrete contributions to peacekeeping. More than 500 delegates from some 70 countries and international organizations are expected to be on hand. The minister is going to look pretty bad if he’s asked to deliver a welcoming address and there are more people in the front row than in Canada’s worldwide peacekeeping contingent.

It could be especially awkward given that a major theme of the get-together will be the “integration of gender perspectives” in peacekeeping. Gender perspectives is what J. Trudeau is all about. If the prime minister prides himself on anything, it’s his unrelenting focus on ensuring everyone in Canada knows he thinks constantly about gender fairness, every moment he isn’t thinking of other fairness issues. But how much room can there be for an extensive examination of gender perspectives when your world-wide peacekeeping contingent consists of 68 people?