Retired Canadian general Roméo Dallaire, the world’s most famous face of peacekeeping, devoted much of his speech as he resigned from the Senate this summer to Canada’s shifting priorities. “Today, we point to the humanitarian aid dollars we’ve given, which are never enough, and proclaim we’ve done our part. Today, we have more sabre-rattling and less credibility, more expressions of concern and less contingency planning, more endless consultation with allies, or so we are told, and less real action being taken, and more empty calls for respect for human rights and less actual engagement with the violators.

“The question is: when will Canada finally answer the call again? In my view, there is no more pressing and more appropriate place to start than with the Central African Republic.”

Dallaire, who remains haunted by Rwanda’s genocide, said in a later interview, “This is an outright abandonment. Any description that tries to minimize that is creating a falsehood in Canada’s position.”