OTTAWA—Canada’s soon-to-be-announced peace mission to Africa will attempt to tackle “root causes of conflict” because going to fight is not justification enough for deployment, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Canada has an awful lot to offer other than just stopping people from shooting at each other,” Trudeau said Thursday, though he added that is “an important and one of the first things that we want to do” in any engagement.

However, Trudeau said Canadians expect a “layered approach” to any United Nations mission that will “create the conditions for longer-term stability and security.”

Trudeau’s Liberal government is weighing where to dispatch up to 600 Canadian troops and 150 police officers on an African peace mission. Trudeau told reporters that a decision is expected “in the coming weeks.”

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan suggested the “peace operation” will include the goal of countering the radicalization of youth in impoverished countries.

At a news conference and at an earlier town hall session with 300 high school students to mark a year since the Liberal government took power, Trudeau and Sajjan articulated some considerations in the government’s looming decision.

“It’s not just about going out and fighting and trying to solve conflict,” said Sajjan. “We need to start looking at the root cause and preventing it in the first place.”

That means looking at a problem “not just from a national defence perspective, it’s going to be looking at a whole-of-government perspective, of having an impact for the youth that are out there,” Sajjan told the students.

Sajjan referred to the strikingly youthful population of most African countries, where 50-60 per cent of people are aged 24 or younger. “Instead of them being radicalized and going into other groups” Canada will aim to empower them, he said.

However, when later asked how Canada can resolve entrenched sources of conflict such as ethnic and tribal rivalries, corrupt mining industry practices, or the actions of government leaders with weak democratic or unconstitutional mandates, Trudeau referred only broadly to Canada’s recognized strengths “whether it’s in terms of corporate social responsibility, whether it’s regarding our justice system or our governance systems, whether it’s the understanding that diversity can be a plus for a country and not a wedge or a point of weakness.”

The “town hall” event featured for the second time this week Trudeau interacting with students drawn from high schools in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Like an earlier encounter that highlighted Canada’s Olympic athletes, it had a celebratory and self-congratulatory tone.

Trudeau asked 18 cabinet ministers seated behind him to list their proudest moments of the past year. Some touted policy moves like the Canada Child Benefit changes, the admission of Syrian refugees, or aid to Fort MacMurray after the devastating forest fire. Others said it was being included in a gender-balanced and diverse cabinet.

However, Sajjan said his proudest moment came when Trudeau “had the courage” to say the mission should not be just a deployment of military muscle.

Sajjan is headed to Mali and Senegal next week on a fact-finding mission, his second to Africa this year.

In August, he travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, all against the backdrop of the Liberal pledge to commit troops to an African mission.

“Canadian Armed Forces has a role to play,” said Sajjan Thursday. But he emphasized the need for broader solutions because Canadian soldiers are “asked to do some tremendous work that has an impact but has also a tremendous toll on them as well.”

Meanwhile, at defence headquarters, military staff are crafting the options that Sajjan and Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, will take to cabinet for deliberation and a decision in the weeks ahead.

Unlike the haste that marked the military’s early deployment to Afghanistan, defence officials say the Liberals are taking a slow and deliberate approach to this mission.

“We’re being given the time and space to develop some options,” one official told the Star.

Asked what those options might be, the official pointed to the military’s recent deployments to Iraq and Ukraine, which each had a focus on training, and suggested that would be the emphasis of the Africa deployment as well.

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It’s likely the Canadian deployment will include equipment as well, such as helicopters, to assist local and allied forces.

Even when a decision is made, the logistics of mounting the deployment means it will be months yet before troops actually hit the ground.

“It’s complicated to put a regular-sized force in Africa,” the official said.

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