After two years of dithering, are Liberals finally about to decide on a UN peacekeeping mission?

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The Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters that sit on a tarmac at a military base in the Ottawa Valley are highly capable, among the most modern equipment in the Canadian military’s inventory.

The 15 aircraft — the last of which were delivered in 2014 — have seen limited use. From time to time they’re used to support military exercises. Earlier this year one was used in the flood relief efforts in Quebec; two were sent to British Columbia in response to wildfires. Last year, one of the Chinooks was used to deliver supplies as crews battled fires in Fort McMurray.

Their speed, power, size and transport capability make them ideal for United Nations operations, the perfect means by which to fulfill Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election promise that a Liberal government would “renew Canada’s commitment to peacekeeping operations.”

But over the last year the Canadian government has rebuffed attempts from the UN and the Dutch military, both of which tried to convince Canada to provide the helicopters for a critical mission to the west African nation of Mali.

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.

“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.

Two years ago, when people began to ask the newly elected Liberal government for details of the UN commitment it had said would be forthcoming, Sajjan explained the criteria that he said would govern the decision, insisting Canadian troops would have to make a significant difference in any mission they undertook. The focus, he added, should be on preventing conflicts before they started.

At a military equipment exposition in May 2016, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance confirmed to the audience that he expected the Canadian Forces would be undertaking more peacekeeping operations in the future. Though Vance didn’t provide any details, by then Canadian government officials were already talking about potential missions to Mali, where a civil war rages between the country’s north and south and where an al-Qaeda splinter group has found traction, and Colombia, where the UN is assisting with the winding down of the more than five-decade-long conflict between the government and the FARC guerillas. 

Canada’s focus narrowed when in June 2016, the UN Security Council decided another 2,500 military personnel were needed for the Mali mission, ongoing since 2013.

The following month, Vance told a crowd assembled for a change-of-command ceremony on Parliament Hill that Canadian troops would be heading to Africa. “Internationally, the army is at the forefront, managing conflicts around the world, contributing to operations in Iraq, building capacity with allies and partners in Poland, Ukraine, and very soon in Africa,” Vance said. Again, however, he offered no details.

A short time later, Sajjan confirmed the Liberal government was indeed focused on Africa. It was important, the minister noted, to send the message that Canada would play a “responsible role” in the world.

“Certain parts of the world haven’t got the right amount of attention and that’s why we’re looking at Africa,” Sajjan told journalists. Mali was “one place we need to be mindful of,” he added.

At the end of August 2016 Liberal cabinet ministers assembled at a military base in Quebec for what was intended to be a major announcement on peacekeeping. Canada would provide up to 600 troops and around 150 police officers for a UN operation, the ministers said. But again, there were no details as to where this force would be deployed.

By this point, Canadian military sources say, Canada was considering potential missions in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic as well as in Mali.

With so little information on offer, the Liberals changed their messaging. The government, Trudeau and Sajjan would repeatedly say, wanted to gather more information and consult with allies before making any decisions.

Then, in the fall of 2016, a series of strange twists: Vance told the Daily Gleaner newspaper in Fredericton, N.B. that “there is no such thing as an African mission.”

“It’s been over-reported based on peoples’ own assessments in the media,” he said, ignoring his own “very soon in Africa” statement from July.

Sajjan then confirmed to the Toronto Star that Canada had committed to an African mission for a three-year period. A day later, Sajjan’s office issued a statement that the minister “got a little bit ahead” of the government. “Three years is part of the suite of options that will be considered, but this hasn’t gone to Cabinet yet for a decision,” Sajjan’s office said in an email. That decision, the Liberals said, would come by December 2016.

Almost a year past that deadline, the government has still announced nothing.

During that time, Dorn and other military sources say, Canada rejected a concerted lobbying effort by The Netherlands to have Royal Canadian Air Force Chinooks assigned to the Mali mission, on which the Dutch had deployed four attack helicopters and three of their own Chinooks before the wear and tear of the desert environment on the aircraft — and the strain on Dutch air force crews from an almost three-year mission — forced them to take a break.

The UN was also openly pushing Canada to take on that commitment. In November 2016, Atul Khare, the UN’s undersecretary general for the department of field support, used the Halifax International Security Forum summit in Nova Scotia to highlight the critical need for transport helicopters for the Mali operation. Canada was also being courted to provide a commanding officer to lead the mission, but with the Liberals unable to make a decision, the UN had to look elsewhere to fill the post.

The Canadian government sent three fact-finding teams to Mali to examine the situation, but ultimately neither committed to the mission nor ruled it out completely.

So why the almost two-year delay in determining what UN mission or missions would best suit Canada?

Former Canadian diplomat Peggy Mason says she believes the Liberal government made their peacekeeping election promise without taking into consideration the potential for casualties. When the realization sunk in that Canadians could be killed on such operations and that there was reluctance from the Canadian military to embrace such operations, the Liberals hit the pause button, says Mason, president of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute.

Dorn believes there were a number of factors at play. While there was concern among the Canadian Forces about potential casualties in a Mali mission in particular, Dorn points out that while Mali is indeed a dangerous mission, many of the soldiers killed there have come from developing nations which are poorly equipped for the challenge. Chadian troops driving in the back of a pickup truck were easy targets for insurgents, for example.

Dorn also believes the delay in coming to a decision on a UN mission is linked to the Liberal government’s broader agenda.

Climate change, Indigenous issues, Syrian refugees and economic initiatives have dominated much of Cabinet’s agenda for the first two years of this government’s mandate. Looming over it all, of course, has been the question of how to deal with mercurial U.S. President Donald Trump, a challenge which has captured more of the Liberals’ attention government-wide than perhaps any single file.

“And then you have a defence minister who is not assertive,” adds Dorn. “He’s a very nice guy who is trying to make a difference but he doesn’t have the seniority so he just couldn’t push issues onto the Cabinet agenda.”

As the Vancouver conference approaches, sources say, the Liberal government has started to scramble on coming up with a substantial pledge it can announce.

One option now being considered is to have the Canadian Forces provide helicopter support for the UN mission in Haiti. Another is to send six of the Chinooks from Garrison Petawawa near Ottawa to Mali, where they could be used to transport UN troops, keeping the soldiers off the roads where they are targets for ambush or improvised explosive devices.

A return to Mali would be somewhat ironic for Canada. Mali had been considered stable until early 2012 when tribesmen seeking an independent country combined forces with Islamic militants to take control of the northern half of the country. The insurgents had received a major boost when NATO forces — including those from Canada — helped overthrow Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The rebels outfitted themselves with weapons stolen from Libyan government military bases and were able to seize much of the country before being pushed back.

Dorn says the RCAF Chinooks sitting at Petawawa would be a welcome addition to any UN operation. Last year at the UN peacekeeping conference in London, England, Sajjan told delegates of Canada’s commitment to provide up to 600 soldiers and 150 police for missions. Dorn says with the Vancouver conference to begin shortly the Liberal government is under intense pressure to make good on its promises with a substantial commitment and provide specific details on the missions where military personnel will be sent.

“This is a pledging conference, so how can they not?” Dorn points out. “They are the host. They made a pledge at the last conference to provide troops and they haven’t kept it. That’s pretty embarrassing.”

• Email: dpugliese@postmedia.com | Twitter: davidpugliese

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