Address by Minister Dion to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations [Conseil des relations internationales de Montréal (CORIM)]

Speech

Canada, a determined peacebuilder

October 17, 2016 - Montréal, Quebec

Check against delivery. This speech has been translated in accordance with the Government of Canada’s official languages policy and edited for posting and distribution in accordance with its communications policy.

In the past year, Canada has taken demonstrable steps to be more present on the world stage. This is what I plan to demonstrate today, at one of Canada’s most prestigious foreign relations forums.

I will do this by focusing particularly on what will be the most important of Canada’s upcoming foreign policy decisions: Canada’s return to peacekeeping operations.

At the outset, I should let you know that I will not be telling you today where we will be deploying. This decision will be announced by the government in due course. But I will tell you why we must return to peace operations.

We’re hearing a strong positive response about Canada’s renewed presence everywhere, on all continents, in all parts of the world. People are saying “Finally!” Once again we have the Canada that helped us build the multilateral institutions that have made so much progress in the world.

The exceptional interest in our country is largely due to the charisma of our Prime Minister, but not only that. It is also due to his message: a message of hope, confidence, openness and inclusive growth. It would not have been possible for him to elicit the same enthusiasm if he had been another populist politician who exploits people’s fears.

Indeed, today we’re seeing a resurgence of mistrust and fear around the world. Too many politicians want to gain popular support by exploiting these fears.

Justin Trudeau embodies the very opposite of this approach, and that’s why he people are drawn to him. His message is clear: our country is strong not despite its diversity, but because of it.

He said that we should not accept fewer refugees, but more. He said that every wave of refugees makes us stronger than before. And he said that Canada would be back on the world stage.

Not that Canada had left the world, but it was no longer playing the role expected if it. Canada was too often abdicating its responsibilities by withdrawing when it did not like how things were going rather than making the effort to improve them by engaging further.

It responded to the imperfections of multilateral institutions—such as the UN—by neglecting them.

This approach needed to be countered with the principle of responsible conviction, which includes among our convictions a sense of responsibility, in other words taking into account the foreseeable impacts of our statements and actions on others. Far from rejecting our convictions in favor of pragmatism, responsible conviction shows that thinking about the consequences is the only way to have a positive impact, in accordance with our convictions.

And we have acted.

We welcomed over 25,000 Syrian refugees.

We are defending human rights everywhere, and have created an office for this purpose.

We have once again become resolutely abolitionist by opposing the death penalty, in all cases and everywhere around the world.

We are especially helping countries that are choosing a democratic path.

We are attending and playing a constructive and active role in all the forums where peace is negotiated, from the Middle East to Colombia.

We have made the Fifth Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Conference a great success right here in Montreal.

We are back on all the United Nations forums and hope to gain a seat on the Security Council.

We have rebuilt healthier relations with our three key trading partners: the United States, China and Mexico.

We have redefined investment rules in the European Union free trade agreement project in order to prove that international trade can go hand in hand with progressive social and environmental policy.

We have initiated the process to accede to the Arms Trade Treaty.

Instead of slowing the world’s progress, we are helping it resolutely to combat climate change.

Instead of acting alone, we are following the same policy as NATO and our allies, which is combining deterrence with dialogue to counter Russia’s unacceptable aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

We are working to renew relations with Iran to better defend our values and interests and those of our allies, including Israel.

We have refocused our aid plan in Iraq, working closely with our allies, not only to eradicate a terrorist group, but also to promote rebuilding in this key region of the world.

We have strengthened sanctions against countries that disturb world order, but we have done so in cooperation with our allies. We have stopped unilaterally imposing sanctions that just have a negative impact on our own population without truly penalizing the other country.

We are returning to peace operations. Et cetera.

As you can see, there is a common thread linking these policies. The overarching goal is to make Canada a determined peacebuilder—peace being defined as more than just the absence of armed conflict.

Peace is inclusive growth, sustainable development, promoting democracy and universal rights, gender equality; all these values that are so dear to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that embody his leadership and guide the Canadian government.

And so, as a determined peacebuilder, we will return to peace operations.

A return to peace operations

Sixty years, ago, the UN agreed to deploy the first peacekeeping force in history along the Suez Canal. The Blue Helmets were born and, the following year, Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize.

This innovation had extraordinary consequences for the world. Peacekeeping forces have become a vital tool and a part of Canada’s identity on the international stage.

Today, Canada plans to return to this great tradition, but it will do so taking into account new global realities. We can no longer keep the peace as we did half a century ago.

The world has changed, in some ways for the better. We have to keep in mind that states are no longer engaged in conventional and direct warfare with one another. Of course, nothing is irreversible and we have to remain vigilant, but the current absence of direct war between states is in itself an extraordinary improvement that we owe to all the military and diplomatic efforts toward peace.

While wars between states, like the 1956 Suez Crisis, have practically disappeared, the conflicts that persist in the world are asymmetrical. We no longer have states engaged in armed conflicts against each other, but rather a state opposing groups of insurgents or rebels, or sometimes terrorist or criminal networks.

Just as the nature of conflicts has changed, so has the nature of peacekeeping missions. Peacekeepers are no longer asked to serve as buffers between states that welcome them, as the way to end conflict while the opposing parties waited for trust to develop.

Conflicts today are complex and require a modern, multi-faceted and comprehensive approach, where military, diplomatic and humanitarian responses, together with security and development initiatives, are brought together under a broader umbrella of “peace operations.”

Pearson’s peacekeeping, when the UN deployed its troops between two states, has now given way to peace operations deployed within states themselves.

These asymmetrical conflicts also call for military intervention undertaken in close cooperation with local authorities and, often, with a range of international and regional partners such as NATO, the European Union, the African Union and others.

That is why Canada wants to re-engage with these institutions, the UN first and foremost among them, in particular in operations to consolidate peace, mitigate existing conflicts and participate in rebuilding states and societies after conflict.

For this reason, the Government of Canada recently launched the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program [PSOPs], a three-year, $450-million program to fund peace and stabilization projects and actions. It has also committed to providing the United Nations civilian police officers and a contingent of up to 600 Canadian Armed Forces troops to be deployed in UN peacekeeping operations.

Since announcing its return to peacekeeping operations, Canada has been pursued for its experience and for its willingness to return from all corners.

The UN is facing a dire shortage of specialized, well-trained peacekeeping personnel. Personnel who are often too slow to react, who are assigned rigid mandates, and whose credibility is sometimes compromised by accusations of sexual harassment brought against the very forces—the Blue Helmets—tasked with the responsibility of protecting fragile populations. Last year, the UN launched a wide-ranging agenda of reform for its missions, and Canada will see this undertaking through to the end.

Canada has the personnel—pilots, military engineers, doctors, communications specialists, mine clearers, legal experts, development advisors, police officers—and is prepared to deploy them for UN missions.

Canada is re-engaging by putting to use the bravery and effectiveness of its armed forces, the professionalism of its diplomats and its wide-ranging and solid expertise in international development.

One of the most sickening aspects of conflicts today is sexual violence and the sale of human beings as slaves. Canada will champion efforts to eliminate exploitation and sexual abuse perpetuated in conflict situations.

We will support coordinated and vigorous action—through military, legal and diplomatic means—to protect civilians in conflicts.

But of course, to be effective champions, we have to live, breathe and embody gender inclusion in everything we do and say. We will do everything to achieve that.

As Prime Minister Trudeau so eloquently put it, it’s 2016. Women must be at the heart of Canada’s return to peacekeeping operations. Peace is not possible without the full participation of half of humanity.

We are returning to peace operations not only because Canadians want to be where the pursuit of peace and protection of civilians requires us to be, but also because it is in Canada’s national interest. Canadians are facing threats that do not respect borders and leave no country immune.

Today, peace operations face a world where global insecurity is being fueled by what might be called a syndrome of mistrust.

Communities and populations that have lived peacefully side by side, forging family ties, have come to distrust, hate and attack each other. This hostility is further driven by the presence of extremist groups and criminal gangs who exploit the absence of functional state institutions.

The Cold War has been gradually succeeded by the exacerbation of tribal tensions, the clash of old nationalisms, the revolt against glaring inequalities, the corrosive impact of endemic corruption and, of course, increased sectarian extremism, culminating in globalized terrorism.

Millenarian, apocalyptic ideologies have emerged—one of which promotes an unacceptable distortion of the Qur’an and condemns to death all who refuse to submit to it. The entire international community must fight this deadly ideology with the utmost determination—an ideology whose first victims are Muslims themselves.

Canada must do its part in this fight, and it will. This is why I and my colleagues, the Minister of Defence Harjit Singh Sajjan, and the Minister of International Development, Marie-Claude Bibeau are in the process of consulting our allies to make sure that our contribution to peace operations has the greatest impact.

The Canadian government is resolved to make Canada a determined peacebuilder. Inspired by the principle of responsible conviction, I am proud to contribute to this effort to promote human rights, democracy, diversity, inclusive and sustainable growth, and peace.

Contacts

Chantal Gagnon
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
343-203-1851
chantal.gagnon@international.gc.ca

Media Relations Office
Global Affairs Canada
343-203-7700
media@international.gc.ca
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