Peacekeeping By: Rick Mercer

The idea of peacekeeping is a simple one—a country's military should not only defend its own interests and security, but also has an international obligation to prevent war. And the force best suited to ensure that ceasefire agreements are carried out is a neutral and multinational one.

Canadians have a unique ownership of the idea: Lester B. Pearson, Canada's fourteenth prime minister, is recognized worldwide as the father of modern peacekeeping.

In 1956, the world watched as a terrifying crisis developed at the Suez Canal: Egypt had seized the canal, leading to an invasion by Britain and France. The conflict pitted not only the interests of the United States against the United Kingdom, but involved enemy nations from the Middle East, and the added threat of Soviet intervention. It was Pearson, then a diplomat, who suggested that a neutral United Nations Emergency Force be created in the Suez to "keep the borders at peace while a political settlement is being worked out."

The UN followed Pearson's lead, and a neutral peacekeeping force, which included Canadian soldiers, was created. It kept the peace, thus allowing time for diplomacy to work to end tensions.

Since then, Canada has taken part in more peacekeeping missions than any other country. And while all of Canada has benefited from our reputation as peacekeepers, the work and sacrifice has fallen on the shoulders of the more than 110,000 Canadians who have donned the blue berets and helmets of peacekeeping forces to serve in zones of conflict around the world.

Their service to Canada and the world was memorialized in 1992 with the unveiling of the Peacekeeping Monument in Ottawa, the only such monument in the world.

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