Canada’s contribution to peacekeeping has reached what is believed to be an all-time low, even as the Liberal government makes its final push to secure a coveted seat on the United Nations Security Council.
United Nations figures show there were 35 Canadian military and police officers deployed on peacekeeping operations at the end of April. That represented the smallest number since at least 1956, according to Walter Dorn, a peacekeeping expert at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.
READ MORE: Canada’s peacekeeping efforts at historic low after Mali mission
The figures are all the more striking given the Liberal government’s past promises to contribute up to 600 military members and 150 police officers as part of a broader effort to increase Canada’s support to UN peacekeeping.
Canada,instead, had only 25 Armed Forces members in the field at the end of April, as well as 10 police officers. The military personnel were scattered between UN missions in Mali, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cyprus and the Middle East. The police officers are all in Mali.
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The decline coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic,