In celebrating the International Day of UN Peacekeeping (May 29), we unfortunately cannot congratulate ourselves very much for helping the United Nations because Canada has almost completely abandoned UN peace operations. We used to be a leading troop contributor before 1992, but we currently supply fewer than 200 out of 124,000 UN civilian and military peacekeeping personnel. Our pending troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011 gives us a new opportunity to re-engage in UN peacekeeping and by doing so, we can help save tens of thousands of lives.
Larry Kazdan
