The United Nations needs more Canada, not less

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Bob Rae is Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations.

Eugene Lang is an assistant professor at the School of Public Policy Studies at Queen’s University and former chief of staff to the Minister of National Defence.

Canada’s last foreign policy review was more than 20 years ago, when the world was a much different place. Appropriately, the 2025 Liberal election platform committed the government to develop a “new, full foreign policy.” As an essential complement, in a speech at the University of Toronto last year, Prime Minister Mark Carney committed to a new defence policy alongside the foreign policy review.

Regardless, in our view, the foreign and defence policy statements should put some meat on the bones of the commitments to multilateralism Canada made recently at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and include a strong commitment to the United Nations generally and United Nations peacekeeping specifically.

The announcement from the Department of National Defence in July that Canada would withdraw 60-odd personnel from UN peacekeeping operations is, in our view, wrong-headed, bad for Canada, the UN and the world. But it is a reflection of a bigger reflex in Ottawa: policy on the fly, run by separate departments, with their own agendas.

Canada cuts its UN peacekeeping forces as it tilts to Europe and Indo-Pacific

The Prime Minister has said, “nostalgia is not a strategy.” We agree. The fact that Canada arguably invented UN peacekeeping as we have come to know it and has a long and proud history in peacekeeping missions is insufficient to keep us in this business.

Why should Canada remain committed to UN peacekeeping as a core part of our foreign and defence policy? What does Canada get from involvement in peacekeeping? What do the UN and the world get?

Five things spring to mind.

Mr. Carney is reviving Canada’s middle power status, a concept likely first applied to this country by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent nearly eight decades ago – incidentally at the same time UN peacekeeping got going. Middle powers tend to do UN peacekeeping. A few are very good at it – especially those without colonial baggage. Canada is one of those few.

Second, the Prime Minister claims Canada is the “most European of non-European countries.” He is making serious efforts to draw Canada closer to Europe, owing to our shared values and commitment to a rules-based international order. European countries tend to be deeply committed to UN peacekeeping – some 4,000 Europeans are currently serving on UN peacekeeping operations. We need to be there in UN operations alongside our European allies, as we are with them in NATO on the front lines in Europe.

Opinion: Canada must not withdraw from peacekeeping

Third, the Americans want us to do peacekeeping, chiefly because they barely do it. And when we do it, we get credit with Washington for taking on tough jobs. This is under-appreciated in Ottawa, but we have both lived it. In short, Canada’s role in UN peacekeeping is important to Canada-U.S. relations.

Fourth, if Canada ever wants a seat again on the UN Security Council – we haven’t been elected to the Council in more than 25 years and lost our last two bids to Germany and Portugal, and Ireland and Norway – we need to be committed to UN peacekeeping in a meaningful way.

Fifth, and most important, the world is falling apart – that is why we need a new foreign and defence policy in the first place – and will need more UN peacekeepers in future. There were more interstate wars in 2025 than at any time since just after the Second World War. Hopefully the conflicts that persist today will end with truces or peace treaties and that is when peacekeepers will likely be needed from Canada. The number of displaced persons also remain at historic highs, and intrastate conflicts have increased over the past decade-and-a-half, meaning there is more need than ever for UN boots on the ground.

Haiti is case in point, and a terrible reminder that drugs, guns, drones, gangs, corruption and transnational crime have built deep roots in our own neighbourhood. They will not magically disappear. Rather, they will spread if left unchecked.

In short, to paraphrase Bono, the world needs more UN, and the UN needs more Canada. But not a Canada that is only starry eyed.

The core challenges facing the world are still peace, development, and security. The reviews that are under way risk being piecemeal and bogged down in departmental priorities and special pleading. They need a much broader perspective brought to the task, equal to the challenges of our time.