Canada: What Do We Want Our Soldiers To Do?

Stéphanie von Hlatky, assistant professor of political studies at Queen's University and a former Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar at CPD, has penned a new article for iPolitics. Her piece assesses the priorities and challenges facing the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) under the Trudeau government. She notes that while Prime Minister Trudeau has prioritized Canada's commitment to UN peacekeeping operations and the global fight against terrorism, the current positioning of the CAF is not in line to achieve those goals. Von Hlatky opines that with only 29 military personnel deployed for peacekeeping purposes, Canada must reposition its forces abroad. The article concludes that “If current force and resource levels are maintained, a renewed commitment to peacekeeping means that Canada’s operations in Europe and Iraq will have to be more modest,” shifting instead to support peacekeeping operations and capacity building in Central and South America, or in Africa.

The full article is available here.

Photo by Henry Lo | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0