United Nations figures show the number of Canadian police officers on UN peacekeeping missions is now at its lowest level in over 10 years.
The shrinking Canadian presence comes despite the fact many UN missions are short hundreds of police officers, who are considered essential for building long-term peace and stability in troubled countries.
At the end of November, only 15 Canadian police officers, all of them in Haiti, were participating in UN missions.
Walter Dorn, a peacekeeping expert at the Royal Military College of Canada in Toronto, says that is the lowest number since at least 2005.
“It’s really unfortunate that Canada hasn’t lived up to its pledge and provided police for new missions,” Dorn said in an interview with The Canadian Press
An officer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police observes students of a Law and Order course practising proper handcuffing techniques in Baghdad in 2017. The course was taught by Canadian officers alongside members of Italy’s Carabinieri. (Government of Canada photo)
He was referring to a pledge made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in August 2016 to boost the number of Canadian police officers from 84 to 150.
Canada has police officers working on non-UN missions in other parts of the world, including 17 in Ukraine, five in Iraq and three in the West Bank.
The government says those officers count toward the 2016 pledge made Mr. Trudeau, who was in Mali this past weekend to visit Canadian peacekeepers there.
Canada has promised to deploy 20 officers to Mali.
So far, none have arrived.
Approximately 4,000 Canadian police officers have participated in over 66 operations abroad since 1989,
UN officials have stressed the growing importance of police officers in the peacekeeping process, saying they do a better job than military forces of interacting with civilians and working with local police to re-establish the rule of law.
With files from Canadian Press, CBC
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