From Cyprus or the Congo in the 1960s to Yugoslavia or Somalia or Rwanda in the 1990s, Canadians have shared widely in the peacekeeping work of the United Nations. In fact, UN peacekeeping forces are very much the product of a Canadian initiative taken by Lester B. Pearson, then Canada’s Minister for External Affairs, during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. Pearson had been president, in 1952, of the United Nations General Assembly and later became Canada’s Prime Minister (1963-1968). 

This historic view portrays Lester B. Pearson,  Canada's Minister of External Affairs (and future Prime Minister, 1963-68), receiving the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize, in Norway, from Gunnar Jahn, Chairman, Nobel Committee (1942-66) [NAC/PA 114544]

In October 1956, Israeli troops backed by Britain and France attacked the key Suez Canal area, which Egypt had earlier seized. Faced with a situation that threatened to disrupt the alliance of Western powers — or even lead to world war — Pearson proposed a United Nations Emergency Force to stabilize the danger zone and offered Canadian troops to serve in such a collective force. Working through its secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjold, he succeeded in getting the UN to adopt his bold proposal. The UNEF thus quickly came into being under the command of Canadian General Eedson L.M. Burns; a Canadian contingent was a permanent inclusion. Despite difficulties, this UN Force succeeded in restoring order. Pearson, for his efforts, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. Above all, a major instrument had been added to the UN’s global operations, one for which Canada, today, deserves a large portion of the credit.

Still, the Canadian idea for peacekeeping grew quite naturally out of Canada’s own role in the United Nations established in 1945. This was a world body with which Pearson, as a top Canadian diplomat, had close links from the beginning. Neither agreat nor a small power — it was small in population but large in size and production — Canada behaved as a responsible, influential middle power by actively supporting the UN in promoting collective security around the globe. Thus from the start Canada entered into joint efforts to calm world trouble spots. For example, it sent officers as part of military observer groups to supervise ceasefire lines in 1948 in both Kashmir and India, and from 1953 on, along the Arab-Israeli borders. But these were small observer groups, not substantial forces able to maintain order. Thus the real development of UN peacekeeping came after the sizable commitment made at Suez.

Canadian units, from 1964 on, would spend close to three decades in keeping the peace between Turkish and Greek Cypriotson a bitterly divided island. More recently they have faced bombardment and bloodshed in Bosnia or Somalia or Rwanda — and the widespread list goes on. Nonetheless, Canada can be proud of the idea put forward by Lester (“Mike”) Pearson that has so clearly expressed Canada’s commitment to the cause of peace.