Peacekeeping in Canada

Throughout the world, Canada is known as a peaceful nation. This reputation was established through our role in the creation of the United Nations and our subsequent efforts as peace keepers. Over the past century our role and the methodology used in peace keeping has changed significantly. Based on the major events that contributed to Canada’s involvement to peace keeping, it is the Paris Peace conference, the Suez Crisis and the Battle of Rwanda that are most noteworthy. Although the Paris Peace conference may not have impacted our peace keeping mission in an overly meaningful way, it did provide a framework from which Canada could move in the right direction. Following this however, 40 years later, the Suez Crisis remains the main event that truly commenced peace keeping in Canada and throughout the world. Finally, the Battle of Rwanda solidified our commitment to ensuring peace is established and maintained. This mission relied heavily on the help of Canadian forces directly on and off the battle field. Peace keeping is the preservation of international peace and security by deployment of military forces. The development of this will be more evident, when it shows how Canada became a more peacekeeping nation over the 20th century due to our role in the Paris Peace Conference, Suez Crisis and Battle of Rwanda.
Efforts to keep the peace through the Paris conference allowed Canada to establish an independent voice from Britain and enter, for the first time, what would be its role as an international peacekeeper. The Paris Peace Conference was intended to bring peace to the world by punishing those countries responsible for World War 1. Canada used the Paris Peace Conference as the first opportunity to establish itself as a sovereign nation committed to participating in a diplomatic environment. “The notion of a league of nations to police the world was not an idea Canada was willing to accept at this time” (Macmillan 84). “The Canadian delegation had just