A new fact-sheet published by the Peace Operations Working Group documents the collapse in Canadian government support for UN peacekeeping since the early 1990s.

As recently as 1992, Canada was the single largest contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping missions. We have since fallen to 56th place. In October 2009, we contributed just 55 of the 84,924 military personnel on UN missions, and just 179 of the combined total of 97,569 police and military personnel on UN missions.

Canadian pundits frequently claim that UN peacekeeping is dead. The nearly 100,000 military and police personnel currently deployed on UN missions around the world ought to conclusively disprove that claim. In fact, there are more peacekeepers deployed now than there were during the huge peacekeeping surge of the immediate post-Cold War period. There are 5 times as many deployed now as there were just 10 years ago. The total number of UN peacekeepers has never been higher.

What is dead—or nearly so—is Canada’s contribution to UN peacekeeping.