This year marks the 50th anniversary of former Canadian Prime Minister Lestor B. Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize. Pearson was the "inventor" of peacekeeping and his efforts are being celebrated in Canada this month with a model peacekeeping mission being held in Ottawa at the Canadian War Museum.
I understand that Peter MacKay and General (retired) Lewis MacKenzie will be on hand for a Model Peacekeeping Mission for 100 young people from accross the country who will be trained and participate in a mock mission.
It is thus interesting that Ukrainian President Yushchenko and his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili , have proposed the creation of a joint peacekeeping force. This is an area where I believe that Canada needs to examine all options given the changing nature of international peace operations.
I saw Canada's former ambassador to Afghanistan, Chris Alexander, speak at a lunch earlier this week where he spoke of the tremendous progress that has been made in that country over the past 5-6 years. He rounded off a list of indicators from reduced poppy production to increased enrolment of girls in schools that demonstrated the absolute need for the World to allow Afghanistan to once again be a leader among the nations of the world and to avoid capitulating to the Taliban.
I believe that Afghanistan poses a formidable challenge to the world community and that Canada must re-take a leadership role in providing aid and other development assistance as well as an effective peacekeeping role there in the medium term.
PS: Did you notice that Yushchenko's complexion doesn't look as good as in some of his recent "touched up" photos?
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