I agree.
Evidence of meeting #106 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #106 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
You've stated that modern militarized peacekeeping missions the UN undertakes is an oxymoron, which continues the theme we've heard from other witnesses that the nature of peacekeeping has changed a great deal from the days of the Golan Heights and Suez.
Can you elaborate on the state of peacekeeping missions today?
11:20 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
I would say empirically the findings are quite mixed, because there is still evidence of a lot of the issues I mentioned about power between peacekeeping operations and host countries. They absolutely still exist, so I'm not entirely convinced that we're in a golden era of new peacekeeping. I would have to look into that question specifically to find that answer.
I do think that, in and of itself, it is a practice with which we perhaps want to have a deeper engagement and of which we want to be more critical, because militarized peacekeeping itself is an oxymoron. You're relying on militaries to keep the peace, and I appreciate that they are often necessary in the short term, but I'm not convinced that if were to do a longitudinal study of peacekeeping operations from the time they came into being, UN peacekeeping operations.... They've diffused conflict temporarily, but I'm not absolutely certain that they've enabled us to move towards a genuine idea about peace.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Canada's participation in the peacekeeping mission—so-called peacekeeping mission—in Mali is part of this government's push for a UN Security Council seat. Given the dangerous nature of this mission, is it in the national interest to risk the lives of the women and men in uniform for a seat on the body that you describe as an institution that is itself in need of deep institutional reform?
11:25 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
No, it's not, not in my opinion. I should provide a more complicated answer.
The UN is in deep need of reform, and I say this as someone with incredible faith in the multilateral process and in multilateral institutions. However, I can believe in multilateral institutions and processes while simultaneously stating that they need to be reformed.
I'm sure that the P5 architecture worked very well in 1949 with the inclusion of the five permanent members, but today, in 2018, it absolutely does not reflect a multipolar world. With Canada now wanting, for example, the two-year, non-permanent Security Council seat, that's fine. I understand that's the structure we're working with now. That's the only vehicle we have, so I understand why Canada's trying to get on to the Security Council. We haven't been on it for 20 years, if I remember rightly. I understand that, but it's like asking for a seat at a table rather than asking for the table itself to be reformed. That does trouble me.
At the same time, I understand that we operate in smaller, shorter frames of time. Yes, we are making a bid for 2021 to 2023, and I'm perhaps okay with that, but I think that we should still be able to ask for reform while being cognizant of the fact that there is a push for that seat.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to Professor Baruah for being with us today and bringing a fresh perspective to our hearings.
I have to say that I think you've made a very important point of the presumption that women will have an extra task, and that's reforming men.
As a gay man, I often find that the group defines another group as other, and then assigns that other the task of educating them. If I'm right, I think that's one of the important points you're trying to make this morning. There's no reason that this.... It should be an institutional task of attacking these, and not the job of women who are actually on the job.
11:25 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
I see it as something that is well-intentioned but misguided.
I think the trouble with positive gender essentialisms is that people don't question them enough. If you were to go around saying that all women are something or other, and if it's a very negative quality, you would have a lot of people obviously challenge you, but often we need to also challenge affirmative gender essentialisms.
I don't think we're doing that enough. One of the other things I think about is that a part of military training is breaking down the idea of the individual identity in favour of a group or collective identity. That's true regardless of gender if you're in the military, so why do we assume that women will somehow be able to maintain some kind of individuality that will enable them to challenge the group or the collective when military training is designed to break down the individual in favour of the collective?
It's just something that doesn't add up.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
It also adds an extra layer of complexity for the women who are trying to participate fully.
11:25 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
We know there is extensive research in a variety of male-dominated occupations showing that women, ethnic minorities and religious minorities tend to try to fit in with the majority. They don't challenge. It's obvious why: it's difficult for a person challenge when there isn't a critical mass of that group of people. To me, it's a well-intentioned but misguided understanding of what women can do in these situations.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you for that. I think it's an important point for us.
Just before that, you mentioned another argument for including women in peacekeeping operations. You said that victims are more likely to feel comfortable dealing with people who look like them in some ways. You passed over that in your presentation, so could you talk a little bit more about it? Do you find evidence of that?
11:25 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
I wouldn't say there is no evidence. There is some evidence, for example, from the all-female peacekeeping unit from India that served in Liberia, which said that local women actually found this to be very empowering and that they enjoyed interacting with women. I'm not sure if that's because they were women or because they were simply empathetic and good in the sense that they actually related well to people. Other research says that if you're dealing with someone who is armed, trained and wearing a uniform, you're as likely to notice the uniform as you are to notice any other trait or identity marker about that person, and you're much more likely to notice the uniform before you notice the gender.
I don't think there is enough evidence to show that women are somehow naturally trained to relate better to victims of sexual violence, especially because knowing how to respond to victims of sexual violence is something that requires actual training. That training can just as easily be provided to men, and men can just as easily respond to those challenges.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you.
Moving up a level from operations to actual peace processes, you also mentioned there is more evidence that involving women in the peace process itself yields greater success. Can you say a bit more about that?
11:30 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
I would say that's a much more broad-based effort aimed at including not just militarized and civilian peacekeepers, but also a much broader universe, as it were, that contains things like civil society organizations and women's grassroots organizations working on peace and security. In those contexts, we do see that the benefits of things like peace arrangements often last longer than they do in situations where women aren't involved.
Again, Liberia is a very good example. The bulk of the effort was made by women's grassroots, non-governmental organizations, which organized things like peace huts. They talked about peace and security. Supporting those organizations in cohort with having peacekeeping operations is what often leads to lasting peace.
Even there, however, we have some concerns now. With Ellen Johnson Sirleaf no longer the president, people are thinking.... There was momentum because a woman very actively involved in the peace movement became president. There was a certain visibility that we now risk losing if we can't keep up the momentum of these movements. Long-term support for women's grassroots NGOs, for example, which know the reality on the ground and support the peace process, is as important as having women in peacekeeping missions.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much for your contribution this morning.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here, Ms. Baruah. I think you bring a really interesting perspective here that we haven't seen yet. This idea of foisting responsibility on women for civilizing peacekeeping operations simply because, as you said, they're not men hadn't occurred to me. I find it very interesting.
In your 2017 article you stated:
Beyond the issue of women’s participation in [peacekeeping operations], we must reflect on the fact that ‘militarized peacekeeping’ is itself an oxymoron. We should question our sole reliance on militaries to secure peace, and we should interrogate peacekeeping as an endeavour with colonial underpinnings.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit for me?
11:30 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Okay. There are several layers to that.
One, as I mentioned in that article, when you look at it, the vast majority of peacekeeping operations are in the global south. There are very, very few in the global north countries, so there is an element of going out and civilizing the natives, things we've heard before that historically we've heard in other narratives, colonial narratives, because colonialism was also justified as being something that was good for people. I think there is a line there that needs to be drawn between saying, “Is this the only way going forward that we can enable lasting peace as a global community? Is the only way to keep the peace through militarized entities?“
Again, as I said before, I understand that in the short term sometimes there is a need for peacekeeping missions, and there have been multiple jokes made, the memes about people in the United States after 2016 asking for a peacekeeping mission in the U.S. These are meant to be funny, but there is something to be said about some of it, the fact that we assume that peace needs to be kept somewhere else in the global south.
That's something I don't think we can do away with right now, but it's a conversation I really want people to think about, because it is about power and it is imbued with a certain history of colonialism.
Having said that, I understand that in the short term there is often a need for peacekeeping missions, and I think we are justified in providing troops to peacekeeping missions, although today the vast majority of peacekeeping troops are also provided by countries in the global south. I don't think Canada has been among the top 20 peacekeeper-contributing countries in probably the past 20 years. We provide a fairly small number in the global scheme of peacekeeping.
We have countries that are used to providing very large numbers of peacekeepers. Today you think of countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. You think of countries in South America, and especially I think of the southern cone countries. We have Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay that are major contributors today, troop-contributing countries, to peacekeeping. I think that instead of just continuing this practice now of pulling people into institutions that I'm not sure have worked that effectively to building lasting peace—
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
What else should we integrate into our peacekeeping missions then, through both the UN and Canada?
11:35 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
I was very pleased that as part of the feminist international assistance policy right now, there is $150 million, I want to say, that is being targeted for the support of NGOs of women's grassroots organizations. I think that is absolutely vital and I think it's complementary. It's very effective and it's complementary. I think supporting local organizations, organizations in the context in which the peace is being kept, as it were, that know what to do on the ground and know how to organize and know how to mobilize people towards peaceful lives is as important as and complementary to the idea of militarized peacekeeping, while I acknowledge that sometimes militarized peacekeeping is necessary.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
When we talk about increasing women's participation in PKOs, are the language and the expectations surrounding that increase in participation encouraging more women to join?
11:35 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
That's a difficult question to answer. I think the contexts are different for why people join militaries.
I taught at California State University in the U.S. before I moved back to Canada, and I remember the ROTC being on campus and having genuine difficult recruiting, and at some point we were kind of wondering why. It was because there were so many active conflicts in the world, and there were people who were not as interested in joining militaries, and that was at the same time as the U.S. lifted the “don't ask, don't tell” policy and allowed women in active combat.
Many people chose to see that as a form of post-sexist enlightenment, of post-homophobic, post-sexist enlightenment. The idea was that we were going to have everyone. I was a bit more cynical. I thought it was pure scarcity. They weren't getting enough people to sign up.
Therefore, I think that in different contexts, women are as likely or as unlikely to join militaries. I don't think that's something we can necessarily rally around and encourage women to join. If they're interested, they will join, and over time we will see change.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Then you don't think we should work to find ways to make them feel more inclusive in the peace process?
11:35 a.m.
Professor, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Absolutely, but that will require transforming institutions much more deeply than just incrementally increasing small numbers of women.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
You talk about 50% of the population, about maybe the approach now around the world is that it's nice to have and that it's civilizing peacekeeping operations, but offer us some advice. What specifically can we do to do it the right way, to encourage women to participate? I'm probably just about out of time.
In 30 seconds or less, what's one thing we and the UN could do to encourage more women to participate?
