Evidence of meeting #38 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was peacekeepers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Is the title of the bill “National Peacekeepers' Day” or “National Peacekeeping Day”?
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Is that clause 1 in the preamble we're talking about at this moment?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
Now we're into the preamble.
What's the easiest way to handle this?
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
I think I heard what the member said. I can read the first paragraph, if that would be helpful.
Liberal
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
The first paragraph in the preamble would read as follows:
WHEREAS in 1956 the Minister of External Affairs, the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, proposed the first United Nations peacekeeping mission and, since that time, Canada has been a leader in keeping the peace around the world, with more than one hundred thousand members of the Canadian Forces participating in peacekeeping and peace support operations--
--instead of missions--
--along with many members of the Canadian police services, diplomats and civilians;
Would that capture what the members want to do?
Conservative
Bloc
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
I don't have the French version. I don't know if anyone...
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Mr. Chairman, may I just interject? If I'm not mistaken, he said the year 1956, and we heard today that the first peacekeeper died in 1951. I'm not married to it, but is that a concern to anybody?
He said “died in 1951”.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I wish I had listened more carefully to the exact date.
Conservative
Liberal
Brent St. Denis Liberal Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
I understand that we had a casualty, kind of, in an unofficial.... Peacekeeping became official at the UN level, but it seems to me—and I'm no historian—that prior to that there were unofficial peacekeeping efforts, so there was a gentleman in Kashmir who died in 1951, which would have been those hazy days before there was official peacekeeping. So that's what I took it as, that 1956 was the official UN adoption of the principle of peacekeeping. But 1951 was the unofficial first....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
I think, Mr. Stoffer, that if we were to convert it to 1951 we'd actually change the very nature of.... You couldn't word it.
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
In the French version, Mr. Perron, the preamble reads as follows:
In 1956 the Minister of External Affairs, the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, proposed the first United Nations peacekeeping mission, and, since that time, Canada has been a leader in keeping the peace around the world, with more than 100,000 members of the Canadian Forces participating in peacekeeping and peace-support missions along with many members of Canadian police services, diplomats and civilians;
Instead of the word “missions”, we would use the word “operations” and add the words “diplomats and civilians”. I presume that you would also want to amend the second and third paragraphs of the preamble to include “peacekeepers”, followed by the words “Casques bleus” in quotation marks.
Although I'm not sure of this, I believe, Mr. Perron, that it would normally appear in parentheses.
