Canada has been captivated by the thought of peacekeeping since 1957 when Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs became the winner of the Nobel Prize for the role he played in the establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), the United Nation's original large-scale peacekeeping force, the previous year. The force was established in the time of the Suez crisis . The United Nations Emergency Force divided the armies of French, British and Israelis that were invading, from the Egyptians and attempted to freeze a condition in a troubled area where diplomats were seeking lasting resolution to the crisis. To majority of people in the country, peacekeeping invokes heroic and positive images of the armed forces working in hard and at times tragic settings. For the people, peacekeeping is all about the attempts to provide protection to humans in real danger, giving hope in situations which are hopeless, and bringing justice and peace in war torn countries in the international arena. Some people within the country have felt that peacekeeping by Canadian forces since 1945 has been a major factor in maintaining and enhancing military professionalism . While this is true to some extent, this essay argues in support of the Canadian historian, Jack Granatstein who dismissed peacekeeping as "fatal distraction" for Canada's armed forces. .
Peacekeeping has been one of the most important roles of the Canadian military for decades. The very first peacekeeping operation in when the country took part, even prior to the establishment of the official United Nations system, was in 1948. This was during the operation to the second Kashmir conflict. There have been various other important peacekeeping operations such as the ones in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cyprus, Yugoslav, Somalia, as well as observation operations in the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. It was only during the shooting of Buffalo 461 over Syria that the peacekeepers from Canada lost nine soldiers, the greatest single loss in the history of peacekeeping in Canada.
