Did 9/11 Change Canada?

by Zoë Pollock

How the country traditionally understood the role of its military:

For more than fifty years, the peacekeeping story flourished. It became an integral part of the national character; a determination of how the country believed its foreign policy should be conducted and of what sort of global citizens Canadians imagined themselves to be.

The numbers today:

In January 2010, the month in which an earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, Canada’s rank among nations contributing to UN stabilization operations had plummeted to fifty-seventh position, with just seventeen actual troops among its 142 personnel serving in peacekeeping roles.