Zahar: Should Canada’s military support the intervention in Mali?

By: /
15 January, 2013
By: Marie-Joëlle Zahar
Professor of political science, Université de Montréal

Even though our government may not want to put troops on the ground (or in the air) in Mali, we need to be involved in some way. Canada cannot continue to claim that state fragility is a threat to our basic values and foreign policy objectives and remain on the margins when a situation develops that threatens not just a state but an entire region of the world. Because of geographic proximity, Europe is more directly concerned and that might provide a justification for the dispatching of European rather than Canadian forces in support of the Malian army. However, we could (and arguably
should) rev up our support to capacity-building programs intended to provide African states with the capacity to deal with security problems on the continent. Instead, in the past two years, the government of Canada has brought its financial support of such programs to an abrupt end.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter