Picture this…
It’s 1948…The world is only three years removed from the most devastating war in human history.
Less than a year earlier, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the British Mandate of Palestine be partitioned into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, and the City of Jerusalem,
Since then, fighting has erupted and casualties are mounting.
The UN declared a truce on 29 May.
It wouldn’t last.
So, what do you do when war is supposed to be over, but nobody trusts there will be peace?
A new idea was needed.
Armistice would need witnesses and soldiers who weren’t there to occupy or capture but ones willing and able to stand between enemies.
They would wear a color no army had chosen before.
Blue.
And they would be armed with restraint.
At the time it sounded almost impossible.
But this experiment will change international affairs forever.
I’m Craig Baird from Canadian History Ehx…and This… Is Canada.
This month, I’m shining a spotlight on eight stories that show what makes us great because for over 150 years Canadians have shaped history.
In every area, from sports and science to peace and humanitarianism, the world has been made better because of Canada.
And we sometimes forget that.
On today’s episode…. we travel to the Sinai Peninsula in 1957 where Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs was working hard to prevent a wider war.
This is… Lester B Pearson and the Birth of The Peacekeeper.
In the opening line for the original 1997 Fallout video game Ron Perlman voiced the iconic line “War. War never changes”.
He was paid just $40 and a sandwich to record the famous introduction which in reality…war does change.
We may have been fighting since the dawn of time, but the scale of conflict has evolved.
Humanity went from slashing its way through battles until gunpowder exploded onto the scene in China.
Now it was a whole new ball game.
Guns became more advanced and accurate. In the 1860s, the gatling gun became the precursor to the machine gun.
Then came the First World War, and industrialized warfare was here to stay.
What was known as The Great War and The War to End All Wars left 15 to 22 million dead, half of which were civilians.
Over 650,000 Canadian soldiers served and 50,000 never came back.
Through some of the bloodiest battles, Canada proved that we were a nation that punched above its weight.
Prior to the First World War, our international relations were handled by the British government.
They negotiated treaties for us, often with little input from the Canadian government.
That changed when Canada emerged from the conflict as a stronger country and with our own needs when it came to international matters.
And part of that was preventing such a destructive war from ever happening again.
An international organization would be needed to mitigate conflicts and find a path to peace before things spiraled out of control.
With that goal in mind, 63 nations came together on Jan. 20, 1920, in Paris, France to form The League of Nations.
Canada was one of them.
As a member of the League, Canada solidified its place in the world and became more than just a dominion in the British Empire.
Unfortunately, we know that the League of Nations failed miserably.
The writing was on the wall from that first day.
United States President Woodrow Wilson was a major advocate for the League’s creation, and even won the Nobel Peace Prize, for it.
But the Senate rejected membership and the United States never joined which robbed the League of any real teeth.
Then The Great Depression hit, and a major shift happened.
Nations became insular, which triggered a collapse in international trade, deepening national isolationism.
As countries chose self interest over cooperation it created a breeding ground for extremism.
It was a petri dish that helped dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and Franco to consolidate power in Europe while Fumimaro Konoe began his rise in Japan.
He assumed the vice presidency of the House of Peers in 1931 and by September of that year Japan had invaded Manchuria and would continue to encroach when Konoe became Prime Minister.
He still believed that Japan was the equal and the rival of the western powers, and that Japan had a right to expansion in China, that such expansion was survival, and that the “Anglo-American powers were hypocrites seeking to enforce their economic dominance of the world.”
Meanwhile, Italy invaded Ethiopia.
And it was clear that the League of Nations had little effect.
Then… in 1939 Germany invaded Poland and we know what happened next.
Canada officially entered World War II on September 10, 1939, declaring war on Germany one week after Great Britain as a demonstration of its sovereign independence.
Tens of thousands of single, unemployed young men rushed to enlist.
In the first four months alone, over 58,000 Canadians volunteered for the armed forces but there was little direct land combat.
That all changed in the spring of 1940 when Germany invaded Denmark, Norway, and the Low Countries, followed by the sudden fall of France in June 1940 and Canada quickly became Britain’s primary industrial and military ally overseas.
By then, a young Canadian diplomat named Lester B. Pearson was making waves in the United States.
He had been working in external affairs since the early-1930s and had slowly moved up the ranks.
He was now considered Canada’s top diplomat, and the American media loved him, and was often interviewed on a variety of matters.
He was also deeply respected by his peers.
I’ve made no secret that I consider Lester B. Pearson to be the greatest prime minister in Canadian history, and I’m not just saying that because we both love a bowtie and we bowtie wearers should stick together.
I admire him partly because as the Second World War raged, Pearson and others were already looking ahead.
As early as 1943, he envisioned the end of the war and the peace that would follow.
He saw the failure of the League of Nations and believed that humanity could learn from it and create a new organization.
Pearson had been in many League of Nation meetings and in 1935 when Italy invaded Ethiopia, he believed the League could’ve stopped a war.
He said,
“For a few weeks, we did think we could stop aggression for the first time in modern history by international action, international force, behind international law. I was as excited as anybody could be at that.”
As the world plunged into conflict once more, Pearson became even more sure that cooperation was key to peace.
He became the chair of the United Nations Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture and chaired the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Despite his crushing workload, which included being the Ambassador to the United Nations Pearson delighted in being part of world-changing matters. He wrote to a friend,
“In all my official career, I have never been subjected to quite the pressure. Instead of a seat in the back row, watching the performance, I have had to sit at the top of the table and try to keep the delegates from 44 so-called United Nations in order.”
He had been in the role of Ambassador for four months when he joined 850 other delegates in San Francisco in April 1945, to finalize what became the founding document of the United Nations.
During these meetings, Adolf Hitler died by suicide and Germany signed an unconditional surrender.
The Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted by 50 countries and signed on June 26, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.
After the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, Emperor Hirohito then signed the official Surrender Documents on September 2, which marked the absolute end of World War II.
The United Nations was born less than two months later on October 24, 1945, after the charter was ratified by the permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatory nations.
Pearson was involved in every step of the way and was so respected he was even put forward for the role of the first Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The Soviets, however, believed he was too closely associated with the United States, and vetoed it.
But it created a precedent.
Although not an official requirement, a career diplomat from a middle-power country with little association with any country on the security council became the preference for the position and so Tygve Lie of Norway became the first Secretary-General of the United Nations instead.
As the United Nations got onto its feet, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King appointed Lester B. Pearson to be the under-secretary of state for external affairs.
He would be serving under Louis St. Laurent and the two quickly became good friends which ensured that Pearson always had the backing in diplomatic matters, which included international agreements.
When King resigned as prime minister in 1948, he was replaced by Louis St. Laurent, and Pearson became the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
On Oct. 25, 1948, he ran in a by-election in Algoma East and won a seat in Parliament.
For the next nine years, Pearson was Canada’s voice on the international stage during a time that is now called The Golden Age of Canadian Diplomacy.
Under Pearson’s direction Canada established its global identity and reputation as a nation that could de-escalate tensions during the Cold War and cement relationships.
Canada co-founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, served on the UN Security Council for the first time and was part of the Geneva Conference that attempted to bring peace to French Indochina.
Pearson served as the chair of the NATO Council from 1951 to 1952, the President of the UN’s General Assembly in 1952, and was a key architect of the Colombo Plan to assist developing nations.
He was once put forward in 1953 as a possible secretary-general but again the Soviet Union vetoed him.
Three years later, Pearson became the first Western foreign minister to visit the Soviet Union.
And legend has it he helped soften relations by drinking.
At a villa in Crimea, he was in tense negotiations with Nikita Khrushchev.
It had all started so innocently; some food and conversation but drinks were also flowing and soon Pearson and the Canadian delegation knew they were in trouble when their Russian hosts narrowed.
They were 8,000 kilometres from home, and the nation would be counting on them to show what Canadian livers were made of.
“Khruschev … hoped and felt that there would never be conflict between Canada and the Soviet Union,” Lester Pearson, said at the midpoint of their boozy odyssey which is rumoured to have lasted four hours.
Once in Moscow, a bow-tied Pearson was expected to make small talk with men that in mere months would launch a brutal attack in Hungary that would send at least 30,000 refugees to Canada.
The vodka standoff included the diplomat George Ignatieff, the father of a then eight-year-old Michael, future leader of the Liberal Party.
Ignatieff would later compare the visit as being akin to visiting Adolf Hitler at the Nazi leader’s personal Bavarian fortress because and as the drinking session began, he was sternly told to “drink like a Russian” as the Soviet defence minister kept his eyes locked on him.
The Canadians were expected to keep up, and the pace would be punishing.
Heavy drinking was a way to destabilize rivals, and the Soviets wanted the Canadians to chicken out, make fools of themselves or simply have their heads spinning the next day.
But they had met their match.
They didn’t know that Pearson and Ignatieff came from Ottawa where civil servants routinely drank beer for lunch.
Parliamentary offices contained liquor cabinets, press offices had beer vending machines and diplomats passed entire train trips and ocean voyages at the bar rail.
These would be two hard-drinking Arctic neighbours squaring off One after another, after another they traded vodka shots…. until the 18th when Khrushchev passed out.
Pearson then stood up, politely excused himself and walked out of the room.
Pearson may have won the drinking contest, but he didn’t win the war.
On his way back to his accommodations Pearson’s driver had to repeatedly stop the car so Canada’s foreign minister could vomit his guts out.
The foreign minister would boast that the Canadians kept “heads up with fixed determination” as the Russians sunk ever deeper into their chairs.
“We had earned medals that night for conviviality beyond the line of duty,” he wrote in his memoirs.
And soon Pearson would receive another medal.
An 18-carat gold award measuring 6.6 centimeters in diameter and weighing 196 grams.
All because of a situation in Egypt that was inching the world to the brink of war once more.
On July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, a.
Opened almost 90 years earlier in 1869, the canal connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, reducing the sea journey from the Middle East to London, England by 8,900 kilometres.
The canal was the property of the Egyptian government, but British and French shareholders owned the company that operated it.
The Convention of Constantinople in 1888 ruled that the canal was a neutral zone, protected by the British and through both World Wars, they defended it from German forces because it was a vital route for transporting oil to Britain.
Without it, all shipments would have to go on a much longer journey around South Africa, and that threatened Britain’s economic interests.
After the Second World War, 70,000 British troops remained in the canal zone until October 1954, when the United Kingdom agreed to remove them Soon after, Egypt began to strengthen its ties to the Soviet Union.
That move scared both the United Kingdom and the United States who withdrew their financial support for the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River, which was meant control seasonal floods, store water for irrigation, and generate hydroelectric power.
In retaliation, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser responded by nationalizing the canal on July 26, 1956.
While Nasser continued to operate the canal as usual, Britain, France and Israel planned a military response.
Then…. just as the situation escalated, Nasser received weapons from the Soviet Union.
Without notifying the United States or Canada, Israeli forces advanced on the canal on Oct. 29, 1956.
Britain and France both publicly ordered Israel and Egypt to withdraw from the canal zone but secretly they hoped that Egypt would withdraw without them moving an inch.
And then Britain and France bombed the Suez Canal two days later.
Now that Egypt had nuclear weapons there was a real threat that the conflict could escalate if the United States and the Soviet Union were drawn into active roles.
That is when that bowtie-wearing diplomat Lester B. Pearson stepped in with an idea that could literally save the world.
Pearson stated in his memoir that on Nov. 1, 1956, he met with Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent.
They believed that the situation in Egypt was dangerously close to spiralling out of control.
He wrote.
“This was 1956, not 1876, and their course was doomed to failure and ultimate disaster, opposed, as it would be, both by the USSR and USA, and by the Asian members of the Commonwealth.”
Pearson believed the actions of France and Britain would spread outside the Suez and even split the British Commonwealth.
But he also saw Canada’s unique ability to step in.
“Mr. St. Laurent agreed, as did our Cabinet colleagues, that we should seize any opportunity to be helpful, while not rushing into rash actions.”
Fearing the worst, and as the situation in Egypt deteriorated,
Pearson decided to propose the first UN peace-keeping force.
Grasping at straws, he floats the notion of converting the French and British forces into real peacekeepers with a mandate from the UN.
The General Assembly erupts at the idea.
Washington would not allow it, so Pearson abandons this stance and proposes a real UN force with no British or French forces.
He described it as,
“a truly international peace and police force”.
The crisis was then debated in the Security Council.
Canada did not have a permanent seat, which meant Pearson would have zero role to play.
Well, all except one… Diplomacy.
When the debate forcibly went against the wishes of London and Paris to the General Assembly, he stepped into the spotlight and took control.
He arrived on the evening of Nov. 1st and immediately got to work.
Pearson and his delegation began building a consensus for his proposal.
He worked closely with all parties and wrangled a coalition of support over 4 hectic sleepless days and nights.
In the early hours of Nov. 4th, 1956,
, he stood and presented his draft resolution, and said,
“The General Assembly…requests, as a matter of priority, the Secretary General to submit to it within 48 hours an emergency international United Nations force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities.”
It went to a vote.
57 nations were in favour, 19 abstained including Britain, France, the Soviets, Israel, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand.
There were no votes against it.
The General Assembly overwhelmingly supported Pearson’s proposal for the world’s first peacekeeping force and.
Canadian Major-General E.L.M Burns would be in charge The distinguished soldier, had been born in Montreal in 1897 and had been in service since he enrolled at the Royal Military College of Canada in the early-1910s.
During the First World War, saw action at the Battle of Vimy Ridge and was a liaison officer between the battalions and brigade headquarters.
He had been wounded twice during the war and received the Military Cross for his bravery in battle.
He continued to serve throughout the inter-war years and by the time the Second World War began, he was a Lt. Colonel on his way to becoming a general.
He then served as the Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada from 1950 to 1954 and was the president of the United Nations Association of Canada.
By 1956, he was the Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine.
He had decades of experience and knew the Levant region well and was familiar with the Sinai Peninsula, so Pearson believed he was the perfect person to head the new peacekeeping force.
The General Assembly agreed and on Nov. 7, the Secretary General received offers from Canada, Colombia, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
Canada would send 1,000 men from the Queen’s Own Rifles infantry unit.
That proved to throw a wrench in the proceedings.
Pearson wrote,
“I shuddered at this because we were, after all, participating in a United Nations force which was going to move into territory that had been Egyptian and from which the British army was about to be thrown out. Yet here we were sending in The Queen’s Own, wearing essentially a British uniform with the UN badges.”
Pearson voiced his concerns to Ralph Campney, Canada’s Minister of Defence, who gave him a severe tongue lashing.
But he was right because.
Egyptian President Abdel Nasser, objected to having Canadians in the force.
He worried about misunderstandings and situations in which his own people may not be able to distinguish between the Queen’s Own from West Surrey, England and the Queen’s Own from Calgary.
While Canada was determined to participate, they would have to wait.
In the meantime, United Nations badges were added to the peacekeeping force’s uniforms, and there were plans for the soon-to-be iconic blue helmets.
But those weren’t going to be ready in time to deal with the crisis.
On Nov. 15, 1956, 95 Danish and Norwegian troops, arrived in Egypt.
Canadians would soon follow in December, but they would only provide a reconnaissance unit and help with airlifts.
There would be no infantry troops.
By then the UN force in Egypt had become large enough that General Burns no longer needed more infantry anyways.
A ceasefire was reached by the end of December.
English and French forces withdrew just as; the new and expanded United Nations Emergency Force replaced them.
By April 24, 1957, the Suez Canal was fully reopened to shipping and the world breathed a sigh of relief.
On Oct. 14, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II was in Ottawa to open Parliament it was to be a momentous day for Canada because it was the first time a sitting monarch had ever done so.
She had been invited months earlier by then Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent but sadly things changed for him by the time she arrived.
On June 10, 1957, John Diefenbaker and the Progressive Conservatives had ended 22 years of Liberal rule by winning a minority government.
Now instead of Louis St. Laurent sitting to the right of the Crown was John Diefenbaker who Pearson said, “enjoyed the glow resulting from the Liberal invitation.”
The former Minister of External Affairs had been relegated to a simple office far from the action and he sat, in what he described as the basement of Parliament, thinking about how quickly things can change in government, when his phone rang.
It was a reporter, asking him for a quote about the news that had just come over the wire.
All he could say was,
“Gosh!”
That’s because he had just found out he had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
That night Pearson beamed with pride at a state dinner for the Queen at Rideau Hall.
She may have been the head of state, but Pearson received all the attention.
I don’t know what Diefenbaker may have been thinking, but I can promise you he was not pleased.
Regardless of what he felt it was a huge moment for Canada and the man being honoured.
All of which would culminate in early December on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. The trip to Oslo was very special for Lester B Pearson and his wife, and not just because he was being regaled for his work during the Suez Crisis.
Scandinavian Airlines provided them with a seven-course meal that took them the entire flight to finish.
Think about that on your next flight as you dig into your little bag of peanuts.
On Dec. 10, 1957, Lester B Pearson made his way to Atrium of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law, a few hundred meters from Oslo City Hall.
In the presence of the King of Norway and the Norwegian royal family he would be receiving a diploma, a medal, and just over $40,000 or 208,629 Swedish kronor. In his acceptance speech he said
“I share this honour with many friends and colleagues who have worked with me for the promotion of peace and good understanding between peoples. I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given to participate in that work as a representative of my country, Canada, whose people have, I think, shown their devotion to peace.”
He was then invited to deliver a formal lecture to elaborate on his work, efforts, and vision for peace.
Titled The Four Faces of Peace, it contained a story that took place on Christmas Eve in London, England during the Second World War.
He shared that as he sat in bed reading, he could hear the air raid sirens blaring as anti-aircraft guns blasted at the German bombers releasing their payloads during The Blitz.
To take his mind off of it, he switched on the radio and soon the room was flooded with the beauty of Christmas carols that brought back fond memories of peacetime.
Then the announcer spoke in German because it had been a German broadcast and Pearson said,
“Nazi bombs screaming through the air with their message of war and death. German music drifting through the air with its message of peace and salvation. When we resolve the paradox of those two sounds from a single national source, we will, at last, be in a good position to understand and solve the problem of peace and war.”
And winning the Nobel Peace Prize was just the beginning rather than the conclusion of his contribution to peacekeeping.
Because a few weeks later on Jan. 16, 1958, Pearson became the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Then he went from diplomat to prime minister when six years later, he won the top seat in government and served from 1963 to 1968.
When he took office, Pearson remembered the objections to having Canadian troops on the ground as part of the UN because of the Red Ensign on their uniforms.
Because of it our troops would be confused by British ones and limited our sovereignty.
Canada needed its own unique flag, instantly recognizable, and free of a colonial symbol.
So, he made that a priority.
Two years later on Feb. 15, 1965, the Maple Leaf Flag rose for the first time on Parliament Hill.
His government also continued to support Canada’s participation in international peace operations.
The experience of Suez had demonstrated that Canadian forces could serve a unique role. They could provide communications, transportation, logistics, reconnaissance, and other practical capabilities that allowed multinational forces to operate.
Canada’s contribution to UNEF itself became heavily logistical, helping establish a pattern that would characterize many later Canadian peacekeeping deployments.
As Peacekeepers, became an essential part of the United Nations, and would be stationed around the world in some of the most dangerous situations.
More than 125,000 Canadians have served in peacekeeping operations since the 1950s and 130 have given their lives in service.
Those incredible efforts can be traced back to one man who eventually left politics in 1968 and died in Ottawa in 1972.
But his influence extended well beyond his years in office.
His Nobel Prize had drawn attention to a particular philosophy of international security which questioned the idea that peace did not mean choosing between war and doing nothing.
There could be an intermediate… an international force whose purpose was to contain violence while diplomacy worked toward peace.
1992, was a watershed year for Canadian peacekeepers who shifted from traditional cease-fire monitoring to complex, high-risk humanitarian missions in the Balkans and Somalia
That same year, Reconciliation: The Peacekeeping Monument, was unveiled in Ottawa to commemorate operations around the world.
At its highest point in 1993, Canada had more than 3,300 to 4,000 military personnel deployed globally under the UN flag.
Canadians were on the frontline of some of the most challenging conflicts of the 90s including Rwanda led by Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, who valiantly tried to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide despite being denied the mandate and resources to intervene effectively.
Pearson’s vision for peace was challenged as the 1990s introduced chaotic internal civil wars and failed states where peacekeepers faced active violence, shifting mandates, and the immense moral burden of protecting civilians without a clear peace to keep.
And Canadians were often there so to commemorate their service; the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal was created in 1999 and to date has been awarded to 75,000 Canadians.
By the early 2020s, Canada was the eighth-largest UN peace operations financial contributor, providing $200 million for missions worldwide.
And the concept continues to be important to Canadians as seen in a 2024 poll where 77 percent of those questioned stated that Canada must o help other countries in need.
But that doesn’t seem to be a priority for our governments.
Since 1993 there has been a steady decline and in 2026 Canada has approximately 50 to 60 military members serving in international peacekeeping operations, with only about 26 personnel deployed directly under United Nations banners.
Some believe that it is the death knell of Canadian peacekeeping.
It would also tarnish the legacy of Lester B Pearson.
Because he believed that we are living through a divided and dangerous world, and peace could be actively built through cooperation, diplomacy, and international presence.
From the corridors of the United Nations to the office of Canada’s prime minister, Pearson championed the belief that nations did not always have to choose between war and inaction.
Diplomacy sometimes takes time, and preventing conflicts from becoming even greater tragedies should be the focus.
That vision helped shape modern peacekeeping and left an enduring mark on Canada’s role in the world.
Pearson’s story reminds us that peace is rarely achieved in a single moment; it is built patiently, through courage, compromise, and the willingness to give peace a chance.
And if we lose our role as peacekeepers, we also lose part of what makes Canada…Canada.
*sources*
- Memoris 2 by Lester B. Pearson
- The Diplomat Lester B Pearson and the Suez Crisis by Antony Anderson
- Canadian Encyclopedia: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/peacekeeping
- Government of Canada: https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/classroom-materials/lesson-plans/faces-peace-canadian-peacekeepers
- Canadian War Museum: https://www.warmuseum.ca/remembrance-day-resources/canada-and-peacekeeping-operations
