Canada has a reputation of peace and peacekeeping missions around the world, and hold a good reputation based on that. Often times we send our forces to help organisations such as the UN and NATO to help with areas of trouble across the world. The Central African Republic is unique and different situation of most, but similar situations have happened in the past to other part in Africa. Once again it is a fight of religion between christians and muslims in the country, and both religions have created miliary groups fighting and defending their ethnic nation. Canada is in tough position in the fact that CAR is in the prelims of a possible genocide, or “ethnic cleansing” as officials call it. The choice we are faced is to deploy people on the ground in the attempt to stop anything from happening, or wait for something to happen and then send in help to avoid unneeded efforts. Personally, I think Canada should not deploy anyone on the ground unless we are fully helped by other nations so we and go with full force to stop yet another African crisis. In Rwanda the UN sent in only a couple thousand troops to stop a genocide that ended up killing around a million people, and the Canadian general and his men sat and watched. Sending in small to moderate amounts of help has been proven to be basically useless in conflicts of this stature. To fully help the CAR Canada needs to be the leader and gather lots of help from the UN and other nations so we don’t waste our time once again. If nobody is to cooperate there is almost no point in helping because then we all have already failed, because once it gets out of hand it will be like trying to slow a car without brakes down a hill.

Canada is in a difficult position. We are fighting for land that a few years nobody cared about so it was just assumed to be Canadian land. But now that the ice is melting it is making once impassable land open water in the summer, allowing ships to take a shortcut through the arctic on their way to Asia and could save almost 2 weeks of travel time and in the long run billions of dollars in savings. Also the melting of ice is creating a rush for land in the arctic circle so that it can be used for its vast amount resources. Attention on the arctic seemed to have happened over night and the smaller nation of Canada is in the middle of it. Personally, I think that Canada should take a more diplomatic route to this situation but keep our ground, oppose to being aggressive and overly protective towards other nations, simply because our nation is under equipped if anything were to happen against countries like Russia, China, or even the USA. Diplomatic doesn’t mean we have fall into the pressure of the bigger powers, it just means we can figure this out in a civilized manner so that we can keep everyone at neutral ground. Canada already has what everyone wants and that is the Northwest Passage and resources, mainly renewable resources. The government should keep the arctic under close watch and keep our land and coastline protected, as well as continue exploration of the arctic to keep up with the many nations rushing in for their piece of the pie. Because of the relative size of Canada against other nations it is important to keep our ground but not engage in any conflict we might not be able to handle, there is already enough on our plate. Canada should focus on our vast amount of resources in the arctic and the ownership of the Northwest Passage and use them as strengths to figure out this situation diplomatically, and uphold our Canadian reputation of patience, kindness, and pride.