 Thank you, Major General, not just for your help today, but for your many years of exceptional service marked by so many firsts. The first Canadian woman to command an RCAF wing, the first to command a major Canadian Armed Forces base, and most recently the first to serve as Deputy Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Thanks to your leadership, and I'm going to borrow your own words here, I can confidently say that someday there won't just be firsts, there will be sixths and sevenths and eighths. You truly are an awesome woman with rank. We will miss you in your retirement, but there can be no doubt that it has been extremely well earned. Thank you. Merci. And thank you, and welcome to all of you here today. Welcome to Vancouver, a place I truly do consider a second home. You know, for most Canadians, peacekeeping has become rooted in a kind of nostalgia. Canada was a great peacekeeping nation once, so we should try to do that again today. But I'd like to spend my time with you instead focusing not on where we've been or even where we are now, but on where we are going. By looking at the very real challenges that modern peace operations face and at how we, and in particular Canada, can best respond. The peace operations are important for us not only because they allow us to help millions of vulnerable people affected by conflicts, but because a more peaceful world is also a safer world for Canadians. But to tell the truth, things have changed over the past 70 years since Canada contributed to putting the first peacekeeping operation on foot in response to the Suez Canal crisis. At the time, the peace operations were literally to ensure the peacekeeping, to stand between two states in a war, to contribute to the implementation of an agreement. Well, times have changed. Now, all too often, there is no peace to keep. The conflicts we face today are intractable, more dangerous, and more complex. Modern peace operations take place in a context that transcends borders and includes a challenging range of actors, fragile and failing states, militia groups, non-state actors, organized criminals, and now, of course, terrorists. And the sad truth is that, as often as not, UN peace operations are now in themselves targets. At the same time, we are asking peace operations to do more, not only to deal with violence when it erupts, but to respond to the entire life cycle of conflict, preventing its outbreak, supporting complicated peace processes, and to helping people rebuild their lives when conflict ends. Peace operations also serve as the first and sometimes the only line of protection for vulnerable people facing extreme violence and persecution, all in the most difficult environments. That is the reality of modern peace operations. Given that reality, we need to try new things. We can't turn to the same solutions we've always tried and expect new results. The other reality, like all those who are here in the SAV room and the UN peace operations, is that we can't always respond to the great expectations we have. Protect vulnerable people, rebuild states on the road. These are monumental tasks. We can't protect the rights of people and human lives in a fairly effective way. And in the worst cases, we must admit it, we even contribute to empyreying these problems. When those who have entrusted us with the task of protecting us become exploitors, when those who have deployed us into the world to contribute to building peace and perpetuation, we have failed. We can and we must do better. Today's mandates are difficult and they are complex. We ask a lot of the women and men who serve in our peace operations and we don't give them the tools they need to succeed. These are the challenges we're up against. But Canada has been thinking hard about how we can best respond. I'm going to be really straight with you here. 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel is significant for Canada as a commitment. But let's remember that there are close to 100,000 peacekeepers deployed around the world. So we have to focus on how Canada can best help. What we will do is step up and make the contributions we are uniquely able to provide. We know how to work with other countries and other partners to make peace happen. We have innovative ideas to share and more importantly, we're willing to put those new ideas into practice. We're also home to the kinds of concrete capabilities that UN peace operations need. We can make a difference by matching what we do best with what UN peace operations need most. And we'll make that difference in four ways. First, by signing on to the Vancouver principles, we are committing to take real and immediate steps towards ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers in the context of UN peace operations. I am pleased to share that more than 53 countries have already joined us in this commitment. In the face of these principles, if a child faces a soldier on a battlefield, we have already failed. From the start, we have to do more to prevent this from happening. This requires a surveillance, a signal, and a more effective reaction when we are confronted with the precarious signal that indicates that vulnerable children may have been recruited and against violence. And that means that each mission must have the necessary knowledge to negotiate the release, the re-establishment, and the rehabilitation of child soldiers. Together, we can make sure that children remain children and do not become weapons of war. But at the same time, we need our soldiers in the field to be prepared. Picture it for a moment. You're a peacekeeper on patrol, and you're suddenly confronted with a wide-eyed seven-year-old pointing an AK-47 at you and shouting. First of all, we've already failed. What should have been done in the past hours, weeks, or months before to prevent this moment from happening? And in the moment, what do you do? How do you protect the women and men with you? How do you take action? Do you take action? What do you do in this situation? Operationally, and finally, how do you deal with the after-effects, the nightmares that will surely come from whatever impossible choice you made or didn't make in that split second you had to decide? These are the questions that Romeo de Lair has spent the last decades trying to answer and leading on. Well, we, the signatories of the principles, will give our people the training they need so that they can understand the unique risks and dangers the child soldiers pose. We will give them guidance on how to best avoid confronting children, but also the rules of engagement so that they can protect themselves and others. And we will make sure that they get that training before they deploy on any peace operation. Canada has some experience with this. In March, the Canadian Armed Forces made the public an official military doctrine concerning the children of soldiers. We adopted this measure because we know that an engagement that consists of putting an end to recruitment and the use of children of soldiers is also an engagement in regards to our own citizens. It is impossible to face a child in the context of war without ever being changed. Those who serve in UN peace operations are strong and courageous and capable, but they're also human. And they need to know that we'll have their back. These Vancouver principles ensure that we will give them the mental health support they need as they recover and heal from all the wounds of war, including the ones we can't see. These are difficult and painful challenges, and no one knows this better or has worked harder to drive this agenda forward than General DeLair. For his tireless efforts in bringing forward the Vancouver principles and for his ongoing work to improve the lives of children and peace workers around the world, we owe him a tremendous debt. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do. Women bring a unique and valuable perspective to conflict resolution. They look beyond the interests of warring parties. They bring the wider community to the table, and they focus on root causes. Including women and girls in peace operations is a smart practical pathway to lasting peace. It is also a necessary step in addressing a truly global problem. Approximately one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence. Even worse, gender-based violence increases significantly in conflict settings. But we also know that both women and men are more likely to report incidents of violence to women officers. Women are more likely to understand the risks and dangers that all members of a community face. And we can expect women peacekeepers to be a powerful force for the elimination of sexual exploitation and abuse. This is why so many of us here today are working hard to increase the participation of women in United Nations peace operations. Back in 2015, the Security Council set some ambitious targets on that front. It wanted to double the number of women in military and police peacekeeping contingents by 2020. Unfortunately, at the current rate, it had to take another 37 years to achieve the goal we originally hoped to reach in five. We must do better. That is why, as a second priority, Canada intends to launch the LC Initiative on Women in Peace Operations. Named after World War II, a Canadian engineer and women's rights pioneer LC McGill. Canada will use the LC Initiative as an opportunity to work with the United Nations, other member states, and troop contributing countries to develop and test new ways to recruit, train, and promote more women in UN peace operations, including in senior and leadership positions. For our part, Canada is working hard to increase the number of women who serve in our armed forces, and we are equally committed to increasing the number of women we deploy as a part of UN peace operations. Increasing the numbers and qualification of women deployed in UN peace operations won't happen overnight because for many women there are significant obstacles to their participation, including institutional and attitudinal barriers in the countries where peace operations take place. But we are confident that a lot can happen a lot faster with the kind of specialized technical assistance Canada is prepared to provide. It can also happen a lot faster if we provide additional resources. Two years ago, the Security Council and several high-profiled UN reviews called for the creation of a fund to help encourage the deployment of more women to peace operations. Canada is prepared to take the first step. We will make a lead contribution of 15 million dollars to help get the ELSI initiative up and running. It is a knowledge that we have firmly acquired in Afghanistan and in Iraq two of the most difficult operational environments. There, we were on the side of our partners from other nations who were trying to rebuild their country. Those difficult experiences challenged us and proved that Canadian training leads to greater professionalism and effectiveness. We will continue to offer training assistance to meet ongoing UN needs. This would include small mobile training teams offering specialized training in the field with training tailored to situational needs from medical and communications training to sexual and gender-based violence investigation and counter IED training. We will also establish a Canadian training and advisory team. This team would help to train peace operations personnel from another country, work with them to improve skills and professionalism, and provide them with the equipment they need to train safely and properly. Then, if circumstances warranted, Canadian trainers could accompany those same personnel during a deployment to help track progress and ensure greater success. By working more closely with these units, by being a part of their development from initial training to actual deployment, we can help build broader capacity for UN peace operations and deliver better results for everyone. And that brings us to the fourth part of Canada's commitment, our commitment to the smart pledge approach. The way things work now, a mission is identified and then the call goes out to see who can help and how and when. But too often, mission planners are left with a gap between the significant commitments countries are willing to make and what's actually needed in conflict zones around the world. Smart pledges will help to close that gap by better aligning what is offered with what is needed, by identifying upfront when and how we can help, and by making sure that we get the right equipment and expertise into the right places at the right times, we can collectively ensure that every UN mission has what it needs to succeed from beginning to end. Thanks to our capacity for our specialized knowledge, we can play a role in the first place in the goal of increasing the efficiency of missions on the ground, to support peace processes and peace consolidation after conflicts, and to improve the training offered to other participating countries. We can also improve the global management of peace operations by reinforcing the capacity of UN leaders to provide leadership and guidance from general districts. These are core capabilities that UN missions need to succeed that go right to the heart of effective peace operations. As you know, Canada has pledged to make available up to 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel for possible deployment to a variety of UN peace operations, and we are fulfilling that commitment over time through a series of smart pledges. This is the best way for Canada to help, and it offers the greatest chance of success. As one of Canada's first commitments, we've entered into negotiations with the United Nations and plan to contribute a much needed tactical airlift to be located at the United Nations Regional Service Center in Entebbe, Uganda. There, we will play a critical role in helping to get what is needed to where it's needed. A 630 aircraft from Canada will be deployed, with personnel to support and protection of the force, for a period that can be reached in one year, in order to provide the UN peace operations in Africa, which they need to achieve their work, sometimes in the most difficult conditions they may be. That we may be called to transform effective materials, or medical supplies, this deployment will provide a very necessary support to the mission in a region of the world where, in a region with a wide range of conflicts, logistics and material delivery are a constant challenge. We are offering, as a smart pledge, a quick reaction force comprised of a company of elite personnel and accompanying equipment capable of responding rapidly to threats such as those against UN positions and observation posts. And to respond to the chronic shortage of helicopter detachments, we're offering up to two aviation task forces as smart pledges as well. These contributions of armed and utility helicopters, along with support and security personnel, will help support troop transport, medical evacuation, and other logistical needs. We're making all these pledges today because we believe in the United Nations and we believe in peacekeeping. The nature of conflicts has changed. The needs of peace operations have also changed. The discreet offers and the engagement in the room have led us to here, but real, major and deep changes will be impossible without a real institutional change to be brought in. Canada is prepared to help lead that charge. To rethink how we engage, not just where we engage, to close the institutional gaps that prevent us from being even more effective agents of peace in a world that sorely needs it. That's how we'll protect the world's children, empower women and girls, and build a more peaceful and a more prosperous world. As Lester Pearson, we celebrate 60 years since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, a medal that is actually on display here today. As he once said, of all our dreams today, there is none more important or so hard to realize than that of peace in the world. May we never lose our faith in it or our resolve to do everything that can be done to convert it one day into reality. Modern peace operations bring with them some of the biggest challenges, the toughest decisions, and the most heartbreaking consequences of anything we do. But our commitment to the effort endures because we believe in peacekeeping. We have seen its power to transform and we know that there is no greater gift that we can leave our children and grandchildren than true and lasting peace. So let's be bold, let us innovate, let us try new things, let us be the change we need to build a more peaceful world together.