Are we Peace-Keepers: to what extent do Canadians feel directly affected by global conflicts?

September 9, 2025

Some Canadians have described peace-keeping is an important feature of our identity. This view has persisted despite a decline in active peacekeeping contributions since the late 1990s. It arises from the legacy of significant involvement in UN missions some decades ago. Given the state of global conflict notably in Russia and the Ukraine and Israel and Gaza it is worth asking whether Canadians would be willing to send peacekeepers to those areas in the event they would be needed. Underlying that question is the extent to which Canadians feel directly affected by the conflicts. To provide insights the Association for Canadian Studies asked Leger Marketing to survey Canadians on these matters. In that regard, -A majority of Canadians agree with sending peacekeepers to the region in the event of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine -A majority of Canadians oppose the idea of sending peacekeepers to the region in the event of an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians -A majority of Canadians agree that they feel less directly affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine than do Europeans and Americans; younger Canadians feel much less affected than older ones -A majority of Canadians say they feel less directly affected by the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians than do Americans. Two-thirds of Canadians 18-24 say they feel less affected Leger conducted the survey via web panel for the Association for Canadian Studies between August 29 and August 31, 2025. While no margin of error can be associated with a non-probability sample (Web panel in this case). However for comparative purposes, a probability sample of 1621 respondents would have a margin of error of ±2.52%, 19 times out of 20.