True and Fascinating Canadian History
Mr. Geoffrey Pearson
Canadian Dilomat & Author
by J. J. (Buffalo Joe) Healy
In Canadian history, the family name of Pearson holds a very distinguished place of honour. And I hold special memories of meeting Canadian Diplomat and Author, Mr. Geoffrey Pearson a few years ago.
While I was posted to Ottawa in the 1990's, I held the post of Officer in Charge of the RCMP's United Nations Peackeeping Operations. At that time and in the present, the RCMP maintained a close and financial supportive relationship with Canada's Pearson Peacekeeping Center, a world wide known Training Center for Police and Military Peacekeepers with its Headquarters in Nova Scotia.
The RCMP sent its personnel to the Pearson Center and I had often been invited to speak or to attend meetings there which involved the Canadian Military and the RCMP.
The Pearson Peacekeeping Center gained its name from Canada's fourteenth Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson.
Diplomat, Mr. Geoffrey Pearson was the Prime Minister's son.
Dating back to the early 1950's, Mr. Geoffrey Pearson had joined Canada's External Affairs Department and over several years he held diplomatic posts in Paris, Mexico City and New Delhi. In 1985 he was appointed as the first Executive Director of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.
At the time that I was introduced to Mr. Pearson, he was President of the United Nations Association in Canada. On this occasion, he was host to the Annual United Nations Association Dinner in Ottawa and he presented a fascinating, detailed and inspirational talk on Canada's role at the United Nations in New York.
His speech was insightful and I was exceptionally pleased to hear Mr. Pearson elaborate on the importance of having Canadian police officers involved in peacekeeping duties -- often unarmed -- an important civil police role which he saw as vastly different than the traditional role of military peacekeepers.
Mr. Geoffrey Pearson passed away in Ottawa in 2008.
A Statute of
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson
stands on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Canada.
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson
stands on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Canada.
RNWMP Reg.#7273, Constable William Alexander Pearson was killed in a motor vehicle accident in 1918 in England.
He lies in the Brookwood Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in Surrey, England.