Canada’s Fallen: Understanding Canadian Military Deaths in Afghanistan

Canada’s Fallen: Understanding Canadian Military Deaths in Afghanistan

Prepared by: Steven Staples and Bill Robinson

Date: September 2006

Key findings:

• After the United States, Canada has sustained the highest number of military deaths as a result of hostile actions in Afghanistan since the original invasion in 2001 (27 of 244).
• Since February 2006, when our troops began operations in Kandahar, Canada has sustained 43% of all military deaths among U.S. allies in the coalition (20 of 47 non-U.S. deaths).
• When adjusted for the relative size of troop commitments, a Canadian soldier in Kandahar is nearly three times as likely to be killed in hostile action as a British soldier, and four and a half times as likely as an American soldier in Afghanistan.
• A Canadian soldier in Kandahar is still nearly six times as likely to die in hostilities as a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq.
• If the current rate of military deaths since February 2006 were to remained unchanged until the end of the mission in January 2009, the Canadian military would sustain another 108 military deaths, bringing the total number of military deaths for Afghanistan to 140, or four times as high as what it is today.

Reference:

Staples, Steven, Robinson, Bill. Canada’s Fallen: Understanding Canadian military deaths in Afghanistan. Foreign Policy Series. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, September 2006.

Fr: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/les-troupes-canadiennes-essuient-le-plus-gros-des-pertes-de-la-coalition