James Moore: Canada’s ambassador to Washington may be PM Carney’s most important appointment

Power Play’s Canada-U.S. panel discusses Kirsten Hillman stepping aside, the challenges for Canada’s next envoy, and the push toward bilateral negotiations.

James Moore is a former federal cabinet minister under prime minister Stephen Harper, and a columnist for CTVNews.ca.

Ambassador Kirsten Hillman announced last week that she will be leaving her role as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States.

Through some of the most challenging diplomatic contexts imaginable, Ambassador Hillman has served Canada with incredible distinction, poise, substance and grace. She was named to the role in March 2020, but before that she was part of the team that helped negotiate the Canada, U.S., Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that largely protected the North American Free Trade Agreement during Donald Trump’s first term as president.

It is rare for someone in such a high-profile role, with so many competing interests and so many political pressure points, to exit the position with the kind of praise that has rightfully poured in for her time in Washington.

Praise has come both sides of the border, including from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who noted: “Ambassador Hillman is a class act,” and former prime minister Stephen Harper, who posted on X, “Thank you for your exemplary service to Canada. You strengthened our partnerships and advanced our national interests with distinction.”

Current American Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said she was “an awesome and well-respected contributor to the U.S.-Canada relationship.” Prime Minister Carney credited her “determined action and diplomacy that has contributed immensely to the advancement of a new economic and security relationship with the United States.”

It doesn’t get much more universal of a positive appraisal than all of that. And it is deserved.

I had the privilege of working with Ambassador Hillman when I was Canada’s Minister of Industry and she was Canada’s Chief Negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and again when I was out of elected office and working with prime minister Trudeau’s government as a member of the NAFTA Advisory Council and she served as our Deputy Ambassador in Washington.

At all times, and serving three different Prime Ministers – two Liberal, one Conservative – I observed her deep understanding of the collision of policy, economics, security concerns and law with geopolitics, leadership personalities, public opinion and the constancy of public scrutiny and expectations.

All Canadians – whether aware of it or not – have benefitted greatly from her public service.

Canada has been fortunate to have had a succession of distinguished leaders serving in our embassy in Washington. Preceding Ambassador Hillman over the past couple decades is a roll call of great Canadians who put Canada first. Names like Derek Burney, Frank McKenna, Michael Wilson, Gary Doer and David MacNaughton are held in high esteem by those who have had the privilege to work closely with them as they delivered on their mandates in the modern era of challenges in the Canada-U.S. relationship.

Through the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement negotiations, the expansion of the agreement to include Mexico, softwood lumber disputes, the Open Skies agreement, the response to the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, the building of border infrastructure, access to the Northwest Passage, NORAD joint command, transshipment of goods tensions, immigration policy, energy security, competition policy, tariff tensions and much more, the depth and breadth of issues to manage by our diplomatic mission in Washington D.C. is hard to summarize, and far more difficult to manage.

The next ambassador

That is why a prime minister’s choice of Canada’s ambassador in Washington is often considered to be as important as the choice of a member of cabinet. I would go further and suggest that the choice of ambassador in Washington is more important than the choice of two-thirds of the cabinet portfolios – particularly in this second Trump administration.

So, the choice of Mark Wiseman as our next representative in Washington, as reported by the Globe and Mail, may be his most important appointment. He was born in the border city of Niagara Falls, has an undergraduate degree from Queen’s University, an MBA from the University of Toronto and a Master of Laws degree he earned in the United States in Connecticut at Yale University as a Fulbright Scholar.

Further, he has significant private sector experience as an investment manager, business executive, corporate director and advisor, creating wealth and opportunities in actual transactions and investments in both Canada and the United States in ways that will inform what a successful trade relationship looks like in the real world.

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There has been some cheap partisanship around Mr. Wiseman’s choice in recent days that seems to me be to be entirely unwarranted and unworthy of the moment. We are fortunate to have someone of his experience and capacity offering to serve in this role. And, what’s most important, is that Mr. Wiseman has the trust of – and an effective working professional relationship with – Prime Minister Carney.

This is fundamental when one considers the complex landscape of issues – on top of the vast regular portfolio of obligations – that await our ambassador in the coming year: CUSMA reconsideration will begin in earnest; the coming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of President Trump’s use of tariff powers used under the International Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) and President Trump’s possible radical reaction to that ruling; the midterm congressional elections and the amplification of trade/tariff politics in America going forward into the next congress; the future of the Online Streaming Act and digital policy differences between our countries; sectoral tariffs on steel and aluminum that are ruinous to Canadian jobs and American consumers at the same time; the struggling American economy and the false habitual scapegoating of Canada as trade “cheaters” as a contributor to the problems.

Added to that, threats of deliberate economic ruin to lever poverty pressure for industrial investment repatriation from Canada to America; the disruption of long-established north-south supply chains; the American expectations around Canada’s coming military procurement spending to align with America’s industrial wants and hemispheric command; and much more.

The policy files to triage, and political and diplomatic minefields to manage through calendar 2026, is going to be enormously challenging for the government.

As Ambassador Hillman’s service comes to an end, I am hopeful that serious people of substance and character will rally around our Mr. Wiseman and his team and support the progress we need to make in managing the critically important relationship between Canada and America in these times of shattered trust between many Canadians and America.

It is a long road in front of us, and we must all wish Mr. Wiseman the best in strategically and tirelessly defending Canada’s vast array of interests in the months and years ahead.

More from James Moore:

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