Canada’s former top official to become high commissioner to UK
Janice Charette, Canada’s former top civil servant, has been appointed the country’s next high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Charette was replaced as clerk of the Privy Council by her deputy Michael Wernick in January, having been in the role just one year.
Since then, she has remained at the Privy Council Office as senior advisor, until a new permanent assignment would be found.
Her diplomatic appointment was announced yesterday by Stéphane Dion, minister of foreign affairs, as part of a major reshuffle of ambassadors and high commissioners representing Canada around the world.
Dion announced 26 new appointments, which, he said, “reflect the government of Canada’s commitment to ensure its diplomatic leaders represent a wide diversity of Canadians and include a greater gender representation.”
Charette’s assignment to Britain may be “some sort of recognition that … she had been treated not very fairly” after it was announced she would be replaced by Wernick “just in a press release” when prime minister Justin Trudeau was in Davos, Jean Daudelin, of Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, told the Ottawa Citizen.
Daudelin also said that Charette’s wide-ranging experience across senior public service roles, will prove useful in pending trade negotiations with the UK, in the face of its decision to leave the EU: “The UK now is a complicated file.
“It is a very close partner for us and it has always been taken for granted. And now it’s becoming much less clear. There are negotiations — free trade and so on.
“It’s useful to have someone with the kind of experience that she has and the political acumen that she has.”
The full list of new appointments is as follows:
- Donald Bobiash becomes ambassador to the Republic of Colombia replacing Carmen Sylvain.
- Ian Burney becomes ambassador to Japan replacing Mackenzie Clugston.
- Perry Calderwood becomes high commissioner to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan replacing Heather Cruden.
- Heather Cameron becomes high commissioner to the Republic of Ghana replacing Christopher Thornley.
- Janice Charette becomes high commissioner to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland replacing Gordon Campbell.
- Antoine Chevrier becomes high commissioner to the Republic of Mozambique replacing Shawn Barber.
- Chris Cooter becomes ambassador to the Republic of Turkey replacing John Holmes.
- Jennifer Daubeny becomes Consul General in Bangalore (Republic of India) replacing Sidney Frank.
- Lise Filiatrault becomes ambassador to the Republic of Senegal replacing Philippe Beaulne.
- Emi Furuya becomes ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark replacing André-François Giroux.
- Carla Hogan Rufelds becomes high commissioner to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago replacing Gérard Latulippe.
- Masud Husain becomes ambassador to the United Arab Emirates replacing Arif Lalani.
- Ping Kitnikone becomes ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam replacing David Devine.
- Marie Legault becomes high commissioner to Barbados replacing Richard Hanley.
- Matthew Levin becomes ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain replacing Jon Allen.
- Deborah Lyons becomes ambassador to the State of Israel replacing Vivian Bercovici.
- Peter MacDougall becomes ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan replacing Bruno Saccomani.
- Ian Myles becomes high commissioner to the United Republic of Tanzania replacing Alexandre Lévêque.
- Jeff Nankivell becomes Consul General in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (People’s Republic of China) replacing Ian (James) Burchett.
- Olivier Nicoloff becomes ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium replacing Denis Robert.
- Patrick Parisot becomes ambassador to the Republic of Cuba replacing Yves Gagnon.
- Donica Pottie becomes ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand replacing Philip Calvert.
- Isabelle Poupart becomes ambassador to Hungary replacing Lisa Helfand.
- Barbara Richardson becomes ambassador to the Czech Republic replacing Otto Jelinek.
- Ulric Shannon becomes Consul General in Istanbul (Republic of Turkey) replacing Andrew Smith.
- Phyllis Yaffe becomes Consul General in New York (United States of America) replacing John (Giovanni) Prato.
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See also:
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About Winnie Agbonlahor
Winnie is news editor of Global Government Forum. She previously reported for Civil Service World - the trade magazine for senior UK government officials. Originally from Germany, Winnie first came to the UK in 2006 to study a BA in Journalism & Russian at the University of Sheffield. She is bilingual in English and German, and, after spending an academic year abroad in Russia and reporting for the Moscow Times, Winnie also speaks Russian fluently.
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