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Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman is expected to leave her post in the new year.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States and the country’s chief negotiator on U.S. trade, plans to leave the job in the new year.
Ms. Hillman said the timing was right to leave because it gives Prime Minister Mark Carney time to put “a team in place that will see the CUSMA review through to its conclusion.”
She is expected to be replaced by Canadian financier Mark Wiseman, a close friend of the Prime Minister, a source told The Globe and Mail.
The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
In June, the Prime Minister had asked Ms. Hillman to stay on as ambassador to Washington and take on the role of chief negotiator in tense trade and security talks with the Trump administration. But Ms. Hillman had made it clear she did not want to say in the job for very long.
With the negotiations on reviewing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement about to get under way, it is an opportune time for Ms. Hillman to depart.
Ms. Hillman has served in the Washington embassy since 2017, including six years as ambassador.
“Ambassador Hillman’s intelligence, determined action and diplomacy have contributed immensely to the advancement of a new economic and security relationship with the United States – and prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming CUSMA review,” Mr. Carney said in a statement.
