What is the strategic long game for Canada-U.S. relations? (Webinar)

Ian Brodie is professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Between 2005 and  2008 he was chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition and then to the Prime Minister.  Before that, he was executive director of the Conservative Party of Canada.  After leaving government, he worked as a strategic adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank and a Visiting Fellow at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

Jean Charest served as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada (1993) and Premier of Québec (2003-12). He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1984 and, at age 28, became Canada’s youngest cabinet minister as Minister of State for Youth. In 1991, he was named Minister of the Environment and Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Registrar General and Deputy Prime Minister of Canada in 1993. In 1994, he was chosen Leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party. He held that post until 1998 when he became Leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. He is today a Partner at Canadian firm Therrien, Couture, Joli-Coeur.

The Honourable Janice Charette served as clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet until she retired from the public service in June 2023 after serving nearly 40 years. Uniquely, Ms. Charette served in the role of Canada’s most senior public servant twice. In this role she led Canada’s largest employer and provided advice to prime ministers and Cabinet to formulate and drive the government’s agenda on the most complex and strategic issues facing Canada and Canadians during times of great uncertainty, including the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical turmoil and economic weakness.

Christopher Sands is director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, the largest policy research program on Canada outside the country and the leading source of scholarship on U.S.-Canadian relations in Washington, D.C. Christopher previously directed applied policy research programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Hudson Institute, and has published extensively over a career of more than 30 years in Washington think tanks.

Jennifer Ditchburn is the President and CEO of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. She is a not-for-profit sector executive and seasoned communicator working to make complex public policy issues and politics better understood by Canadians. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the IRPP’s influential digital magazine, Policy Options.