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Colby Cosh: The new top trade negotiator comes with Emergencies Act baggage

Janice Charette played a central role in a disgraceful episode in Canadian history

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On Monday, the prime minister appointed the Hon. Janice Charette as Canada’s top trade negotiator with the United States, an undoubtedly crucial role as the July 1 deadline for renewal of the CUSMA pact looms. (I still say it shoulda been called CAMUS. Change my mind.) Mme. Charette has an impressive CV, having been named clerk of the Privy Council on separate occasions by Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau and serving as high commissioner to the United Kingdom in the interim. She’s broadly trusted, in other words, by senior politicians of all stripes. 

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Take (the equally Hon.) Jason Kenney, the former premier of Alberta: he won’t hear a word against her. I’ve been enjoying Mr. Kenney’s recent reinvention as a social-media tribune of federalism in Alberta, so I legitimately take him at his word when he says of Charette that “There is literally no one in Canada with more senior leadership experience in the public service, dealing with the most complex issues, systems, and crises.” 

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