One Year In Washington Through The Canadian Ambassador’s Eyes

One year ago, Kirsten Hillman was named Canada’s ambassador to Washington, the first woman to ever get the coveted diplomatic posts. At the time, the U.S.-Canada border had just shut down, the pandemic was about to hit the country like no other and a contested presidential election was about to challenge the political system of the world’s most iconic democracy. 

“It has been a complicated time economically between Canada and the United States in the last year, and in the last several years negotiating through NAFTA [The North American Free Trade Agreement], and, through other ups and downs that we’ve had,” Hillman said.

Before being the number one at the embassy, she was acting ambassador; so if she had an idea of what the job entailed, she also took it at a challenging time in the U.S.-Canada relations. While the relationship has survived nearly unscarred, Hillman doesn’t deny the instability 2020 year has brought to the U.S.-Canada relationship. 

Hillman took some time to reflect on the year behind her, but also the year ahead, as the Biden administration is now rebuilding relationships that were fragilized over the past four years, which includes, to some extent, the one with Canada. She goes over the key events of the past year in the US: the pandemic, the closure of the U.S.-Canada border, the elections, the assault on the Capitol, and the first Trudeau-Biden meeting.

The Pandemic

Hillman officially became Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. on March 26. The U.S.-Canada border was closed, and Washington and Ottawa had to carefully maneuver what could and could not go through the border. 

“We were making many decisions really quickly, as the virus took hold,” Hillman said, “here in the United States, we spent an awful lot of time and effort getting people home, she said.

One challenge for Canada was the rhetoric in Washington. The Trump administration early on sent mixed messages about the threat the pandemic was posing. “The domestic messaging at the federal level in our country, versus the US under the previous administration, was definitely different,” she said, “there was a sense of we’re all in this together in Canada that wasn’t equally felt here in the United States, and I think that was really important for Canadians’ confidence in the advice that was coming from their governments.” 

Not long after, officials in the Trump administration threatened to stop sending much-needed personal protective equipment (PPE), to Canada. The move was not only a challenge for Canada’s pandemic response overall but also a challenge for Canadian diplomacy. “Within a very short time, days, really, Canada was able to explain why an exemption for Canada was important,” Hillman said, “because our supply chains regarding PPE are so deeply interconnected. So those were the basis upon which we really interacted with the American administration here. For the most part, I’m not saying it was bump-free, but for the most part, it was quite positive.” Within a few days, the Trump administration reversed its decision.

The Elections

As a general rule, ambassadors have to stay as neutral as possible during an election – and it was the case for the unique and historical Trump-Biden elections of November 2020. Still, the campaign has had some spillover effects in Canada, including threats to re-impose tariffs on Canadian aluminum.

Hillman was part of a group of politicians that lobbied the administration and were able to persuade them to cancel the reimposition of tariffs, which were also imposed during the USMCA negotiations in 2018 as leverage in the negotiations. 

“[The last election campaign in the U.S.] was difficult, there was a lot of division,” Hillman said, “there was a lot of strong rhetoric. In those moments, it can be risky for partners, because promises that maybe are made in the election or actions that are taken to appeal to voters can have negative consequences for Canada.”

Nevertheless, Hillman tried to stay focused on defending Canada’s interests in a stormy summer in Washington, D.C., amidst Black Lives Matter protests and Covid-19 restrictions: “There were health vulnerabilities, there were economic vulnerabilities within Canadian society and here in the United States, there was fear and anxiety.”

After Canada was able to make the U.S. administration backtrack on tariffs, all eyes were on the polarized election campaign. “From there, we moved on to this election period here in the US, there was a lot of division and there was a lot of misinformation, [leading] ultimately, as we all saw, the very disturbing events of January 6, so it’s been a tumultuous year,” she said, “I think that the good news is […] I hope people are feeling the US economy, the US democracy, the US political system, it’s strong.”

On Jan. 6, Hillman was home, as she had, like many, heard that large protests were going to take place. Only a few security staffers were there in person at the Canadian Embassy, and Hillman’s focus was on gathering information and making sure her team was safe.

But how worried was Canada when watching the events taking place on Capitol Hill on January 6? “There’s no question that the events of January 6 were deeply disturbing and deeply worrying,” she said, adding that ”I would say that my takeaway from that time is that we need to take our democracies very seriously, and we need to take our responsibility towards our democracies very seriously.”

The Biden-Trudeau Relationship

On January 20, Kirsten Hillman attended Joe Biden’s inauguration. Within a few hours of Joe Biden becoming president, her phone started to ring and newly-appointed top-level White House executives were on the line. “That was just hours after the President was sworn in. That type of engagement and interest and desire to do things together, has only accelerated [since then].”

If ideologically and historically, Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau have more in common than with the previous administration, there are issues that still divide the two leaders, including the controversial Keystone pipeline. President Biden also issued an executive order focusing on “Buy American,” which was widely criticized by the business and political community in Canada, who wished to see instead a “Buy North American” policy.

If Hillman argues the order doesn’t affect Canada, she adds that “we understand the desire and share the desire of getting our workers back to work right that’s very important and we want to be and think we can be the best partners for the US in achieving that objective, but we know from past experience that imposing restrictions on the U.S.-Canada supply chains doesn’t have the effect of creating jobs it actually has the opposite effect it causes harm to U.S. companies and it causes harm to U.S. workers.”

Hillman was involved in the first bilateral meeting between Trudeau and Biden that took place on Feb. 23 and said the meeting was productive. “the alignment of perspectives and the shared goals are truly I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anything quite like it” she said, adding “the roadmap that was designed and issued by the two leaders last month I’ve never seen anything that substantive coming out of a leaders meeting.”

Re-opening Border?

One central issue to the bilateral relationship is the continued closure of the U.S.-Canada border, the longest it’s ever been closed in history. It has now been closed to non-essential travel for a year, and ambassador Hillman doesn’t indicate any rush to reopen it: “the U.S.-Canada border is a topic that I think about every single day and it’s a topic that I’ve had conversations with my American counterparts on since the beginning of this pandemic if not every week, at least every couple of weeks.”

While cases were always higher per capita in the U.S. compared to Canada earlier in the pandemic until recently, Canada’s vaccination efforts are going at a much slower rate than in the U.S., which could complicate border talks: “One of the issues that will be relevant is the fact that we’re going to need to have both countries sufficiently vaccinated,” Hillman said, “in order to really reopen our economies, that’s an issue that we have been highlighting with the Americans for a while now.”

Still, Hillman is optimistic about the fresh start: “ it doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on everything you know it’s really important to say that there will be times where we will disagree and there will be things that that that may happen in one country or another that will not be well received by the neighbor but that being said, it’s also a really important moment in time for our cooperation and I really think it’s important and for both of us to make the most of it.”