Paul Heinbecker

Paul Heinbecker has had a distinguished career, serving as Minister (Political Affairs) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Ambassador of Canada to Germany and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations. He has also been Assistant Deputy Minister in the Department of External Affairs, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign Policy and Defence and Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Mulroney.

Heinbecker was an architect of Canada’s human security agenda, helped negotiate an end to the Kosovo war, headed the Canadian delegation to the Climate Change negotiations in Kyoto and represented Canada on the UN Security Council where he was a leading opponent of the Iraq war, and an advocate of the International Criminal Court.

Heinbecker graduated from Waterloo Lutheran (now Wilfrid Laurier) University in 1965. He received honorary doctorates from Laurier in 1993 and St. Thomas University in 2007. He was named Laurier Alumnus of the Year in 2003 and selected one of 100 Alumni of Achievement on Laurier’s 100th anniversary in 2011.

In 2004 he was appointed the inaugural Director of the Centre for Global Relations at Laurier and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo. A frequent commentator on radio and television, he has also written numerous articles and edited several books on international relations, and authored Getting Back in the Game: A Foreign Policy Playbook for Canada.

Growing up in Kitchener-Waterloo, Heinbecker played football for WLU and the K-W Dutchmen, hockey for WLU and the Waterloo Siskins, basketball for WLU and baseball for the Kitchener Dodgers.