Carney names friend and former investment banker Mark Wiseman as next U.S. ambassador

Wiseman is a longtime friend of Carney who was among the first to contribute to his Liberal leadership bid, donating the maximum $1,750, as well as $1,750 to the Liberal party during the spring election campaign.

He will replace Kirsten Hillman, who announced this month she would end her posting, saying a new team would be able to focus on a review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement next year.

Wiseman is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Canada-U.S. Relations, a body created by former prime minister Justin Trudeau just as Donald Trump was about to be sworn in as U.S. president for the second time.

Trudeau did not include Wiseman on the council, but Carney added him just days after being sworn in as prime minister in March.

Wiseman, 55, was born in Niagara Falls, Ont., but grew up mostly in Burlington, the son of a plumber and pipe fitter and a physiotherapist. 

He holds a joint master of business administration and law degree from the University of Toronto and clerked for Beverley McLachlin when she was a judge on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Wiseman worked as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer for multinational law firm Sullivan Cromwell, first in New York City and later in Paris. He also managed equity funds at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and ran the investment fund of the Canada Pension Plan.

In 2016 he became the senior managing director and global head of active equities at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

Wiseman was once touted as a possible successor to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, though Wiseman’s time at the company was cut short in 2019 when he departed after failing to disclose a consensual relationship with a colleague.

He has since chaired the Alberta Investment Management Corp., and has been a vocal proponent of sustainable investments and the economic benefits of moving to a zero-carbon economy.

Wiseman will enter his new role with the least amount of political or diplomatic experience of any U.S. ambassador in recent memory. His predecessors included former premiers Gary Doer and Frank McKenna, federal cabinet minister Michael Wilson, political advisers and campaign managers such as David MacNaughton, and career diplomats including Hillman and Michael Kergin.

Some, including Hillman and Wilson, had experience negotiating major free trade deals: Hillman was Canada’s lead negotiator for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, while Wilson helped negotiate both the original Canada-U.S. free trade deal as well as the first iteration of the North American free trade pact. 

The Bloc Québécois and Conservatives had already levelled criticism over Wiseman’s role in co-founding the Century Initiative, which aims to increase Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called that a “radical” idea, while the Bloc says he will be damaging for Quebec, following a social media post from Wiseman two years ago saying Canada must aim for a 100-million strong population “even if it makes Quebec howl.”

That post has since been deleted.

With files from Mia Rabson