Background

Mr. Heinbecker is the inaugural Director of the Laurier University Centre for Global Relations and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), both in Waterloo, Ontario. He writes extensively for the print media in Canada and abroad and comments frequently in the electronic media on international relations, especially as regards Canadian foreign policy and diplomacy, US foreign policy, the Middle East, Afghanistan, arms control and disarmament and United Nations reform, on which he has edited a book, "Irrelevant or Indispensable?" He teaches a course on Canadian foreign policy at Laurier and lectures at universities and other institutions in Canada and abroad.

A career diplomat, Mr. Heinbecker served abroad initially at the Canadian Embassies in Ankara, Turkey and Stockholm, Sweden, and on the Canadian Delegation to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and in Paris, France. In Ottawa, he served, inter alia, as Director of the United States General Relations Division and as Chairman of the Policy Development Secretariat in External Affairs, where he wrote a number of speeches for then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Secretary of State Mark MacGuigan. In 1984, he led the production of the foreign policy review "Competitiveness and Security" of the then Progressive Conservative government. Subsequently, he was appointed Minister (Political Affairs) in the Canadian Embassy in Washington where he worked particularly on acid rain and other environmental issues and on political-military affairs, including arms control and NORAD.

Mr. Heinbecker returned to Canada in 1989 where he served as Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Chief Foreign Policy Advisor and speech writer and in 1991 as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign and Defence Policy. Highlights of those years included G8, UN, NATO, Commonwealth, Francophonie, Rio and other summits and advice to the Canadian Government regarding the collapse of Soviet Communism and apartheid, Tiananmen Square, the reunification of Germany, the Gulf war and the Balkans conflict. In 1992, he was named Ambassador to Germany, where he focused primarily on the Atlantic fisheries dispute with the European Union, Canadian forestry practice controversies, the promotion of German investment in Canada and NATO's response to the Bosnian war. On return to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1996, he was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister for Global and Security Policy. He advised Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy on Canada's human security agenda, including the ban on landmines, led the departmental task force on the 1996 humanitarian refugee crisis in Eastern Zaire and headed the interdepartmental task force on Canadian participation in the 1999 Kosovo conflict. As Canada's G-8 Political Director, he helped to negotiate the end of that conflict. He, also, led the Canadian delegation to Kyoto for the Climate Change negotiations.

In the summer of 2000, Mr. Heinbecker was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations. At the UN, he promoted the International Criminal Court, advocated the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which was endorsed subsequently by the largest summit meeting in UN history, sought a multilateral solution to the Iraq crisis through UN weapons inspections and advised the Government of Canada to stay out of the Iraq war. He, also, led the Canadian delegation to the controversial UN Human Rights Conference in Durban.

Mr. Heinbecker was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Honours) by Waterloo Lutheran University in 1965 and Honorary Doctorates by Wilfrid Laurier University in 1993 and St. Thomas University in 2007. He was Alumnus of the Year at WLU in 2003. Mr. Heinbecker is married to Ayse Köymen; the Heinbeckers have two daughters, Yasemin and Céline.