Paul Heinbecker
Distinguished Fellow, International Relations
A career diplomat, Mr. Paul Heinbecker joined the Department of External Affairs in 1965, with postings abroad in Ankara and Stockholm, and in Paris with the Permanent Delegation of Canada to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); 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.
After serving as Minister (Political Affairs) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington in the late Eighties, he joined Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's staff as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor and speech writer and as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign and Defence Policy. In 1992, he was named Ambassador to Germany, where inter alia he promoted German investment in Canada and defended the Canadian East coast fishery from European over-fishing. On his return to Canada, he was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister of Global and Security Policy, and Political Director in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Mr. Heinbecker led the departmental task force on the, abortive, Canadian-led intervention in Zaire and the interdepartmental task force on Kosovo and helped to negotiate the end of that war. He headed the Canadian delegation for the negotiation of the Climate Change Convention in Kyoto. He, also, helped to develop Canada’s human security agenda, making the protection of people rather than states the focus of Canadian foreign policy.
In the summer of 2000, Mr. Heinbecker was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations. In that capacity, he represented Canada in the UN Security Council where he was a leading advocate for and defender of the International Criminal Court and a proponent of compromise on Iraq to give UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their work. He represented Canada at the contentious Durban conference on human rights
Paul Heinbecker is the inaugural director of the Centre for Global Relations, at Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo.
Mr. Heinbecker received his Bachelor of Arts Degree (Honours) from Waterloo Lutheran University in 1965, and an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the same institution in 1993. He was Alumnus of the Year at WLU in 2003.
He is married to Ayşe Köymen; they have two daughters, Yasemin and Céline.