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( there will soon be a new US ambassador to Canada )



Bruce Heyman, US ambassador to Canada, announces resignation

Ambassador handed in his resignation weeks before unprecedented State Department edict

Amanda Connolly

Friday, January 6th, 2017


America’s ambassador to Canada has resigned.

Bruce Heyman, who has served in the posting since April 2014, tweeted Friday morning that he and his wife Vicki Heyman will be leaving Ottawa on or around Jan. 20, the day Donald Trump will be sworn in as U.S. president. The announcement comes one day after the New York Times reported Trump’s transition team issued an edict requiring politically-appointed ambassadors to vacate their posts by Inauguration Day.



While that edict was issued via a US State Department cable dated December 23, iPolitics has learned Heyman handed in his letter of resignation on Dec. 8.

The move by Trump is being viewed as part of a determined effort to eradicate political appointees named by President Barack Obama and marks a break in precedent from past transitions of power.

In previous years, administrations have granted grace periods to certain political appointees, such as those with children in school.

Other countries like Germany and Britain will also be left without envoys, possibly for weeks, until new ones can be confirmed.

Heyman is a former top-level fundraiser for Obama, reportedly raising more than $1 million for him and serving on his national finance committee.

He was also a former executive at Goldman Sachs, where he ran the firm’s private wealth fund.

The U.S. Congress tied up Heyman’s confirmation in partisan infighting, leaving the position of ambassador to Canada vacant for several months.

Former ambassador David Jacobson’s four-year term ended in July 2014 and while Obama announced Heyman as his pick for replacement in April 2013, he was not confirmed in the position until March 2014.

The infighting prompted the Canadian American Business Council to write to the Senate and ask them to end the “partisan gamesmanship” holding up the confirmation.

Since then, both Heyman and his wife have been a champion of arts and culture and he is widely credited with getting Canada-US relations back on track following tensions through most of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s time in office.

He is also seen as an architect of the “bromance” between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Obama.

http://ipolitics.ca/2017/01/06.....signation/