Privy Council had diplomats urge Denmark to expedite Carolyn Bennett's ambassadorship

Carolyn Bennett arrives to a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 10, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

OTTAWA — Bureaucrats working for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had diplomats push Denmark to speed up the appointment of former cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett as ambassador to that country — a change most embassy staff learned of through a media leak.

The government has not offered a rationale for asking Denmark to expedite its approval of Bennett’s appointment, which came a week before her resignation as MP. In a major upset, the Liberals lost Bennett’s former seat of Toronto-St. Paul’s in a byelection last year.

The Canadian Press obtained emails through an access-to-information request showing the Privy Council had Global Affairs push Canadian diplomats multiple times to have Bennett accepted by Denmark and installed months ahead of schedule.

Bennett announced in July 2023 that she would not seek re-election. She was shuffled out of cabinet days later.

On Oct. 25, 2023, Global Affairs Canada’s head of diplomatic assignments emailed the then-ambassador to Denmark, Denis Robert, requesting a phone call.

Three weeks later, Denmark’s foreign ministry received a request to approve Bennett’s installation as ambassador on Nov. 16, 2023.

Within four days, Robert met with Denmark’s chief of protocol to ask when the country would move on accepting his replacement. The Danish official said it would take three to four months, through a process formally called agrément.

“I stressed the importance we attach to this request and that we would appreciate approval as quickly as possible,” Robert wrote in French to his colleagues in Ottawa on Nov. 20, 2023.

Two weeks later, GAC staff noted in a Dec. 8, 2023 email that the Privy Council Office, which supports the prime minister, is “managing very specific timelines in this specific case.”

On Dec. 11, 2023, Robert relayed in an email that Denmark’s chief of protocol said “it would be a matter of weeks and not months.”

Copenhagen ended up approving Bennett in the first few days of 2024, ahead of the timeline it originally outlined. Robert passed along the official notice in a Jan. 8, 2024 email.

In that email, he also seemed to ask whether Bennett could start in the spring. “To my knowledge, there is no serious imperative of national interest or for the people concerned that warrants an early transition,” Robert added in French. Another paragraph was largely redacted.

An official at GAC responded with an email that was also largely redacted. In it, the official told Robert in French that “the government has indicated an interest in getting the posting started as soon as possible, so waiting until the end of the fiscal year is not realistic.”

Privy Council would not say why the Liberal government wanted the process expedited. Global Affairs Canada declined a request for an interview with Bennett.

Bennett is among a handful of former ministers Trudeau’s government has assigned to foreign postings.

Ralph Goodale, Canada’s high commissioner to the U.K., started in the role in 2021 after holding multiple cabinet roles and losing his seat in the 2019 election. Former immigration minister John McCallum was appointed Canadian ambassador to China in 2017.

Former foreign minister Stéphane Dion has held various senior postings in Europe since 2017. Former fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan was tapped to be Canada’s consul general in Boston in 2023, replacing former MP Rodger Cuzner.

Global Affairs said the federal cabinet appoints both career and non-career diplomats to serve as ambassadors and high commissioners abroad. “The timing of appointments of heads of mission varies, depending on operational needs,” reads a statement.

GAC said Robert started his term in September 2020 and the Copenhagen posting usually lasts four years. “However, lengths of assignments abroad can vary,” spokeswoman Charlotte MacLeod wrote.

“The agrément and accreditation process for Ambassador Carolyn Bennett followed standard procedures,” says a statement from the Danish foreign ministry.

The internal documents also show that staff at the embassy in Copenhagen learned of the change through a January 2024 email that a GAC manager accidentally sent to the embassy’s general inbox.

The manager apologized “for inadvertently copying the mission on my message last night.” Shortly after the message was shared, Radio-Canada reported on Bennett’s pending appointment as ambassador.

“Although the news was announced in the press, this is not how your team should have learned about the upcoming change,” the manager later wrote in French.

The Kingdom of Denmark includes semi-autonomous Greenland, making the country a neighbour to Canada.

Global Affairs says Bennett has been working to strengthen bilateral ties within Denmark proper, while focusing on the Arctic.

“Ambassador Bennett has engaged in several outreach visits to Greenland, regular meetings and contact with Greenlandic MPs in the Danish Parliament and Greenlandic officials, as well as several public diplomacy initiatives promoting Canada’s Arctic engagement,” wrote MacLeod.

Canada’s relationship with Greenland has come in for increased attention in recent weeks. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly launched an Arctic foreign policy last month that pledged to open a consulate in Greenland.

Weeks later, U.S. President Donald Trump started musing publicly about purchasing Greenland from Denmark, as he had done in his earlier presidency.

On Jan. 13, Joly held a call with her Danish counterpart to discuss “current regional and global issues, including Arctic security (and) defence co-operation,” according to her post on the platform X.

That call came two days after former prime minister Jean Chrétien proposed that Ottawa convene a meeting with Denmark and other countries whose territory Trump has suggested taking over, such as Panama and Mexico, “to formulate a plan for fighting back these threats.”

The Danish government on Monday announced a $2.8 billion plan to bolster its ship, drone and satellite capacity in the Arctic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press