Photo story: Canadian HC pays courtesy call on PM Kamla

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar greets HC Gerard Latulippe. Foreign Minister Winston Dookeran is also in photo

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar met on Thursday with the newly appointed Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Gerard Latulippe.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Dookeran was present at the meeting, which took place at the office of the PM in St Clair.

Canada and Trinidad and Tobago have had diplomatic relations since Trinidad and Tobago became an independent state in 1962. The two countries
co-operate in many areas including health care, education, culture, as well as national and regional security matters.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA:

Gérard Latulippe (LLL, Montréal University, 1966; D.S.A., Post-Graduate in Business Administration, Montréal University, 1979) was admitted to the Quebec Bar in 1967, and he practised administrative and labour law before entering provincial politics. 

From 1985 to 1989, he served as a member of the Québec National Assembly. He also served as solicitor general of Quebec. In 1989, he served in Mexico City as the Quebec general delegate in Mexico. Subsequently, from 1994 to 1997, Mr. Latulippe served in the same capacity in Brussels, where he was responsible for relations with the European Union and Benelux. 

In 1997, he returned to Quebec and was deputy minister of the Quebec Ministry of International Relations, where he developed the Francophone Business Forum. 

In 2003, Mr. Latulippe joined the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, where he served as Morocco country director and senior representative in the Maghreb region, and, subsequently, as resident director in Haiti until 2010. 

In March 2010, Mr. Latulippe was named president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights & Democracy) in Montréal. He is married to Odette Dumontier. Mr. Latulippe succeeds Karen McDonald.