Colin Robertson , MA / 78

A career foreign service officer, Colin Robertson is a distinguished senior fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, where he is directing a project on Canada-US relations with the collaboration of the federal and provincial governments and the private and non-profit sectors.

On loan to Carleton from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Robertson is the former president of the Historica Foundation of Canada, and previously served as minister and head of the Washington Advocacy Secretariat, consul general in Los Angeles, and counsellor and consul in Hong Kong. He has served at the Permanent Mission to Canada at the United Nations and the Consulate General in New York. He was a member of the team that negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and later was coordinator of the NAFTA implementing legislation and the Canadian NAFTA communications coordinator.

Robertson is a former member of Carleton’s President’s Advisory Council and a current member of the Distinguished Advisory Council to NPSIA. He is a governor of the Historica Foundation and a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. He has been awarded the Alberta Centennial Medal (2005), the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal (2006), the Alberta Motion Picture Industry Association ‘Friend of the Industry’ (2004), and the distinguished alumnus award from the University of Manitoba (2004).