Suzanne Vinet will be the new deputy minister of
Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC), effective Sept. 17.
She takes over from John
Knubley, who has been deputy since 2009 and is moving to the industry
department.
Vinet began her career as
a federal civil servant with AAFC in 1984. She was director-general of
international trade policy from 1990 to 2002 and assistant deputy minister for
strategic policy from 2005 to 2007.
She is an economics
graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, of the Institut de
Technologie agricole et alimentaire in St-Hyacinthe, Que., and attended the
National Defence College of Canada in Kingston, Ont.
She was born and raised in
Vaudreuil in Quebec's Monteregie region.
Vinet also worked as
director general for trade policy in international trade in the Department of
Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2005. She was also deputy chief negotiator for
Canada at the World Trade Organization, where negotiations for a new global
deal failed, and a key participant in the multilateral trade policy issues of
the department.
In 2007, Vinet was named
associate deputy minister of health, followed by a stint as associate deputy
minister for transport, infrastructure and communities before she was named president
of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec in March
2010.
