John Klassen
John Klassen has almost four decades of international trade and development experience throughout his career including: trade promotion, trade policy, personnel policy and management, multilateral and bilateral issues and relations, logistics and organization, investment policy development and promotion, science and technology cooperation.
He has participated in various multilateral bodies including the GATT, OECD (Trade committee), and APEC. In 1997 when Canada chaired the APEC process, Klassen was responsible for policy development and coordination across the full range of APEC activities and was Chair on an APEC Working Group on Organizational Change.
He also served as principal organizer of the Canadian delegation to the Tokyo Round Conference in Brussels, and was Executive Director of the 2002 Kananaskis G8 Summit Management Office, and the 2007 Montebello Summit (Canada, USA, Mexico).
At various times Klassen was: responsible for the development and coordination of bilateral negotiating strategies in the Tokyo Round; Chief Negotiator for the first Canada-EU Science and Technology Agreement; Chief Negotiator on Canadian interests in Chinese Accession to the WTO; Chief Negotiator for the Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement and Chief Negotiator for the Canada-Alberta Framework Agreement of the Kananaskis Summit. He negotiated the First Nations agreement in the context of the Kananaskis Summit; developed framework investment cooperation agreements with Germany and Japan, and provided oversight of Science and Technology Agreements with China and India. He has held international postings in Moscow, Brussels, and Tokyo.
Following his retirement from the Public Service in 2005, Klassen continues to work as a consultant and at present is Chief Federal Negotiator for Aboriginal land claims negotiations in the Northwest Territories with the Northwest Territory Metis Nation and the Akaitcho Dene.