Distinguished Senior Fellow
Born in Toronto, Chris Alexander graduated from McGill and Oxford universities, joined the Canadian foreign service in 1991, and served for a total of six years at the Canadian embassy in Moscow, including as deputy head of mission over the first three years of Putin’s presidency.
He was subsequently Canada’s first resident ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-05) and deputy special representative of the United Nations Secretary General (DSRSG) for Afghanistan (2005-09). Earlier in his career, he was also an assistant to Canada’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and G7 Sherpa (1996-7) and deputy director of the Eastern Europe Division (1997-2000) in Canada’s department of foreign affairs.
On May 2nd 2011, he was elected to Canada’s House of Commons as member of parliament for Ajax-Pickering (2011-15), parliamentary secretary for national defence (2011-13) and Canada’s minister of citizenship and immigration (2013-15), as well as a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada with policies for a ‘New Canada,’ including a reinvigorated foreign and defence policy. He is a director of United Corporations Ltd., a closed-end investment corporation listed on the Toronto stock exchange, and was an executive with Hakluyt & Company (2022-24) when they opened their Toronto office.
He is currently a Distinguished Fellow with the Canadian International Council and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and has been active on issues related to disinformation, election integrity, foreign interference, geopolitics and the defence of democracy.
He is the author of The Long Way Back: Afghanistan’s Quest for Peace (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2011) and The Diehard Optimist, essays on Canadian and international issues via Substack. He is a regular contributor to Canadian newspapers, periodicals and policy fora.
