David Wilkins

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David H. Wilkins

David Horton Wilkins (born October 12, 1946) is a former South Carolina politician and an American diplomat. He is now the U.S. Ambassador to Canada and prior to the appointment he was the Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives.

The son of William Walter and Evelyn Wilkins of South Carolina, Wilkins was first elected to the state legislature in 1981. He is a Republican, and is reputed to be a close friend of U.S.President George W. Bush. He served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army in the early 1970s.

On April 4, 2005, CBC News reported that he would be chosen as the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, replacing Paul Cellucci. President Bush officially nominated him for the post on April 27, and he formally became U.S. Ambassador to Canada on June 29 when he presented his credentials to Governor General Adrienne Clarkson. The Associated Press reported that before his appointment, Wilkins had only been to Canada once, while he was in the U.S. Army Reserve three decades prior.

[edit] Rendition controversy

On September 18, 2005, in an interview with the Canadian Press, Wilkins was asked whether the United States regretted "rendering" innocent Canadian Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured.^[1]

"You talking about regrets by the United States?" Wilkins said in an interview with the Canadian Press. "The United States made that decision based on the facts it had, in the best interests of the people of the United States, and we stand behind it." He also said: "Will there be other deportations in the future? I'd be surprised if there's not."

Wilkins seemed unfamiliar with The Monterey Accord, which Canadian politicians had assured Canadians would preclude a repeat of Arar's rendition and torture. The Calgary Herald reproduced this quote from the interview:

The ambassador, a former speaker of the South Carolina legislature and a close political ally of President George W. Bush, was also at a loss to explain why American authorities refused to participate in a public inquiry in Canada into the Arar affair.

"I honestly don't know the answer to that," said Wilkins. "Were they asked? I don't know."

The United States refusal to participate in the inquiry was front page news in Canada.