The government could announce May’s appointment as early as Friday. In taking on this new role, he will become Canada’s leader in managing a fraught relationship with China. May, who until August was Canada’s ambassador to Brazil, joined Canada’s foreign affairs department more than 30 years ago. During her career, May has held a number of positions, including executive director of defense and security relations, director of Eastern European and Eurasian relations, and has served in Bonn, Hong Kong, Beijing, Vienna, Bangkok and Berlin. Canada has been without an ambassador to China since late 2021, when Dominic Burton moved from the Beijing offices. Asked by CTV News a few months ago what the holdup was when Canada reached the six-month mark without an ambassador, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s office pledged that a representative would be named “in due course,” saying officials continued to cooperate with China. at “high levels”. At the time, former ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques said the notable absence was a sign that the federal government “doesn’t understand” the value of a strong diplomatic presence on the ground. “Having an ambassador gives you intelligence … because here is a person who can have access at a high level [information] that the other people in the embassy can’t,” he said. “You are depriving yourself of all this useful information.” Burton publicly announced his resignation on December 6, 2021, just months after he helped secure the release of former diplomat and businessman Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The two men were arbitrarily detained and held in a Chinese prison for more than 1,000 days. Their arrests are widely seen as retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver following a US extradition request. These events began what would become nearly three years of frosty relations between Canada and China. May’s appointment comes just before Canada marks the one-year anniversary of the release of the two Michaels. It was late in the evening of September 24, 2021 when Trudeau made a national address, announcing that Kovrig and Spavor had boarded a plane to China with Burton and “are on their way home.” With files from CTV National News Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier, CTV National News Producer Mackenzie Gray and CTVNews.ca Producer Sarah Turnbull