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Paul Heinbecker, the Chrétien-era ambassador to the United Nations who returned to the private sector and a career in professionally disgruntled punditry after Harper’s first election in 2006, says Harder knows the “signals that need to be sent.” Heinbecker gives Harder bonus points for having been on the team that negotiated the Kyoto accord, which the former Liberal government signed in 1997 and ratified in 2002.

There are quite a few Liberal figures from yesteryear who have become suddenly generous with their time and advice

Just one of Trudeau’s more important engagements in the near future is the global conference on climate change taking place in Paris in December, where world leaders are supposed to conclude a deal to replace Kyoto. And that assignment is just one of the many things that will be keeping Trudeau’s new Liberals dreadfully busy over the next few weeks. There’s also the Nov. 15 G20 meeting coming up in Turkey, and there is serious Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation business that needs attention. Trudeau hopes to have a cabinet in place by Nov. 4, and most of his ministers are likely to be neophytes.

There are quite a few Liberal figures from yesteryear who have become suddenly generous with their time and advice, and with the New Democrats and the Conservatives in disarray, there’s not much of an opposition that can be counted on to pay attention. Canadians should be paying very close attention, especially those who threw their enthusiasms behind Trudeau.

Harder, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs and trade, comes straight out of the cohort of Liberal party grandees that Trudeau assured his party recruits and leadership-race supporters would no longer be running the show in Ottawa.