Appointment of new envoy a sign Washington wants to do business with Ottawa

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After more than eight months when the United States didn't have an ambassador in Ottawa, Bruce Heyman has finally arrived with a let's-do-business message and a little bit of ebullience about Canada.

At a time when there's frustrations for Stephen Harper's government over the Keystone XL pipeline, and perhaps a new flaring of the perennial sense that Washington doesn't care about Canada, the new envoy seems chosen expressly to counter that through background and style.

For one thing, Mr. Heyman, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, has come in talking about boosting cross-border trade and investment, with a business background behind it. There's still no Keystone, but Mr. Heyman fits the type that Mr. Harper, who stresses economic diplomacy, would like Mr. Obama to cast in the role of U.S. ambassador.

And after a long vacancy in the ambassador's residence, Mr. Heyman and his wife Vicki have brought a little exuberance. Ms. Heyman tweeted pictures of herself with guards at Rideau Hall, delighted by the reception. "You just pinch yourself," she said later. The couple are undeniably excited to be in Ottawa – surprising as that may seem to Canadians.

"We made the decision not only to do this, but we made the decision that Canada was our only choice – and this is what we really wanted," he said in an interview at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Ottawa.

There are some connections to Canada. Ms. Heyman's great-grandfather and grandfather emigrated from Belarus to Canada, to work as a presser in Toronto, followed a year later by her great-grandmother and five children. When her grandfather left in 1916, four of his siblings stayed in Canada.

"Growing up, we didn't really have an opportunity to meet our Canadian cousins and travel to Canada, but I always heard about them, and in subsequent years, on a few family occasions, had some intersections with some cousins," Ms. Heyman said. "But I've started to think about that coming full circle."

"My story is like so many North American stories. Families that live across borders, and those connections. So it's pretty exciting."

Ambassador Heyman said he first visited Canada for Expo '67 in Montreal, and several times later, but began to visit regularly when he became responsible for Goldman Sachs operations in mid-North America, including Canada between Alberta to Toronto.

"I found myself in Toronto pretty frequently, networking, making business connections, spending time doing analysis of the high-net-worth market in Canada. So I felt comfortable saying yes, we've been to Canada," he said. "But you know, for everybody listening who lives in the in the far reaches of this beautiful country, being in Toronto may not necessarily for them mean that I've been to Canada a lot."

They are here now because of their connections to Barack Obama. Mr. Heyman is a rare Democrat from the big-money investment-banking field dominated by Republicans, and Ms. Heyman was the Obama campaign's Illinois finance co-chair. They are certainly supporters, too. They are still moving into their grand official residence in Ottawa, but they've already mounted a Chuck Close portrait of Mr. Obama, signed by both artist and president, on the living room wall. Their Canadian hosts will hope that's a sign of an envoy with pull in Washington.

It's not clear yet what kind of envoy he will be. He has been taught the diplomatic responses: he responds to question about lines at borders and bridges by citing the progress. He points out that approval of the Keystone XL pipeline isn't the be-all and end-all of relations. If that disappoints Mr. Harper's government, they know he's not the person who will decide on the pipeline.

Mr. Heyman, however, signalled he wants to be heavily involved in promoting cross-border investment and trade, in both directions – and those less-controversial business projects may be where an ambassador's intervention could be effective.

And if the long vacancy in the ambassador's residence was seen by some as symbol of Washington's disengagement, the new ambassador is pledging to make his presence known , travelling across the country in May, and trying to connect with Canadians via Twitter.

"Let me be honest with you, there are people in the State Department that breathe very heavily whenever I take my iPhone out, and they think I'm going to say something that's going to cause them some angst. But this is a new world, and Vicki and I are going to be very active in this new world in terms of communication," he said.