The Salt Spring Forum welcomes Louise Fréchette – Kofi Annan’s former deputy and the highest ranking Canadian in the history of the United Nations – for a frank conversation about the future of international cooperation on Friday, June 19th at 7:30 p.m. at ArtSpring.

Louise Fréchette was the first Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1998 to 2006. The creation of her job in 1998 was a result of the reforms Kofi Annan had introduced in 1997. Fréchette’s mandate, quite simply, was to modernize the United Nations.

In 2005, Forbes Magazine identified Fréchette as one of the most powerful women in the world.

Louise Fréchette’s career began in 1971 in Canada’s Department of External Affairs. In 1985, she received her first ambassadorial appointment – to Argentina. In 1989, she was sent on a secret mission to Cuba to persuade Fidel Castro to support the Gulf War.

From 1995 to 1998, Fréchette was Canada’s Deputy Minister of National Defence. She describes this as her toughest position ever – due to deep budget cuts and the atrocities committed by Canadian troops on a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Fréchette currently serves as the chair of CARE, an international organization fighting global poverty that is in more than 80 countries.

Tickets to this Salt Spring Forum event on June 19th at 7:30 pm at ArtSpring are available at the ArtSpring Box Office (100 Jackson Ave.), at 537-2102 or http://www.tickets.artspring.ca, or Salt Spring Books. $15 Forum Members; $20 General Admission.