The engines were revving on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plane, warming up on a Beijing tarmac for a flight to China’s southern industrial heartland, but one important passenger was conspicuously missing: François-Philippe Champagne.

Champagne, then Canada’s trade minister in December 2017, was left behind for what would be two days of intense closed-door meetings in the Chinese capital while Trudeau and his entourage decamped to their next destination.

For the next two days, Champagne was thrown into an intense set of talks, in an attempt to find some sort of way forward on a free-trade negotiation with China — an effort that ultimately failed.

Now, the unflappable and unfailingly upbeat Champagne is headed back into the thick of Canada’s thorny international relations as one of Canada’s faces to the world, second only to the prime minister.

Champagne, 49, may not have the name recognition that his predecessor Chrystia Freeland brought to the post as an author and ex-journalist in London, Moscow and New York, but his easygoing manner belies his own ambitious rise in business and international-trade law, which earned him a “Young Global Leader” award from the World Economic Forum.

Champagne has held the Quebec riding of Saint-Maurice-Champlain since 2015. It includes the city of Shawinigan, whose famous son, former prime minister Jean Chretien, is a personal hero of Champagne’s.

Champagne has also publicly and privately hinted he might one day aspire to the same job Chretien once held.

In January 2017, Champagne took over from Freeland in the trade portfolio, tasked with delivering a massive trade deal among Pacific Rim countries known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“Champagne’s experience with the skirmishes over TPP and Canada’s first ill-fated venture into trade talks with the Chinese is good experience for some of the continuing battles he will be facing — especially when it comes to the Chinese,” said Fen Hampson, of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

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