McGuigan's advises his colleagues: Meet their new US counterparts

Continuing his oversight of the Canadian government’s preparation for the Reagan administration, McGuigan sent letters to all members of the Cabinet urging them to make early contact with their American counterpart designates, in this case Finance Minister Allan MacEachen ( a previous and future External Affairs Minister) with Treasury Secretary designate Donald Regan. This document clearly attests to the importance McGuigan gave to the creating an effective a positive overall Canada-US government-to-government rapport, perhaps anticipating that the creation of such a rapport between Trudeau and Reagan would be challenging. In turn, McGuigan achieved a reasonable rapport with his counterpart, Reagan’s choleric first Secretary of State Alexander Haig, which helped mitigate friction with Washington on broader global issues.