Eddie Goldenberg

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title: "Eddie Goldenberg" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["living-people", "lawyers-in-ontario", "chiefs-of-staff-of-the-canadian-prime-minister's-office", "1948-births", "mcgill-university-faculty-of-law-alumni"] description: "Canadian political advisor" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Goldenberg" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Canadian political advisor ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
name	Eddie Goldenberg
honorific-suffix
smallimage
office	9th Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister
term	2003
primeminister	Jean Chrétien
predecessor	Percy Downe
successor	Tim Murphy
birth_name	Edward Goldenberg
birth_date
birth_place	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
death_date
party	Liberal Party of Canada
otherparty
partner
alma_mater	McGill University
profession	Lawyer
::

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| spouse = | partner =
| relations = | children = | parents = | residence = | education = | alma_mater = McGill University | occupation = | profession = Lawyer | cabinet = | committees = | portfolio = | religion = | signature = | signature_alt = | website =

Edward Goldenberg (born 1948), known as Eddie Goldenberg, is a Canadian lawyer and writer who served as a senior advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for decades. Described as Chrétien's "Machiavelli", from 1993 until 2003 he was chief policy advisor to the Prime Minister, becoming chief of staff in 2003. Along with Jean Pelletier and Aline Chrétien, he was considered Chrétien's most influential political guide. Goldenberg's 2006 memoir, The Way It Works, focused on his time in government. He is the son of former Canadian Senator and lawyer H. Carl Goldenberg.

Career

Goldenberg first worked for politician Jean Chrétien in 1972 with a summer internship after completing his first year at McGill University Faculty of Law. From 1980 to 1982 he supported Chrétien as Special Constitutional Advisor to the Minister of Justice and was one of the authors of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 1990, Goldenberg was "co-ordinating the 10 policy groups that have been organized to brief Chrétien on various issues and to write speeches." He worked with Paul Martin, Terrie O’Leary and Chaviva Hosek "on finalizing the text of the famous Red Book, officially titled Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada."

From 1993 until 2003 he was Chrétien's aide and chief policy advisor. He was involved with the government when the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1998 and then signed in 2002, and later wrote on the matter. He became the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff in 2003.

After Chretien left office, Goldberg became a partner at the Ottawa office of law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP and subsequently a senior partner at Bennett Jones LLP, leading the firm's government affairs and public policy practice. He was a supporter of Bob Rae's bid to become Liberal leader in 2006. In 2019, he was still working with Jean Chretien on diplomatic matters with China.

Goldenberg's ''The Way It Works'' book

Goldenberg is the author of The Way It Works, a book about his experiences working with Chrétien. It focuses especially on 1993 until 2003 during Goldenberg's time as Senior Policy Advisor to Chrétien. Goldenberg's 2006 memoir, The Way It Works, was called by Maclean's "a bluntly realistic endorsement of the Savoie-Simpson thesis with none of the handwringing." The memoir also covers Goldenberg's recollections of the writing process for 'the Red Book, which set the Liberal platform for the 1993 federal election. In 2006, it was a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Writing.

Publishing history

• Author of The Way It Works (September 18, 2007, )

Archives

There is an Edward S. Goldenberg fonds at Library and Archives Canada.

References

References

1. Allan Fotheringham, "Aline, the power player," ''[[Maclean's]]'', December 11, 2000, vol. 113, issue 50, p. 68.
2. "Eddie Goldenberg". Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
3. "A Cool Hand at the Helm". [[Maclean's]].
4. (2009). "From defeat to victory?". [[National Center for Biotechnology Information.
5. "A new guy and the Nervous Nellies". [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
6. (4 June 2002). "The players behind the scenes". [[The Globe and Mail]].
7. (23 February 2007). "Liberals knew Kyoto a long shot". [[Star Media Group.
8. (16 September 2008). "Bennett Jones taps horsey set to land Dodge".
9. (4 September 2018). "Canada still has a strong hand in NAFTA negotiations". [[Globe and Mail]].
10. (October 2025). "Let the real work begin".
11. (13 June 2019). "Chrétien proposes cancelling Meng's extradition case to unfreeze relations with China". [[The Globe and Mail]].
12. (30 September 2006). "Chrétien's Machiavelli".
13. (2009). "The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa". [[GoodReads]].
14. (4 June 2018). "The PM as dictator". [[Literary Review of Canada]].
15. "The Liberal Red Book: The Economist's Perspective". Global Economics by Patrick Grady.
16. "The Way It Works". [[Penguin Random House]].
17. "Edward S. Goldenberg fonds, Library and Archives Canada".

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