Danial Shaikh, the new U.K. consul general for B.C., Yukon and the Northwest Territories, at his office in Vancouver on Sept. 16.
Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent efforts to strengthen the nation’s international relationships and enhance its trade profile, for one top diplomat in Vancouver, it remains largely business as usual when promoting his country to B.C. business owners.
"There isn't something in place to say that there's a change in our stance," said Danial Shaikh, who arrived in Vancouver in mid-August to serve as the U.K.'s consul general for B.C., Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
He met with Business in Vancouver on Sept. 16, the same day Carney joined U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham in Liverpool to cheer on the Canadian PM’s favourite Premier League soccer team, Everton FC. Both prime ministers wore blue and white Everton scarves, with Carney fist pumping when Everton scored the game's only goal.
Shaikh said part of his job at the U.K. consulate is to network and expand trade, just as it was with his predecessor, Thomas Codrington, who served for four and a half years.
Codrington said he is leaving the foreign service with plans to return to living in Vancouver in the new year, and that he is "looking forward to serving the B.C. community in a different capacity."
B.C. trade volume with the U.K. is relatively low
Shaikh said the job of expanding trade is made easier given that B.C. and the U.K. have "a long and shared history—culturally, economically, academically, institutions-wise."
But B.C. and the U.K. remain separated buy a continent and an ocean. Trade flow is relatively small.
BC Stats data shows in 2025 less than one per cent, or $342.9 million out of $54.7 billion of B.C.-origin exports went to the U.K.
B.C. companies trade far more with American partners.
About 51 per cent of B.C. origin exports in 2025 headed to the U.S., or $27.9 billion worth, according to BC Stats.
There are some early signs of West Coast exporters may be diversifying away from the U.S.
In the first seven months of 2026, B.C. exports to the U.S. declined to be 47.8 per cent of B.C. origin exports.
B.C.'s exports to the U.K. remained at less than one per cent.
U.K. Consul General Danial Shaikh says overlapping trade agreements give Canadian exporters more options when doing business with Britain. | Jennifer Gauthier, BIV
Trade agreements may increase exports.
The U.K. joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in December 2024. The agreement took effect between Canada and the U.K. on Sept. 1, 2026.
The U.K. and Canada have also been part of the free trade pact known as the Canada-U.K. Trade Continuity Agreement since 2021.
The U.K.’s inclusion in the CPTPP can help Canadian business owners, offering different options for which trade agreement to export goods through.
Sheikh described this as being "layers."
The different agreements offer more choice with one or the other potentially being preferable for different goods exports, he said.
Partnerships
Steve Graham headed a U.K. trade office in Saudi Arabia in the mid-2010s, when Shaikh was his deputy. He said Shaikh has a natural aptitude for bringing people together and building productive partnerships.
Shaikh used partnerships to bring business leaders, senior Saudi government officials and members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family to an event on a U.K. warship, the HMS Defender, Graham said.
British car manufacturer Land Rover, which produced a series of vehicles known as Defender, was present at the event.
"He had the local Land Rover dealer showcase their Defender models for a photo shoot in front of HMS Defender," said Graham, who is now retired. "This resulted in greatly increasing the profile of the business and resulted in several sales."
To foster trade at his posts, Shaikh said he goes to trade shows and events.
He has tried to get to know the B.C. business community by meeting representatives such as Business Council of British Columbia CEO Laura Jones, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade CEO Bridgitte Anderson and Vancouver Fraser Port Authority CEO Peter Xotta, he said.
Jones said she’s had lunch with Shaikh, adding consuls general can help connect B.C. business owners with partners abroad.
Knowing them can also be helpful to her in lining up speakers for events, she said.
"We have thought leaders in regularly to engage with business leaders and be on roundtables," Jones said.
"We had a U.K. minister come in about a year and a half ago and do that. When there's an interesting conversation to be had, it is in those conversations that relationships get built."
Many B.C. companies have a strong presence in the U.K.
Last year, Surrey-based Safe Software Inc. CEO Don Murray told BIV he planned to expand his company's business to the U.K. and Ireland by hiring up to 10 employees.
He said his rationale was that sales staff would be in the U.K. time zone and better able to serve clients in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Coquitlam-based Photonic Inc. similarly announced plans last year to invest £25 million ($46.7 million) to open a new quantum research and development facility in the U.K.
Diplomatic life leads to first time as head of a consulate
Diplomatic posts at British embassies and consulates are usually time-dated.
For Shaikh, a career foreign service officer, that means he is scheduled to head the U.K.'s Vancouver consulate until mid-2030.
The norm for Canada when posting top diplomats to the U.S. or the U.K. is for the prime minister to make those appointments directly, usually from outside the diplomatic corps.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper, for example, appointed former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell to be Canada's top diplomat, or high commissioner, in the U.K. for a five-year term starting in 2011.
Former Liberal cabinet minister Bill Blair resigned his parliamentary seat earlier this year so Carney could appoint him as Canada's high commissioner to the U.K., following Ralph Goodale, who is another former Liberal cabinet minister.
One argument for having the prime minister directly appoint ambassadors or high commissioners to close allies and important trade partners is that those top diplomats are likely to be given more political clout and be listened to more in their posts because they will be viewed as having a direct line to the prime minister, said University of British Columbia political science lecturer Stewart Prest .
"Those same posts tend to be prestigious, and those appointments can thus also be seen as a way to reward loyalists, or at least a way to smooth their departures," he said.
In contrast, the U.K. for decades has had career diplomats rotate into stints as high commissioners to Canada.
Before current U.K. High Commissioner to Canada Rob Tinline arrived in Ottawa, he was director of the Americas at the U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Foreign Office), between May 2022 and January 2025, advising on policy and overseeing the U.K. diplomatic network across the region. Before that he worked on the U.K.'s response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Shaikh has also long been in the diplomatic corps.
He arrived in Vancouver from Luxembourg, where he was deputy head of mission at the U.K. embassy.
Before that, he spent much of 2020 and 2021 in London, helping lead a cross-government effort to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
His three-and-a-half-year stint in Guangzhou, China, had him work in the U.K.'s Department for International Trade.
Shaikh, a 47-year-old Muslim, was born in Karachi, Pakistan.
His father was originally from India, but was forced to move to Pakistan in 1947, when British rule ended.
Religious strife raged.
The subcontinent split into two with Hindus accounting for much of India’s population and with many Indian Muslims leaving to start anew in Pakistan.
Shaikh said he remembers hearing family stories about Hindus killing trainloads of Muslims who were fleeing to Pakistan.
"They missed a train that had that happen as they were on the train behind," Shaikh said of his father, who was then five years old, and his family.
Shaikh's father completed his PhD in civil engineering in the U.K. before returning to Karachi, where Shaikh grew up.
Education was prized in the family, so Shaikh went to the University of London directly after high school to earn his master of science degree.
After a stint in banking, he worked at the National Policing Improvement Agency, which was an arm of the U.K. government.
That post led to other foreign service posts.
"I've come from a background … of moving between countries," Shaikh said.
"My grandfather, too, had to start everything from scratch again."
The next generation of Shaikhs will similarly have that experience.
His two sons are aged 14 and 16—enough to have moved with Shaikh and his wife during posts in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, China and Luxembourg.
Being in the middle of high school, however, is a tough time to have to suddenly move to a different continent, Shaikh said.
"They know about change and how to deal with it," he said.
