Jean-François Lacasse

1st Secretary for Cyber and Digital policy issues, Embassy of Canada to Japan

Jean-François Lacasse currently serves as the 1st Secretary for Cyber and Digital policy issues at the Embassy of Canada to Japan. Prior to this, he was Deputy Director for Democracy and then Chief of Staff to the Director General of the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion at Global Affairs Canada (GAC), where he also contributed in 2023-24 to the creation of the new bureau for Cyber, Critical Technologies and Democratic Resilience.

From 2012 to 2017 he served as the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Delegation of Canada to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and from 2008 to 2012 he focussed on security in the Asia-Pacific region before moving to NATO and OSCE files. He was first posted to Japan in 2004 to 2008, where he covered economic relations and then domestic politics and parliamentary relations. Past experiences also include work on South-East Asia and on the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. Jean-François is a Political Science graduate of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and joined Global Affairs Canada (GAC) in 2000.