Analysts in Canada believe Harper does not want a Democrat in the White House, a development that could encourage Canadian voters to cast their ballots for a more liberal government in an election that will be held before 2010.
Harper said last week that the United States should not reopen talks on NAFTA and warned that reopening trade negotiations could lead to Canada raising some matters of its own.
The NDP Press Secretary, Capstick, reported, “Our leader will continue to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister’s chief Ian Brodie, who BBC news alleges was the source of the leak. “
He described the sequence of events from the Canadian side:George Rioux , consul general in Chicago, had a meeting with Mr. Goolsbee. That meeting was written up in a diplomatic cable. That diplomatic, we believe, would have been marked secret. That cable would have then been sent to Washington D.C., where our conservative ambassador there, the former finance minister for a conservative government here in Canada, Michael Wilson, who has scandals of his very own, I might add, then had a conversation and passed diplomatic cables to the chief of staff, allegedly passed the information to our chief of staff Ian Brody. Mr. Brody then passed it along to Canadian News media, thereby creating quite the storm in Ohio.
We haven’t seen the memo. ABC news has. They are the ones who have received the memo."
ABC reported, in an AP article by Nedra Pickler:According to the memo obtained by The Associated Press, Obama's senior economic adviser told Canadian officials in Chicago that the debate over free trade in the Democratic presidential primary campaign was "political positioning" and that Obama was not really protectionist.
The adviser, Austan Goolsbee, said his comments to those officials were misinterpreted by the author, Joseph DeMora, who works for the Canadian consulate in Chicago and attended the meeting.
The memo says: "Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign."
It went on: "He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
Goolsbee disputed the characterization.
"This thing about 'it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language," Goolsbee said of DeMora. "He's not quoting me.
"I certainly did not use that phrase in any way," he said.
Around 2:30 PM, today, Layton will again be asking Harper questions about this episode on www.Cpac.ca , which is the Canadian equivalent to CSPAN. He'll be repeating the message, "
The source of the information that has worked it’s way into the Dem primary needs be identified and fired, by Mr. Harper and that we need, as Obama and Clinton have suggested, that we need to re-negotiate, take another look at NAFTA . We need NAFTA 2.0."
1 | 2
