Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper by Sheila Steele

NAFTAgate has exploded in Canada, with politicians of all stripes baying like Hyenas for the blood of the Prime Minister Harper's Chief of Staff, Ian Brodie. No one is 100% sure what exactly Brodie leaked, but there seems to be little doubt that he leaked something:

Mr. Brodie, during the media lockup for the Feb. 26 budget, stopped to chat with several journalists, and was surrounded by a group from CTV.

The conversation turned to the pledges to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement made by the two Democratic contenders, Mr. Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Brodie, apparently seeking to play down the potential impact on Canada, told the reporters the threat was not serious, and that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign had even contacted Canadian diplomats to tell them not to worry because the NAFTA threats were mostly political posturing...

...

The story was followed by CTV's Washington bureau chief, Tom Clark, who reported that the Obama campaign, not the Clinton's, had reassured Canadian diplomats.

Mr. Clark cited unnamed Canadian sources in his initial report.

Fun stuff, but from unnamed sources. So did Brodie leak Clinton as unnamed sources are claiming? Did he leak Obama? How did Clark get the idea that Obama did it?

It wasn't the later leaked memo, becuase that wasn't out at the time. It seems like a big thing to mix up Clinton and Obama and you can be sure that while American journalists may not know the difference between NDP Leader Jack Layton and "a Labour MP" (since Canada has no Labor party) that no Canadian journalist would ever make the reverse mistake. We follow US politics almost as closely as we follow our own. Sometimes more closely. So I just don't see how that gets reversed. Which makes me wonder if this isn't perhaps some more spin; an attempt to say "they both said it, so at least we're evening out the damage". And, incidentally, still helping McCain.

Which takes us to the memo. In the memo it was claimed that Austan Goolsbee, Obama's advisor, reassured Canada that Obama's talk of renegotiating NAFTA was just political talk and not serious. It was written by Canadian diplomat Joseph de Mora, as a routine memo. Folks now are claiming that he didn't accurately write down what was said. Somehow I don't believe that a career, non-partisan Canadian diplomat wrote down something substantially inaccurate. Just don't buy it. Obama's advisor said what that memo says. Bank on it.

On the other hand, if both reports are accurate, it looks like the Clinton campaign also reassured Canada. So, as best I can tell, assuming the Prime Minister's office isn't still running an op to damage the Democrats, both campaigns told us that the NAFTA talk was just political rhetoric and that they would do no such thing if elected. And you know what? That's exactly what I would expect both campaigns to be telling both Canada and Mexico. The only surprising thing is that this was leaked.

But my main reaction to all of this is just that it's incredibly stupid and boneheaded. Prime Minister Harper has ties to American Republicans. He agrees with them on a lot of issues, although he had warned them long ago that their policies were self destructive. I'm sure he'd much rather see McCain as president than any Democrat. But this is incredibly dangerous for Canada. Crossing a possible president, who will in any case even if he loses, still be in the Senate, probably for life, and will probably hold a grudge--incredibly stupid. Especially since I'm guessing McCain doesn't pay people back any better than Bush does. Always remember Tony Blair. High risk, low upside. Stupid, stupid, stupid.