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The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff says he does not recall talking to a reporter during a budget lockup in February about the free-trade positions of U.S. Democratic candidates — an exchange that eventually prompted American officials to accuse Canada of interfering in the presidential campaign.

Ian Brodie told a Commons committee on Thursday that an exchange took place in the room where the press were confined prior to the release of the 2008 budget. But he does not remember leaking confidential information that set back Barack Obama's bid for his party's nomination.

“I spoke to a CTV reporter during the course of the lockup and I recall some specifics about our discussion of some of the measures in the budget,” Mr. Brodie told MPs. “I don't specifically recall speaking to him about NAFTA.”

On the day before the release of the budget, Mr. Brodie was in Washington to discuss the fallout of the Manley report on the conflict in Afghanistan. According to a report of an investigation into the leak, the topic of NAFTA was raised with Mr. Brodie during an informal discussion at the Canadian embassy.

That report by Kevin Lynch, the Clerk of the Privy Council, cleared Mr. Brodie of divulging any confidential information. Mr. Lynch's investigation was ordered by the Prime Minister in response to opposition allegations that the leak was designed to hurt Mr. Obama's campaign.

In response to questions Thursday from a Conservative MP, however, Mr. Brodie said he had never tried to help or harm any U.S. presidential campaign, including that of Mr. Obama.

During the February budget lockup, Mr. Brodie said the Canadian government had received assurances from Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign that her attacks against NAFTA were to be taken with a grain of salt.

CTV News did additional reporting on the story, and discussed the matter with Canada's ambassador to Washington, Michael Wilson who hinted the assurances had actually come from Mr. Obama's campaign. Media reports at the time said the signal had been provided by Mr. Obama's economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, to Canada's consul-general in Chicago, Georges Rioux.

A summary of that meeting was leaked to The Associated Press in early March, with Mr. Goolsbee quoted as saying that calls to revamp NAFTA “should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

Mr. Goolsbee disputed the report, which became a major political headache for Mr. Obama's campaign.

Mr. Brodie said Thursday that he received a copy of that report two days after the budget lock-up – and one day after it was in the hands of two officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

Those individuals were not named in Mr. Lynch's report and Mr. Brodie told the committee that he could not reveal their identities because they had not waived their right to privacy.

“When it became clear that the report from Chicago had been leaked to Associated Press in Washington, I did speak to a number of people in the office about how the report arrived in our office,” he said. But Mr. Lynch's probe was launched shortly thereafter and he said he let the investigators take over.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus asked Mr. Brodie if he was aware that making the report public could change the course of the story.

“I don't think it ever occurred to me that if the thing became public, if the report became public, that it would be controversial,” Mr. Brodie replied. He stressed that, when he was given a copy on Feb. 28., he treated it as a confidential document and had it shredded immediately after reading it.

The investigation by Mr. Lynch found that said the Foreign Affairs Department was wrong to e-mail the report outlining Mr. Obama's confidential position to 232 government officials, one of whom likely leaked it to The Associated Press.

It also blamed reporters for quoting Mr. Brodie's conversation during the lockup. Reporters sign an undertaking before entering the events that stipulates that the information provided by government officials will not be attributed. Those undertakings have generally been understood to refer to the bureaucrats who explain the budget measures, and not to politicians or their staff.