OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper denies the top official in his office leaked a document that has hurt Barack Obama's campaign for the U.S. presidential nomination.
He said the government is trying to find the person responsible for leaking a memo that has embarrassed Mr. Obama on the eve of the critical Ohio primary.
But Mr. Harper denied U.S. reports that his chief of staff Ian Brodie was the person who transmitted details of a private meeting between Mr. Obama's economic adviser and a Canadian diplomat.
“The government is trying to find out who is responsible for this information being made public and it is not my chief of staff,” Mr. Harper told the Commons during Question Period.
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“The leak of this particular document is not only regrettable, as the Canadian embassy in the United States as already said, it's completely unacceptable to this government, and we will find out –we will do our best to find out who did it.”
Mr. Harper's denial came on the day of the Ohio primary, where the Democratic candidate's poll numbers have sputtered amid suggestions he's engaging in double-speak on NAFTA.
The New Democrats raised the issue in the House of Commons again, a day after an exchange between NDP Leader Jack Layton and Harper was posted prominently on Mr. Obama's website and received tens of thousands of viewers.
Someone told Canadian and American news outlets that Obama advisers had tipped off Canadian diplomats that their promise to reopen NAFTA was just empty talk aimed at winning votes in Ohio.
After Mr. Obama and the Canadian government denied the allegation, someone leaked a diplomatic memo describing such a conversation between an Obama aide and a Canadian official.
Hillary Clinton — Mr. Obama's current rival — calls the affair ‘NAFTAgate' and is hoping to use doubts about her opponent's sincerity to win the crucial primary.
Republicans would certainly use the affair against Mr. Obama in a presidential election to win votes later this year in Ohio, a bellweather state where the free-trade deal is unpopular.
The Liberals say it's clear who the Tories are trying to help.
“They will use the instruments of government, whatever they can glean from the public service, to do their dirty work,” Liberal foreign-affairs critic Bob Rae wrote in a blog.
“The answer is they will do what is necessary to help Republicans. They're a nasty, unprincipled bunch, who are incompetent to boot.”
While helping its Republican buddies, mr. Rae said, the Tory government is hurting Canadian interests.
Mr. Rae said people around the world follow U.S. politics, and people might now think twice before confiding in Canadian diplomats, knowing their conversation could be leaked for partisan gain.
He also wondered what kind of relationship the Tories could now have with an Obama government, if he's elected president.
While it's not the first time Canadian politicians have waded into a U.S. election, there is no example in recent memory where the impact has been as great as in Ohio.
In 2000, Canada's ambassador Raymond Chrétien was pilloried at home for noting that Al Gore knew Canada better than George W. Bush: “We know Vice-President Gore. He knows us. He's a friend of Canada,” he said in remarks that led to allegations of unseemly favouritism.
That remark did not have any discernible impact in the U.S. comparable to the current kerfuffle over Obama's NAFTA stand.
Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton have both said they want to reopen the free-trade deal to ensure better environmental and labour standards.
It's a popular stand in Ohio, but Mr. Obama's sincerity is being called into question after a memo last month from the Canadian consulate in Chicago was leaked to U.S. media.
The memo of the meeting with Mr. Obama's economic adviser Austan Goolsbee includes a long, three-page, single-spaced section on NAFTA written by consular employee Joseph DeMora.
It says Mr. Goolsbee privately told Canadian Consul General Georges Rioux that Mr. Obama's attack on free trade is “more reflective of political manoeuvring than policy.”
“Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign,” it said.
“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.”
Mr. Goolsbee disputed the characterization, saying those weren't his words.
“That's this guy's language,” Mr. Goolsbee said. “He's not quoting me. I certainly did not use that phrase in any way.”
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