Well I suppose it was inevitable eh? Ever since the Quebec students began marching, the Con media has been attacking them like a pack of rabid hyenas.

The Con liberal Andrew Coyne called them a violent mob. The windy little teabagger Rex Murphy called their protest a self-indulgent parody.

The petty-bourgeois hack Margaret Wente did her ghastly Marie Antoinette impression.

But now Michael Den Tandt has gone one deranged step further, and called for the Quebec students to be caned.

There’s a better way: Dispersal with massive use of tear gas; then arrest, public humiliation, and some pain. In 1994, an 18-year-old American named Michael Fay, living in Singapore, was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of vandalism and mischief, after he keyed several expensive cars. He was sentenced to four months in jail, a $3,500 (Singaporean dollars) fine and six strokes of the cane, applied to his bare buttocks.

Barbaric? Not really. Arguably, caning is more merciful than incarceration for an energetic young vandal on the cusp of becoming a full-fledged career criminal. Many would probably rather be caned than locked up, given their druthers.

Caned like they are Singapore . . .

And I really don’t know what to say? Except is he serious?  Is it booze? Is it dementia? What kind of kinky stuff is this?

And of course what kind of savage country are we becoming?

You know the other day a friend of mine said the problem is the boomers invented the youth culture. But now they are old, so they hate the young with a passion. And  this is the beginning of a brutal generational war.

But I prefer to think it’s just another sign that Canada, corrupted by the filth of Stephen Harper and his Con thugs, has lost its way.  And doesn’t even recognize that the young are its future. And that they are fighting for a better world.

“When we defend the right to free public education to serve the people and their needs, we confront the bigger fishes that are obstacles along our path. And it is at this point that we must be more ingenious, more intelligent, more committed, more relevant, to avoid falling into the game and strategy of those who wish to divide us, frighten us, those who see us as hardliners, as delinquents.

A better world for ALL of us here now, and all future generations.

And I did point out to my friend that not all older Canadians are on the wrong side of history . . .

Didn’t you just love that fighting senior telling the cops what he thought of them?

Yup. Michael Den Tandt should shove that cane where the sun don’t shine.

The Con media should restrain themselves.

And the Quebec students should keep on marching . . .

Reviewed by Brian Brennan

Jan Wong was a star of The Globe and Mail newsroom, a driven, gutsy, award-winning reporter who observed the Tiananmen Square massacre at first hand, and tested the limits of Canada’s airport security by smuggling box cutters aboard four Air Canada flights in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In September 2006 she wrote a morning-after feature story – a combination of reporting and analysis – on the Montreal Dawson College shooting that left the gunman and one student dead. In her story she linked the incident to two other Montreal school shootings, noting that in each instance the perpetrator came from immigrant stock. Each had been marginalized in a society that valued “pure laine,” which Wong defined as francophone slang for old-stock Quebecers.

All hell broke loose.

Out of the Blue chronicles the crisis that followed for Wong, including her two-year struggle with depression and her fight to have her sick pay restored after the employer accused her of malingering. It’s a candid, compelling, unflinching account, dappled with references to others who battled depression and wrote about it, and packed with well-documented information about the history, causes, symptoms, and treatment of mental illness. It also offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of an intensely competitive newsroom where reporters complained of “severe byline deprivation” if they hadn’t a story in the paper for a while.

The “pure laine” reference, cleared by her editors before publication, plunged her into hot water. Letters of condemnation, 13 of which the Globe published, came from readers including Prime Minister Harper and Quebec Premier Charest. The House of Commons passed a motion apologizing to the people of Quebec for the “offensive remarks.” Wong received a flood of racist hate mail, abusive phone calls, packages containing excrement and mutilated copies of her books, and a death threat alarming enough to warrant calling police.

The Globe let Wong take the fall. It attempted to appease her critics by publishing an editorial saying there was no evidence Quebec’s linguistic struggle contributed to marginalization of immigrants or to any violence perpetrated by them. The editor-in-chief, Edward Greenspon, added in a damning column that Wong’s opinions should not have been part of her story. With nobody in her corner, Wong went on extended stress leave, during which she was diagnosed with severe depression.

Wong remained mostly silent following the uproar. After first granting her permission to talk to other media outlets about the backlash, the Globe management slapped a gag order on her. At the same time, the newspaper company’s insurer, Manulife, began questioning her claim that she was stricken with a mental illness and could not return to work.

Though she ended up losing her job at the Globe, Wong eventually received written acknowledgement from the employer that she had been ill and unable to attend work during the time she was on stress leave. She also negotiated successfully for a favorable settlement agreement and removal of the gag order. But that wasn’t the end of the Globe fallout. Left free to write about her ordeal, she landed a contract with Doubleday Canada and spent three years at work on Out of the Blue. She was “a keystroke away” from sending it to final copy edit before printing when her publisher got cold feet, despite having had the book assiduously lawyered, because of some references she made to the Globe‘s “corporate bullying.” Wong refused to change the material, parted ways with Doubleday, and published the manuscript herself.

I’m grateful that she did. Books like this rarely make it into print because corporations generally demand silence as part of settlement agreements with individuals who sue them for wrongful dismissal. Wong took on three behemoths – the Globe, Manulife, and Doubleday – and emerged from the fray with her voice gloriously intact.

A young woman died of a drug overdose in Vancouver yesterday. Her name was Ashley. She became one of the approximately 120 people who will die of drug overdoses in Vancouver this year.

She happened to be at the Occupy Vancouver encampment when she died.

Or perhaps it wasn’t coincidental. Perhaps she had been drawn there by the communal spirit of the place. By a desire for company. Or safety. Maybe she was there because she believed in its ideals. Or wished she could. At any rate, that’s where she was.

It has been instructive, overnight, to watch her death congeal into a reason to shut down Occupy Vancouver, especially among journalists. One watches this, of course, on twitter:

garymasonglobe Gary Mason

Gregor Robertson has no choice now. The OV camp has to come down. Now. This isn’t about politics any longer.

fabulavancouver Frances Bula

Can see why this death an argumnt for shuttng camp. If you claim you’re in charge, you are responsibe. Imagine if a shelter had an OD death

rodmickleburgh Rod Mickleburgh

The point that #OccupyVancouver needs to consider is whether the occupation at VAG makes any sense any more, the original cause is forgotten

garymasonglobe Gary Mason

#occupyvancouver is a health and safety issue now. The original cause is beside the point.

steveburgess1 Steve Burgess

@rodmickleburgh Eventually it was going to be about itself. It always happens.

acoyne Andrew Coyne

@steveburgess1 @rodmickleburgh I agree, except for the eventually part.

Mr. (James Andrew) Coyne, son of James Coyne, the governor of the Bank of Canada from 1955 to 1961,  appears to be saying that the Occupy movement has always been “about itself” — in other words, one big self-indulgent wank. Perhaps we should be grateful: It’s not often Coyne so candidly tips his hand.

One plaintive note of logic was sounded among Canadian journos:

colbycosh Colby Cosh

How can a death at Occupy Vancouver be a cause for breaking up the camp in the absence of any real knowledge of the cause?

colbycosh Colby Cosh

And if breaking up the camp is unconstitutional–which appears to be the consensus among officials everywhere–how does a death change that?

colbycosh Colby Cosh

But by all means let’s overreact; that’s what makes the mainstream media mainstream, dammit.

And so they did — overreact, that is. By the end of the evening, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, in the middle of an election campaign, and knowing that all this self-satisfied hand-wringing would show up in the newspapers over the next 24 hours, had announced that the city would “expedite the appropriate steps to end the encampment as soon as possible, with a safe resolution being absolutely critical.” Good luck with that, Mr. Mayor.

Journalists such as Mason et al. are paid to think — but only for a moment or two. Then they must produce their required column inches of opinion. So, in fact, what they mostly do is react, and, as we have seen, with no less emotion and bluster than most people. They simply have a knack for expressing it better. We can hope that by the time they get around to generating their think-pieces today, they will have gotten over the notion that Ashley’s death is any more meaningful, or any less, than those of the other 120 people who die of drug overdoses in Vancouver every year, and that somehow it means the Occupy Vancouver encampment should be shut down. That is an absurdity. Chasing the protestors off the art gallery lawn will make no difference to the numbers of addicts who die each year; it will simply guarantee that they go back to doing it on the streets of the Downtown East Side, where they may be comfortably ignored.

Of course, maybe that’s the point. Much of the middle-class is discomfited by the Occupy the World movement, and would like to see it go away — why should journalists be any different? But if that’s the case, they should just admit it’s all too messy and amorphous for them, and that they’d prefer to be able to watch football without the distraction. (The Lions game was another trending topic among them last night.) But let them not invoke Ashley and cry crocodile tears for her while they do it.

Because, somehow, I don’t think Ashley would appreciate it.

Well I must admit it’s looking bleak out there. It’s been raining for days. The traffic cones are sagging like most of the population. And the Dark Lord of Canada is working feverishly in his castle preparing to unveil his zombie cabinet under a cone of silence.

From The Globe: The pieces of Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle are all in place and those on the move have been given their orders – but no one’s talking and the Prime Minister’s enjoying it.

Because he would eh? Before The Thousand Year Majority the message to the faithful hog hordes was: You talk, you fired. Now it’s you squeal, you DIE. And he does so enjoy seeing fear in the eyes of others.

Meanwhile, in a hopefully secure location, the man who wrote Harperland awaits his grim fate calmly. Trying to find a flicker of light in The Great Darkness.

Liberalism has become a bore. It dims the imagination. It’s mush. By contrast, the New Democrats have some ideological teeth. They can speak with authenticity of voice for social democratic values.

But not quite succeeding.

Just like the Liberals, the New Democrats are at a huge financial disadvantage. When the Conservatives feel so inclined, they’ll strike with brutal advertising that the NDP won’t have the resources to rebut. Does anyone think Thomas Mulcair’s outburst about Osama bin Laden won’t be aired countless times when the appropriate moment arrives? Or Jack Layton’s massage-parlour visit? Don’t put it past the Conservatives.

And who can blame him for feeling down eh? When his own colleagues in the corporate media are doing the Con’s dirty work for them.

They suckle the hands teats that feed them. They know what their bosses want. The socialist conspiracy must be crushed and humiliated. So first it was Jack Does the Massage Parlour. Now it’s Jack and Olivia do Disney World.

When they didn’t do anything wrong. Or anything other MPs don’t do. And their real “crime” was daring to address union members.

But so it begins. In The Thousand Year Majority there can be only one message: Big Daddy Knows Best. The Media is Mein. And anyone who doesn’t submit will be destroyed by my mighty attack ads.

The good news? At least now even the dumbest must realize that this is an ideological war, a class war. And that Big Media is the enemy enema. So we can attack them, mock them, flush them out of our lives, and set up our own progressive new media networks.

The even better news? We’ve got four years to give the Cons a taste of their own medicine. Bombard them with our attack ads, and use the internet to encourage people to mobilize and protest in the streets.

And with the artists of Canada on our side, one thing is for sure eh?

We can do prop-art better than they can . . .

Is BC ready for a story asking if it’s ready for a gay leader?

It’s the story that Mike Farnworth, a leading contender to replace the deposed Carole James as leader of BC’s NDP, knew would be told before he announced his candidacy. A story that I, along with NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert and former Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt, had been awaiting as well. And, although I can’t speak for them, I’m certain that they would all agree that if the story had to be broken –– and it did — better it be done by The Globe and Mail’s award-winning journalist Gary Mason than by some lesser scribe.

Nine days ago, Gary sent me this e-mail:

“Looking for your advice on this.

Today (Jan. 13/11), Mike Farnworth will announce his candidacy for leadership of the NDP. He’s got a real shot at winning and if he does it will prompt the question: is B.C. ready for an openly (although he doesn’t broadcast it much) gay premier?

I think it’s a worthy subject, if not a little controversial. I realize that having gay MPs and MLAs is not a big deal at all in 2011. But I wonder if there are some who, even in this day and age, might have some trouble with a gay premier.

What do you think of the premise of this piece? Any advice on how to pursue it?”

I, too, thought it a worthy subject, not to mention flattering that a journalist of Gary’s skill and integrity would ask my advice on how to approach it.

In the end, it took Gary nine days to write his column. Nine. Days. I can speak with some experience that when it takes nine days to write a column, some blood, sweat and tears went into it.

Then last night, I got this Facebook message from him:

“Dave,

The piece is up. I needed 5,000 words to do this subject justice. I honestly did. I had 950 so the best I could hope for was to represent some of the thoughts of people like yourself out there.”

Since my thoughts on the subject are quoted in the column, I recuse myself from any feedback on what Gary wrote. Nor will I make wild assumptions about why TGAM decided to publish the story in its largest-read Saturday edition. To boost readership? Or is it showing sensitivity, in that, by making Farnworth’s sexuality a story now, it leaves the gadflies and gadabouts on geezer radio and TV to chew chips and watch hockey and football until Monday, when, one hopes, the topic will no longer be a headline except as digested on Bill Good’s dozy CKNW talk show.

I will, however, point out the lesson in journalism — time and care — that we in new media can learn from Gary. Most of the time, we get the subject matter for our posts from the geezer media. Then we amplify. Even if we comment that the story is a “non-issue” and that The Globe is just trying to make it one, we’re helping it to do so. So it’s a good thing that we still have some journalists out there willing to sit on a piece for nine days to get it right. In the blogosphere’s rush to be first-to-post and to always-be-trending, time and care is the element that too often goes out the window.

At the time of this posting, Mason’s story is the second most-read story in The Globe‘s online BC section, and the comments have doubled since midnight. Many do, in fact, accuse The Globe of trying to make something from nothing:

“MacKenna 2:27 AM on January 22, 2011

How about Is BC ready for an honest and ethical leader? Because it hasn’t had one for decades.
Gay shmay, who cares? A person’s sexual orientation is completely irrelevant.

But trust the Globe to focus on that.”

My reply, as posted, was:

“As enlightened and progressive as so many of you profess on the headline question, it is an issue. We gay men might enjoy our rights as Canadians in the Westend, but that does not extend to large parts of Surrey, Richmond and the bible belt in the valley. Remember that it was a pivotal issue in 2008 when Americans were deciding if they were ready for a black President? That was a story. So is this.”

The BC NDP’s membership reflects the provincial demographic, which means that large cultural, religious, and social constituencies within it are not ready for an openly gay leader. That block is big enough to keep it from happening. Go back to the beginning of this week when Adrian Dix, likely the only real challenger to Farnworth, did a last-minute membership dump that might give him the numbers to win. Most of those memberships were from party associations within those constituencies of which I speak. While voters in the cities might be progressive enough to accept a gay leader, will the mill and mining towns of the coast and interior? And, there is the gay community itself. We are, for the most part, highly educated and very political. But just because one of our “own” runs for the leadership of a party doesn’t necessary mean that we’re going to vote for that person. Politics is a numbers game not a moral ground.

As a friend e-mailed:

“It seems to me that until Mike Farnworth is open about his sexuality he will be unsuitable for NDP leader. Let him run as an openly gay man. If he loses because of this, then B.C. can be confronted with its bigotry and maybe move forward.”

While you were enjoying the festive season, a minor contretemps blew up and just as quickly away at The Globe and Mail. Both parties to the matter have been studiously decorous about it, but it deserves further scrutiny before disappearing entirely down the memory hole.

On Dec. 24th, the Globe pulled from its website a blog post by Norman Spector, former Mulroney Chief of Staff and ambassador to Israel, now living in Victoria and making his way as a pundit. Spector had remarked on the unusual fact that, for the first time, Laureen Harper would join husband Stephen when he sat down for his annual Christmas chat with CTV. In fact, it would be “her first television interview with the Prime Minister since he took office in 2006.”

Why her sudden visibilty? Spector speculated that it might have something to do with rumours circulating in Ottawa that the couple’s marriage is in trouble, and, more particularly, that those rumours had recently emerged in the Ottawa Citizen, albeit in veiled form. Wrote Andrew Cohen in the December 3rd Citizen: “In Ottawa, tongues have been wagging for two years about trouble in one political marriage. One of the partners is now said to have left the nest. It hasn’t made the newspapers, at least not yet.”

Specifically, the rumours have Mrs. Harper living in the Chateau Laurier while the Prime Minister remains at 24 Sussex. Showing more journalistic initiative than the rest of our press, Spector did some digging. “I checked out the rumour with two journalists in Ottawa. From both, I got the sense that it was likely true. And that it was not being reported because it was deemed to be a personal matter.”

Oh really?

In his forbidden post, which Spector immediately republished to his own website, he makes a reasonable case for why the matter, if true, would be more than personal. “If the PM’s marriage was in trouble, that was something that could affect his performance and lead to bizarre decisions. (Have you heard about the census being abolished?) And given the power of the office, the troubled marriage could impact all Canadians.” I’ll add another: if Harper and his wife were living apart, but he continued to issue Christmas cards like the recent one above, we would have to conclude that the Prime Minister is a big fat dissimulator.

Spector also politely allows as how zapping his post “is the paper’s right.” (I’ve had my own experience of being disappeared, in my case by the National Post; I wasn’t quite so polite.) But while the Globe may be within its rights — that is, they haven’t broken any laws — their boilerplate claim that they did it for reasons of “fairness, balance, and accuracy” is ludicrous. Does the Globe think publishing the rumour is unfair, imbalanced, and possibly inaccurate? Then let it do its job, particularly in matters of public interest: phone up the principals and ask them about it. Then do what Spector did, and phone up some informed sources and ask them about it. Then publish what you’re told. It’s called reporting.

What did the Globe do instead? Zap.

This sort of misplaced politesse is the reason that mainstream papers are increasingly obsolescent in an age of internet journalism and wikileaking, no matter how many iPad applications they produce. Readers are increasingly aware of how much the old-school media choose not to tell us, whether for political or financial reasons, or from some misguided notion that it’s for our own good. And increasingly we reply: We’ll be the judge of that. Tell us what you know, or even just what you’ve heard (where’s Frank magazine when you need it?), and we’ll decide whether it’s File 13 material or not. And if you won’t tell us, there are plenty of sources out there that will.

We don’t need mommies and daddies in our newsrooms. What we need are actual journalists — even if they must be drawn from the ranks of retired civil servants.

I can tell from our logs that a lot of people are still looking to find out what Wikileaks’ purloined cables have revealed about Canada, but the answer remains: Not a whole lot. Little enough, in fact, that it’s possible to run the Canadian content all in one place, as I’ve done below.

Some glimmers of something have emerged. It’s interesting to learn that Canada is as capable as the U.S. of employing belligerent blowhards like former CSIS Director Jim Judd. It’s Judd who, in a cable dated July, 2009, is quoted as saying that video of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr would result in “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and “paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty.”

Excellent playing to your audience, Mr. Judd. The fact remains, however, that Khadr was a child soldier at the time of his capture and our treatment of him contravenes the Geneva conventions as well as various others that Canada has championed. I’m sorry — was that a paroxysm of moral outrage?

It’s also positively bracing to read that our support of the corrupt Karzai regime in Afghanistan makes Canadian ambassador William Crosbie’s “blood boil.” Apparently not everyone associated with this phony war has been made malodorous by it. But none of this is the sort of globe-shattering intelligence some were expecting.

However, that’s not to say there won’t be any; with only 1618 or 251,287 cables published as of this writing, it’s early days yet. And it’s worth noting that only 15,652 of the cables are labelled “secret” anyway. It’s ridiculous to propose, as Doug Saunders did in a Tuesday Globe column, that the lack of big reveals in the documents indicates the Empire is really just a stumblebum bureaucracy:

The leaks from the State Department and Pentagon, amounting to hundreds of thousands of documents of which only parts have yet been revealed, have unveiled one or two instances of spying, some serious military excesses and undocumented civilian deaths that occurred during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and a few cases of co-operation with unsavoury leaders.

But for the most part, the diplomatic cables leaked to date show a network of public servants whose actions are independent, reasonably professional and not driven by anything other than widely understood government goals.

Earlier in the piece, he wonders:

is it possible that Mr. Assange is disappointed that WikiLeaks has not revealed the United States government to be driven by an elaborate and centrally controlled conspiracy?

Well, assuming he’s not as naive as Doug Saunders, probably not. The fact that a relative handful of missives marked “secret” haven’t disclosed a whole lot tells us precisely nothing. As journalist and former NSA contractor Wayne Madsen has noted, much of what gets labelled “secret” in government correspondence is barely worth noting much less being covert about (per Mr. Judd’s comments). Give us some “top secret” memos — which may be what Assange has in his poison-pill file — and then we’ll talk.

Meantime. here’s most of what has come out so far about, well, us. The second one, regarding the CBC, is particularly good.

***

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 OTTAWA 003115

SIPDIS

NOFORN

NSC FOR NSA RICE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/17/2009
TAGS: CA PGOV PREL
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR PRESIDENT BUSH,S VISIT TO CANADA,
NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 1, 2004

Classified By: Ambassador Cellucci, reasons 1.4 (b) (d)

Summary and Key Themes
———————-

¶1. (C/NF) The Canadian Government and the Embassy strongly
welcome your visit and the opportunities it will afford to
advance our broad bilateral relationship. The two key themes
I would stress for your visit are partnership and
reassurance. The Canadians need to be reassured that at the
end of the day, whatever tactical disagreements we may have
over Iraq and individual trade cases, we are firmly united
across the world,s longest undefended border by common
values, shared political heritage, and the largest bilateral
trading relationship in the planet,s history. We need to
send the message that we value Canada with no strings
attached. The early timing of this visit will help make this
point.

¶2. (C/NF) Specifically, it would be very helpful if you came
to Ottawa with three key public messages. First, a positive
signal demonstrating movement on BSE, short of resolution but
beyond &we,re working on it.8 A firm date for completion
of the regulation would give PM Martin a huge political boost
and help beleaguered Canadian ranchers get through the
winter. Second, appreciation for the positive role Canadians
play in the world as peacekeepers and in transmitting our
shared political and cultural values to failed and failing
states. And third, personal thanks for our close cooperation
in defending the continent against terrorism, both in border
security, and in the larger fight to roll back the
availability of weapons of mass destruction, contain the
activities of terrorist groups, and support development that
will provide alternatives to terrorism.

¶3. (C/NF) Several themes about the future would also be
helpful for your private meetings. You should note the
substantial Canadian support to date for Iraq reconstruction
and encourage Canada to play a larger role in the development
of political and security institutions there. You should
promise continued close cooperation in places such as Sudan,
Afghanistan, and Haiti, and solicit PM Martin,s views on how
to best synergize our efforts. And finally, you should
commit to focus on settling our trade and environmental
disputes. End Summary

Martin,s Minority Government Stable, but Weak
———————————————

¶4. (C) After governing in majority for ten years, the Liberal
Party called elections June 28 to gain a mandate for PM
Martin, who succeeded Jean Chretien in December 2003. The
Liberals were hurt by a scandal involving the disbursement of
public monies in Quebec, and the Martin government was
reduced to minority status, the first in Canada since 1979.
In the first week of Parliament, Martin was able to loosely
win over the New Democratic Party, putting him neck-and-neck
with the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
Both the Liberal-NDP and the Conservative-Bloc alignments are
very tentative, however, and different issue-driven
coalitions are likely to emerge on an ad hoc basis.

¶5. (SBU) Predictions on how long the government will last
range from six months to two years. Canadians do not want to
go to the polls soon and the Government and Opposition know
it. But given the nature of Canada,s political system, the
Government,s fall is never more than one bad decision away.

¶6. (C/NF) The Liberal’s thin margin leads Martin to exercise
extreme caution, which some observers are now touting as weak
leadership. The PM has made it clear that he will not try to
carry out an aggressive agenda, and on issues such as missile
defense, would just as soon wait rather than try to tackle it
now and risk a negative vote.

Seeking Canada,s Place in the World
———————————–

¶7. (SBU) All of this is taking place in the context of a
certain amount of soul-searching here on Canada,s decline
from &middle power8 status to that of an &active
observer8 of global affairs, a trend which some Canadians
believe should be reversed. In the short term the country,s
priorities are improving the quality of life for Canadian
citizens and there is little support for increasing defense
spending (currently among the lowest per capita in NATO) or
the foreign affairs budget. PM Martin has promised to focus
his government on policies to perpetuate the &Canadian
economic miracle,8 help cities, improve health care, and
provide easier access to child-care. However, he has also
made modest increases in the defense budget and has announced
plans to add 5,000 troops to the armed forces.

Engagement on Homeland Security
——————————-

¶8. (SBU) Within the constraints of weak public support and
low funding, PM Martin has made his foreign affairs and
homeland security bureaucracies more capable and has kept
Canada selectively active in global issues. In the wake of
the September 11 attacks, Canada has implemented a range of
practical measures that improve Canada,s homeland security
while facilitating the flow of people and commerce across our
common border. Starting with the December 2001 Smart Border
Action Plan with the U.S., changes include enhancements to
aviation security, full compliance with UN and other
multilateral conventions, and strengthening of financial
controls. In the fall of 2003 Canada undertook an aggressive
reorganization of its security and border agencies,
consolidating them into a structure similar to that of DHS,
and in April 2004 rolled out its first-ever national security
strategy. Bilateral efforts have resulted in better
information sharing, joint targeting, and smoother flow of
low-risk traffic.

¶9. (S/NF) A potential irritant on the Canadian side that may
be raised has to do with sharing of intelligence regarding
Iraq operations. The government is aware that we are
creating a separate US-UK-Australia channel for sharing
sensitive intelligence, including information that
trationally has been U.S. eyes only. The GOC has expressed
concern at multiple levels that their exclusion from a
traditional “four-eyes” construct is “punishment” for
Canada,s non-participation in Iraq and they fear that the
Iraq-related channel may evolve into a more permanent
“three-eyes” only structure. PM Martin may raise this with
you privately.

A Modest but Effective Agenda on Global Affairs
——————————————— –

¶10. (C) PM Martin has also kept Canada in the game
internationally. In 2002 Ottawa sent 750 soldiers to
Afghanistan where they served with distinction in Khandahar,
and Canada led the maritime task force monitoring movement in
the Persian Gulf, a service that began with an eye on
Afghanistan but later was useful in the lead-up to Operation
Iraqi Freedom. Ottawa continued to support democratization
in Afghanistan, leading the ISAF mission from February to
August 2004, and contributing 2,300 of 7,100 troops. Canada
has been active in development and elections support for
Afghanistan, committing USD 500 million to a wide-variety of
programs through 2009. Finally, Canada has pledged to deploy
a Provincial Reconstruction Team, possibly to Khandahar, in
the fall of 2005.

¶11. (C) In Haiti, Canada has provided civilian police
officers, a sizable aid budget, and positive involvement in
diplomatic efforts on the ground. Canada has been largely in
synch with our efforts to seek a durable solution to Sudan,s
current and chronic crisis. PM Martin, who met with
President al-Bashir in Sudan last week, supports the
&responsibility to protect8 as an obligation of each
government and a core function of the international community
through the United Nations. Canada has allocated US$16
million to support the African Union in Sudan.
¶12. (SBU) Despite opposition to our invasion of Iraq, Canada
has offered strong support for Iraqi reconstruction, saying
“we can’t afford to fail.” The GOC quickly committed funds,
pledging about US$ 240 million in Madrid, and made active
efforts to leverage contributions from countries that were
initially hesitant. Over two-thirds of Canada’s aid has been
allocated and over half has been disbursed on projects such
as police trainers in Jordan. Canada also supports Paris Club
efforts on debt reduction.

Trade and the Border: Vital Links for Canada
——————————————–

¶13. (SBU) The U.S. and Canada have the largest bilateral
trade relationship in the history of the world and over 95%
of that trade is trouble-free. The billion dollars a day in
trade with the U.S. generates about a third of Canada,s GDP,
with energy exports and the integrated North American auto
industry dominating the picture.
¶14. (SBU) Since implementation of NAFTA ten years ago,
US-Canada trade has doubled. Most Canadians see NAFTA as a
success but are frustrated by its limits, thrown into relief
by U.S. trade remedy actions on softwood lumber and pork.
Expectations that NAFTA would give Canadians greater control
over US actions have largely been disappointed. The softwood
case remains a long-running and intractable irritant; even
so, Canadian lumber exports boomed last year in response to
US housing demand.

¶15. (SBU) There are trade disputes and then there is beef.
Reopening the border to trade in live cattle is Canada’s most
pressing bilateral concern and our top priority for this
visit. Cut out of our highly integrated North American
market since 2003, Canadian ranchers have lost over $2
billion to date. Canada has spent $400 million on relief for
the cattle industry, but many farmers and their suppliers may
not survive another winter. Indefinite delays and the
perceived unpredictability of the U.S. regulatory process
have soured views of the U.S. in some of the most
traditionally pro-American regions of Canada. Issuance of
the new rule, or at least a firm commitment to a date for
completion, would help restore public confidence and give the
GoC some political room to respond to other U.S. priorities.
In the long term, failure to resolve the problem will result
in two North American beef industries, reducing efficiencies
and stiffening competition in traditional US export markets.
Significantly, movement on beef will give Martin political
space to cooperate more on security.

¶16. (U) Canada enjoys an enviable economic situation, with
steady budget surpluses and the most sharply-reduced debt
burden in the G-7. Although the economic outlook is rosy,
the currency’s rapid appreciation against the U.S dollar,
driven partly by rising commodity prices, could put a damper
on exports, and there are concerns here about global
imbalances and the sustainability of the U.S. economic
recovery. Even with strong economic fundamentals, Canadian
GDP growth is projected to lag that of the U.S. in 2004.

¶17. (U) In addition to worries about exchange rate risk and
perennial trade disputes, Canadians feel increasingly
vulnerable to &border risk8. Exporters worry about
lengthening border delays due to infrastructure overload and
to tighter security measures such as prior notice
requirements. Application of USVISIT fingerprint and photo
requirements to Canadian non-citizen residents, and the
possibility that eventually Canadians will require passports
to enter the U.S., have sparked public anxiety among
Canadians. Businesses fear that future terrorist incidents
could lead to catastrophic border closings and strongly
support the GoC,s efforts to strengthen bilateral security
cooperation. Continued DHS engagement with Canada via the
Smart Border Action Plan, the Ridge-McLellan dialogue, and
regular working-level meetings, is a key element in managing
this anxiety and addressing underlying problems. The GoC is
pushing to accelerate progress and add to the &Smart
Border8 agenda in its version of the North American
Initiative, &Beyond Smart Borders8.

Energy Inter-Dependency
———————–

¶18. (U) Canada is by far the United States’ largest foreign
source of energy. It is our largest supplier of petroleum,
as well as our leading external source of natural gas,
uranium, and electric power. With Alberta,s oil sands now
classified as &proven reserves,8 Canada,s petroleum
resources of 180 billion barrels are second only to Saudi
Arabia,s.

¶19. (U) Canada,s northern territories contain large energy
resources, notably natural gas deposits in the delta of the
Mackenzie River, several hundred miles east of Alaska,s
Prudhoe Bay. The energy industry expects that two gas
pipelines will be built, one from the Mackenzie Delta and the
other from Alaska,s North Slope. As the regulatory
framework for the Alaska line develops, industry will have to
determine the pipeline,s exact route both in Alaska and as
it passes through Canada.

¶20. (U) Canada’s electric power sector is interconnected at
numerous points with the U.S. grid and has for decades been a
large supplier of power to the U.S. market. The U.S./Canada
Joint Task Force that investigated the August 2003 power
outage recommended the creation of a North American Electric
Reliability Organization, which would implement mandatory
standards for electricity transmission in both countries.
Canadian players in this industry are intensely interested in
the shape of proposed U.S. energy legislation, as it affects
their future strategies.

Environmental Issues
——————–

¶21. (U) The U.S. and Canada cooperate closely on a broad
range of environmental issues. Together we have made
significant progress on key issues, including trans-boundary
air and water pollution, regulation of pesticides and
chemicals and protection of the Great Lakes.

¶22. (C) There are, however, a number of thorny cross-border
water issues still unresolved, including Canadian demands
that the U.S. move a derelict fishing vessel (Victoria M)
mistakenly scuttled in Canadian waters, controversy over the
proposed clean-up of pollution of the Columbia River from a
Canadian smelter in British Columbia and North Dakota,s
plans to mitigate flooding at Devils Lake by pumping water
through a canal system to the Red River.

¶23. (C) The Canadians have raised these issues before at
senior levels and are likely to do so again. The most
pressing of these problems is Devils Lake, where Canada
believes that the state outlet from the lake to the Red River
would violate the Boundary Waters Treaty. North Dakota has
almost completed its canal system and plans to start pumping
water in the spring of 2005. Canada has asked for U.S.
agreement to &refer8 this issue to the International Joint
Commission for study and recommendations, but we have not yet
responded to that request. The Embassy believes it would be
in our interest to agree to a &reference,8 tightly limited
in scope and time-frame.

¶24. (U) Canada formally ratified the Kyoto Accord at the end
of 2002, despite vocal opposition from some provincial
governments and industries. While political approaches to
the climate change issue have differed between the U.S. and
Canada, practical cooperation has been close. In 2002, we
signed agreements on Renewable Energy and Climate Science,
and formed a bilateral Working Group on Climate Change. Few
Canadians understand just how much we do on climate change,
reducing U.S. efforts only to Kyoto. Canada participates in
several U.S.-led multilateral initiatives, such as the Carbon
Sequestration Leadership Forum and the International
Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy. We expect that they
will soon join the Methane to Markets Partnership.

Visit Canada’s Classified Web Site at

http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa

CELLUCCI

***

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SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KPAO CA
SUBJECT: PRIMETIME IMAGES OF US-CANADA BORDER PAINT U.S. IN
INCREASINGLY NEGATIVE LIGHT

OTTAWA 00000136 001.2 OF 003

¶1. (SBU) Summary: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
has long gone to great pains to highlight the distinction
between Americans and Canadians in its programming, generally
at our expense. However, the level of anti-American melodrama
has been given a huge boost in the current television season
as a number of programs offer Canadian viewers their fill of
nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious
deeds in Canada while Canadian officials either oppose them
or fall trying. CIA rendition flights, schemes to steal
Canada’s water, “the Guantanamo-Syria express,” F-16′s flying
in for bombing runs in Quebec to eliminate escaped
terrorists: in response to the onslaught, one media
commentator concluded, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that
“apparently, our immigration department’s real enemies aren’t
terrorists or smugglers — they’re Americans.” While this
situation hardly constitutes a public diplomacy crisis per
se, the degree of comfort with which Canadian broadcast
entities, including those financed by Canadian tax dollars,
twist current events to feed long-standing negative images of
the U.S. — and the extent to which the Canadian public seems
willing to indulge in the feast – is noteworthy as an
indication of the kind of insidious negative popular
stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada. End
Summary.

“THE BORDER” -CANADA’S ANSWER TO 24, W/O THAT SUTHERLAND GUY
——————————————— —————

¶2. (SBU) When American TV and movie producers want action,
the formula involves Middle Eastern terrorists, a ticking
nuclear device, and a (somewhat ironically, Canadian) guy
named Sutherland. Canadian producers don’t need to look so
far — they can find all the action they need right on the
U.S.-Canadian border. This piece of real estate, which most
Americans associate with snow blowing back and forth across
an imaginary line, has for the past three weeks been for
Canadian viewers the site of downed rendition flights, F-16
bombing runs, and terrorist suspects being whisked away to
Middle Eastern torture facilities. “The Border,” which
state-owned CBC premiered on January 7, attracted an
impressive 710,000 viewers on its first showing — not
exactly Hockey Night in Canada, but equivalent to an American
program drawing about eight million U.S. viewers. The show
depicts Canadian immigration and customs officers’ efforts to
secure the U.S.-Canadian border and the litany of moral
dilemmas they face in doing so. The CBC bills the
high-budget program as depicting the “new war” on the border
and “the few who fight it.” While the “war” is supposed to
be against criminals and terrorists trying to cross the
border, many of the immigration team’s battles end up being
with U.S. government officials, often in tandem with the
CIA-colluding Canadian Security and Intelligence Service
(CSIS).

¶3. (SBU) The clash between the Americans and Canadians got
started early in the season and has continued unabated. In
episode one a Syrian terrorist with a belt full of gel-based
explosives is removed from a plane in Canada while the
Canadian-Syrian man sitting next to him is rendered by the
CIA/CSIS team to Syria — a fairly transparent reference to
QCIA/CSIS team to Syria — a fairly transparent reference to
the Maher Arar case. Fortunately for the incarcerated
individual, the sympathetic Canadian Immigration and Customs
Security official recognizes the mistake and shrewdly causes
the government to rescue him from a Syrian jail through
organized media pressure. The episode ends with a preview of
things to come when one of the Canadian immigration officers
notes with disgust, “Homeland Security is sending in some hot
shot agent.”

¶4. (SBU) Episode two expands on this theme, featuring the
arrival of an arrogant, albeit stunningly attractive female
DHS officer, sort of a cross between Salma Hayek and Cruella
De Vil. The show portrays the DHS official bossing around
her stereotypically more compassionate Canadian colleagues
while uttering such classic lines as, “Who do you think
provides the muscle to protect your fine ideals?” and “You
would have killed him. Let the American justice system do it
for you.” Her fallback line in most situations is “it’s a
matter of national security.”

¶5. (SBU) But the one-liners and cross-border stereotypes
really take off in episode three, in which an American

OTTAWA 00000136 002.2 OF 003

rendition aircraft with three terrorist suspects on the
“Guantanamo to Syria express” crashes in Quebec and the
terrorists escape — however, not before killing a Quebec
police officer, whose sympathetic widow appears throughout
the show. The DHS officer’s answer to everything is American
firepower, but in this episode even CSIS gets a chance at
redemption as the CSIS officer in charge challenges her. Ms.
DHS barks back, “You really want to talk territorial
sovereignty, or should we talk about getting the terrorists
back?” After being chased through the woods of Quebec by a
cross-culturally balanced CSIS-JTF2 team which kills a
15-year-old terrorist in a shootout, the bad guys are finally
cornered on the side of a pristine Canadian lake. Then,
after a conversation with Washington in which she asks “can
you bypass NSA and State?”, our DHS official calls in an
air-strike on the terrorists without Canadian concurrence.
Canadian planes, another official has explained, are “already
deployed to Afghanistan, helping our neighbors fight their
war on terror.” With only seconds to spare before the bombs
are dropped on the Quebec site, the planes are called off
when the CSIS-JTF team affirms positive control over the
terrorists. Finally, in a last-minute allowance for
redemption, the CSIS officer informs his DHS colleague that
the captured terrorists will not be turned over to the U.S.
but will stand trial for the death of the Quebec police
officer. She does get the final word, though, hissing the
classic phrase “you people are so nave,” before the screen
goes blank.

DEA ALSO TAKES SOME HITS
————————

¶6. (SBU) If that isn’t enough, “the Border” is only one of
the CBC programs featuring cross-border relations.
“Intelligence,” which depicts a Canadian intelligence unit
collaborating with a local drug lord-turned government
informant, is just as stinging in its portrayal of
U.S.-Canada law enforcement cooperation. Through its two
seasons, the program has followed plot lines including a DEA
attempt to frame the Canadian informant for murder, a CIA
plot to secretly divert Canadian water to the American
southwest, and a rogue DEA team that actually starts selling
drugs for a profit. A columnist in conservative Canadian
daily newspaper “The National Post” commented, “There’s no
question that the CSIS heroes on ‘Intelligence’ consider the
Americans our most dangerous enemies.”

EVEN THE LITTLE MOSQUE GETS IN TO THE ACT
—————————————–

¶7. (U) Even “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” a popular
Canadian sitcom that depicts a Muslim community in a small
Saskatchewan town, has joined the trend of featuring
U.S.-Canada border relations. This time, however, the State
Department is the fall guy. A December 2007 episode
portrayed a Muslim economics professor trying to remove his
name from the No-Fly-List at a U.S. consulate. The show
depicts a rude and eccentric U.S. consular officer
stereotypically attempting to find any excuse to avoid being
helpful. Another episode depicted how an innocent trip
across the border became a jumble of frayed nerves as Grandpa
was scurried into secondary by U.S. border officials because
his name matched something on the watch list.
Qhis name matched something on the watch list.

GIVE US YOUR WATER; OH WHAT THE HECK WE’LL TAKE YOUR COUNTRY
TOO
——————————————— —-

¶8. (U) And it appears that the season is just warming up.
After CIA renditions, DEA murder plots, DHS missteps, and
unhelpful consular officers, a U.S. takeover of Canada may
have been the only theme left for the CBC “H20″ mini-series.
The series was first broadcast in 2005, when it featured an
investigation into an American assassination of the Canadian
prime minister and a very broad-based (and wildly
implausible) U.S. scheme to steal Canadian water. A two-part
sequel, set to be broadcast in March and April 2008, will
portray the United States as manipulating innocent, trusting
Canadians into voting in favor of Canada’s becoming part of
the United States. Then, after the United States completely
takes over Canada, one brave Canadian unites Canadians and
Europeans in an attempt to end America’s hegemony. Another

OTTAWA 00000136 003.2 OF 003

program could prove more benign but will certainly include
its share of digs against all things American: Global TV
reportedly is gearing up for a March 2008 debut of its own
border security drama, set to feature Canadian
search-and-rescue officers patrolling the U.S.-Canada border.

COMMENT
——-

¶9. (SBU) EKOS pollster Frank Graves told Poloff he thought
that at this point such shows are reflective and not causal
in determining attitudes in Canada. They play on the
deep-seated caution most Canadians feel toward their large
neighbor to the south, a sort of zeitgeist that has been in
the background for decades. As one example, a December 2007
Strategic Counsel poll showed that nine percent of Canadians
thought U.S. foreign policy was the greatest threat to the
world — twice as high as those who were concerned about
weapons of mass destruction. What Graves does find
disturbing — and here he believes that the causal or
reflective question is not important — is that support for a
less porous border is increasing in both Canada and the U.S.:
in the U.S. because of generalized fear of terrorism and in
Canada because of concern over guns, sovereignty, and the
impact that a terrorist attack on the U.S. would have on
trade. Graves has detected an increasingly wary attitude
over the border that he believes could lead to greater
distance between the two countries.

¶10. (SBU) While there is no single answer to this trend, it
does serve to demonstrate the importance of constant
creative, and adequately-funded public-diplomacy engagement
with Canadians, at all levels and in virtually all parts of
the country. We need to do everything we can to make it more
difficult for Canadians to fall into the trap of seeing all
U.S. policies as the result of nefarious faceless U.S.
bureaucrats anxious to squeeze their northern neighbor.
While there are those who may rate the need for USG
public-diplomacy programs as less vital in Canada than in
other nations because our societies are so much alike, we
clearly have real challenges here that simply must be
adequately addressed.

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

WILKINS

***

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C O R R E C T E D COPY//SUBJECT LINE//////////////////////////////////

NOFORN
SIPDIS

EO 12958 DECL: 07/09/2018
TAGS PREL, PTER, MOPS, IR, PK, AF, CA

SUBJECT: COUNSELOR, CSIS DIRECTOR DISCUSS CT THREATS,
PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, IRAN
REF: A. OTTAWA 360 B. OTTAWA 808 C. OTTAWA 850 D. OTTAWA 878
OTTAWA 00000918 001.2 OF 003

Classified By: PolMinCouns Scott Bellard, reasons, 1.4 (b) and (d).

¶1. (S/NF) Summary. Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Judd discussed domestic and foreign terror threats with Counselor of the State Department Cohen in Ottawa on July 2. Judd admitted that CSIS was increasingly distracted from its mission by legal challenges that could endanger foreign intelligence-sharing with Canadian agencies. He predicted that the upcoming release of a DVD of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr’s interrogation by Canadian officials would lead to heightened pressure on the government to press for his return to Canada, which the government would continue to resist. Judd shared Dr. Cohen’s negative assessment of current political, economic, and security trends in Pakistan, and was worried about what it would mean for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Canada has begun formulating an inter-agency Pakistan strategy, and CSIS had agreed to open a channel to Iran’s intelligence service which Judd has not yet “figured out.” (Septel will cover Dr. Cohen’s discussions regarding Pakistan and the OEF and ISAF missions in Afghanistan.) End summary.

¶2. (S/NF) Counselor of the Department of State Eliot Cohen and CSIS Director Jim Judd in Ottawa on July 2 discussed threats posed by violent Islamist groups in Canada, and recent developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (CSIS is Canada’s lead agency for national security intelligence.) Director Judd ascribed an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview to Canadians and their courts, whose judges have tied CSIS “in knots,” making it ever more difficult to detect and prevent terror attacks in Canada and abroad. The situation, he commented, left government security agencies on the defensive and losing public support for their effort to protect Canada and its allies.

Legal Wrangling Risks Chill Effect
———————————-

¶3. (S/NF) XXXXXXXXXXXX

¶4. (S/NF) Judd derided recent judgments in Canada’s courts that threaten to undermine foreign government intelligence- Qthat threaten to undermine foreign government intelligence- and information-sharing with Canada. These judgments posit that Canadian authorities cannot use information that “may have been” derived from torture, and that any Canadian public official who conveys such information may be subject to criminal prosecution. This, he commented, put the government in a reverse-onus situation whereby it would have to “prove” the innocence of partner nations in the face of assumed wrongdoing.

¶5. (S/NF) Judd credited Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government for “taking it on the chin and pressing ahead” with common sense measures despite court challenges and political knocks from the opposition and interest groups. When asked to look to the future, Judd predicted that Canada would soon implement UK-like legal procedures that make intelligence available to “vetted defense lawyers who see everything the judge sees.”
OTTAWA 00000918 002.2 OF 003

Terror Cases and Communities Present Mixed Pictures
——————————————— ——

¶6. (C/NF) Judd commented that cherry-picked sections of the court-ordered release of a DVD of Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr (ref D) would likely show three (Canadian) adults interrogating a kid who breaks down in tears. He observed that the images would no doubt trigger “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and “paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty,” as well as lead to a new round of heightened pressure on the government to press for Khadr’s return to Canada. He predicted that PM Harper’s government would nonetheless continue to resist this pressure.

¶7. (C) The Director mentioned other major cases that also presented CSIS with major legal headaches due to the use of intelligence products in their development: Momin Khawaja has been on trial for his role in an Al Qaeda UK bomb plot since June 23 in the first major test of Canada’s 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act, and Canada’s ability to protect intelligence supplied by foreign government sources (ref D); the trial of the first of the home-grown Toronto 11 (down from 18) terror plotters, which is also now underway; and, the prosecution of XXXXXXXXXXXX.

¶8. (C) Judd said he viewed Khawaja and his “ilk” as outliers, due in part to the fact that Canada’s ethnic Pakistani community is unlike its ghettoized and poorly educated UK counterpart. It is largely made up of traders, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and others who see promise for themselves and their children in North America, he observed, so its members are unlikely to engage in domestic terror plots. He said that therefore CSIS main domestic focus is instead on fundraising and procurement, as well as the recruitment of a small number of Canadian “wannabes” of Pakistani origin for mostly overseas operations.

Pakistan and Afghanistan
————————

¶9. (C) Turning to Pakistan, Counselor Cohen briefed his recent trip to Islamabad and Peshawar, noting his alarm at the degrading economic, political, and security situation there, and its implications for Pakistan, Afghan, and regional stability. Judd responded that Dr. Cohen’s sober assessment tracked with CSIS’ own view of Pakistan, and that “it is hard to see a good outcome there” due to that country’s political, economic, and security failures, on top of fast-rising oil and food prices. Canada does not have an explicit strategy for Pakistan, Judd said, but Privy Council Deputy Secretary David Mulroney (who leads the interagency on Afghanistan) now has the lead on developing one (septel). Dr. Cohen remarked, and Judd agreed, that it would be necessary to avoid approaching Pakistan as simply an adjunct to the ISAF and OEF missions in Afghanistan.
¶10. (S/NF) CSIS is far from being “high-five mode” on Q10. (S/NF) CSIS is far from being “high-five mode” on Afghanistan, Judd asserted, due in part to Karzai’s weak leadership, widespread corruption, the lack of will to press ahead on counter-narcotics, limited Afghan security force capability (particularly the police) and, most recently, the Sarpoza prison break. He commented that CSIS had seen Sarpoza coming, and its link to the Quetta Shura in Pakistan, but could not get a handle on the timing.

Iranian Outreach
—————-

¶11. (S/NF) Judd added that he and his colleagues are “very, very worried” about Iran. CSIS recently talked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) after that agency requested its own channel of communication to Canada, he said. The Iranians agreed to “help” on Afghan issues, including sharing information regarding potential attacks. However, “we have not figured out what they are up to,” Judd confided, since it is clear that the “Iranians want ISAF to bleed…slowly.”
OTTAWA 00000918 003.2 OF 003

¶12. (U) Dr. Cohen has cleared this message.
Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

WILKINS

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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 001258

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/22/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV CA
SUBJECT: THE U.S. IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION — NOT!

REF: OTTAWA 1216

Classified By: PolMinCouns Scott Bellard, reason 1.4 (d)

¶1. (C) Summary. Despite the overwhelming importance of the
U.S. to Canada for its economy and security, bilateral
relations remain the proverbial 900 pound gorilla that no one
wants to talk about in the 2008 Canadian federal election
campaigns. This likely reflects an almost inherent
inferiority complex of Canadians vis-a-vis their sole
neighbor as well as an underlying assumption that the
fundamentals of the relationship are strong and unchanging
and uncertainty about the outcome of the U.S. Presidential
election. End Summary.

¶2. (C) The United States is overwhelmingly important to
Canada in ways that are unimaginable to Americans. With over
$500 billion in annual trade, the longest unsecured border in
the world, over 200 million border crossings each year, total
investment in each other’s countries of almost $400 billion,
and the unique North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD)
partnership to ensure continental security, excellent
bilateral relations are essential to Canada’s well being.
Canadians are, by and large, obsessed with U.S. politics –
especially in the 2008 Presidential race — and follow them
minutely (with many Canadians even wishing they could vote in
this U.S. election rather than their own, according to a
recent poll). U.S. culture infiltrates Canadian life on
every level. 80 pct of Canadians live within 100 miles of
the border, and Canadians tend to visit the U.S. much more
regularly than their American neighbors come here.

¶3. (C) Logically, the ability of a candidate, or a party,
or most notably the leader of a party successfully to manage
this essential relationship should be a key factor for voters
to judge in casting their ballots. At least so far in the
2008 Canadian federal election campaign, it is not. There
has been almost a deafening silence so far about foreign
affairs in general, apart from Prime Minister Stephen
Harper’s pledge on September 10 that Canadian troops would
indeed leave Afghanistan in 2011 according to the terms of
the March 2008 House of Commons motion, commenting that “you
have to put an end on these things.” The Liberals — and
many media commentators — seized on this as a major
Conservative “flip flop,” with Liberal Party leader Stephane
Dion noting on September 10 that “I have been calling for a
firm end date since February 2007″ and that “the
Conservatives can’t be trusted on Afghanistan; they can’t be
trusted on the climate change crisis; they can’t be trusted
on the economy.” He has returned in subsequent days to the
Conservative record on the environment and the economy, but
has not pursued the Afghan issue further. All three
opposition party leaders joined in calling for the government
to release a Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on the
full costs of the Afghan mission, which PM Harper agreed to
do, with some apparent hesitation. However, no other foreign
policy issues have yet risen to the surface in the campaigns,
apart from New Democrat Party leader Jack Layton opining on
September 7 that “I believe we can say good-bye to the George
Bush era in our own conduct overseas.”

¶4. (C) The U.S. market meltdown has provided some fodder
for campaign rhetoric, with the Conservatives claiming their
earlier fiscal and monetary actions had insulated Canada from
much of the economic problems seen across the border.
(Comment: there is probably more truth in the fact that the
Canadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
QCanadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
U.S. and other foreign markets, and instead concentrates on
the domestic market. The Canadian financial sector has also
been quite conservative in its lending and investment
choices. End comment.) PM Harper has insisted that the
“core” Canadian economy and institutions were sound, while
promising to work closely with “other international players”
(i.e., not specifically the U.S.) to deal with the current
problems. He warned on September 19 that “voters will have
to decide who is best to govern in this period of economic
uncertainty — do you want to pay the new Liberal tax? Do
you want the Liberals to bring the GST back to 7%?” The
Liberals have counter-claimed that Canada is now the “worst
performing economy in the G8,” while noting earlier Liberal
governments had produced eight consecutive balanced budgets
and created about 300,000 new jobs annually between 1993 and
¶2005. The NDP’s Layton argued on September 16 that these
economic woes are “the clearest possible warning that North
American economies under conservative governments, in both
Canada and the United States, are on the wrong track,” but
promised only that an NDP government would institute a
“top-to-bottom” review of Canada’s regulatory system — not
delving into bilateral policy territory.

¶5. (C) On the environment, Liberal leader Dion, in
defending his “Green Shift” plan on September 11, noted that

OTTAWA 00001258 002 OF 002

“both Barack Obama and John McCain are in favor of putting a
price on carbon. Our biggest trading partner is moving
toward a greener future and we need to do so too.” PM Harper
has stuck to the standard Conservative references to the
Liberal plan as a “carbon tax, which will hit every consumer
in every sector” and claimed on September 16 that, under
earlier Liberal governments, “greenhouse gas emissions
increased by more than 30 percent, one of the worst records
of industrialized countries.” NDP leader Layton argued
that, on the environment, PM Harper “has no plan” while
“Dion’s plan is wrong and won’t work,” unlike the NDP plan to
reward polluters who “clean up their act and imposing
penalties on those that don’t,” which he said had also been
“proposed by both U.S. Presidential candidates, Barack Obama
and John McCain.”

¶6. (C) NAFTA? Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative?
Border crossing times? The future of NORAD? Canada’s role
in NATO? Protection of Canadian water reserves? Canadian
sovereignty in the Arctic and the Northwest Passage? At
least among the leaders of the major parties, these issues
have not come up so far in the campaigns, although they seize
much public attention in normal times. Even in Ontario and
Quebec, with their long and important borders with the U.S.,
the leadership candidates apparently so far have not ventured
to make promises to woo voters who might be disgruntled with
U.S. policies and practices. However, these may still emerge
as more salient issues at the riding level as individual
candidates press the flesh door to door, and may also then
percolate up to the leadership formal debates on October 1
and 2.

¶7. (C) Why the U.S. relationship appears off the table, at
least so far, is probably be due to several key factors. An
almost inherent Canadian inferiority complex may disincline
Canadian political leaders from making this election about
the U.S. (unlike in the 1988 free trade campaigns) instead of
sticking to domestic topics of bread-and-butter interest to
voters. The leaders may also recognize that bilateral
relations are simply too important — and successful — to
turn into political campaign fodder that could backfire.
They may also be viewing the poll numbers in the U.S. and
recognizing that the results are too close to call. Had the
Canadian campaign taken place after the U.S. election, the
Conservatives might have been tempted to claim they could
work more effectively with a President McCain, or the
Liberals with a President Obama. Even this could be a risky
strategy, as perceptions of being too close to the U.S.
leader are often distasteful to Canadian voters; one
recurrent jibe about PM Harper is that he is a “clone of
George W. Bush.” Ultimately, the U.S. is like the proverbial
900 pound gorilla in the midst of the Canadian federal
election: overwhelming but too potentially menacing to
acknowledge.

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

WILKINS

***

VZCZCXRO2711
OO RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHMT RUEHQU RUEHVC
DE RUEHOT #0064/01 0221635
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 221635Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NSC WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9010

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 000064

SIPDIS

FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA FROM CHARGE D’AFFAIRES BREESE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/22/2019
TAGS: PREL ETRD ECON MARR SENV AF CA
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE PRESIDENT’S TRIP TO OTTAWA

Classified By: Charge d’Affaires Terry A. Breese, reason 1.4 (d)

¶1. (C) Mr. President, Mission Canada warmly welcomes you
and the First Lady to Ottawa. We and Canadians alike are
thrilled that your first foreign trip as President will be to
Canada, which Canadians claim as a long-standing tradition
reflecting the vital importance of this bilateral
relationship between two democratic neighbors.

SOME HOME TRUTHS
—————-

¶2. (C) Your enormous popularity among Canadians (an 81 pct
approval rating) is to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen
Harper both a blessing — because he can for the first time
since taking office in 2006 gain politically from public and
policy association with the U.S. President — and a curse –
because no Canadian politician of any stripe is nearly as
popular, respected, or inspiring as you are to Canadian
voters, a genuine factor in the historically low turnout in
the October 2008 Canadian federal election. Many Canadians,
especially university students, volunteered on your campaign,
and busloads traveled to Washington for your inauguration.

¶3. (C) Your decision to make Ottawa your first foreign
destination as President will do much to diminish –
temporarily, at least — Canada’s habitual inferiority
complex vis-a-vis the U.S. and its chronic but accurate
complaint that the U.S. pays far less attention to Canada
than Canada does to us.

¶4. (C) The minority status in Parliament of Harper’s
Conservative Party means that it and all other parties now
remain in almost permanent campaign mode; there have been
three successive minority governments (one Liberal, two
Conservative). The bottom line questions remain when the
government will fall and on what issue. Your trip will help
to ensure that the government will survive an early February
vote of confidence on the federal budget, in which Canada
will post its first deficit in more than a decade as it
provides a stimulus package of $30-40 billion.

¶5. (C) The U.S. and Canada enjoy the world’s largest
trading relationship, with more than $1.5 billion in two-way
trade crossing the border each day, including 77 pct of all
Canadian exports. With the border central to Canada’s
economic well being, Canadians chafe about what they see as a
“thickening of the border” caused by U.S. actions to
strengthen homeland security since 9/11. Canadians claim
that these measures have driven up business costs and delayed
border crossers. The business and trade communities in the
U.S. and Canada both believe that the “balance” between trade
and security has been tilted too far toward security, and are
hopeful that your administration will tilt that balance back.
Canada may argue for a new mechanism (separate from the
trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership) to address
bilateral concerns.

¶6. (C) Canadians wish that more Americans would recognize
that Canada is the largest source of imported energy for the
U.S. (including for both oil and natural gas), although there
is also keen sensitivity over the higher environmental
footprint of oil from western Canada’s oil sands and concern
about the implications for Canada of your energetic calls to
develop renewable energies and reduce our reliance on
imported oil. Canada is also rich in hydroelectric power,
has similar objectives for developing renewables, and is
working strenuously to improve the environmental impact of
production from the oil sands and to expand its own wind
Qproduction from the oil sands and to expand its own wind
power capacity.

¶7. (C) Given the high integration of our two economies,
Canada will hope for a truly North American discussion of
economic stimulus, job creation, and sectoral support, as in
coordinated bilateral measures on the auto sector (for which
Canada promised a $3.4 billion assistance plan — 20 pct of
what the U.S. offered, matching a pledge that PM Harper made
to then-President Bush in December) and in the G-20
commitments on financial sector regulation. We should ensure
that both nations continue to design complementary packages
to revive our economies.

¶8. (C) Although the climate change issue has largely been
the province of the official opposition Liberal Party, the
Conservative government now seeks to set in place measures to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advocates a coordinated
policy with the U.S. on expanded efforts to protect our
shared environment. They hope and expect this will be a
central theme of your visit.

OTTAWA 00000064 002 OF 002

¶9. (C) Arctic sovereignty is a motherhood-and-apple-pie
issue for Canadians of all political persuasions, and they
are deeply suspicious of assertions by the U.S. (and most
other concerned nations) that the Northwest Passage is a
strait for international navigation, not Canada’s territorial
sea. The new Arctic policy issued at the end of the Bush
Administration, which reasserted our views on the Northwest
Passage and emphasized cooperation among Arctic nations, has
re-ignited these suspicions.

¶10. (C) Canada declined to join the U.S. in the invasion of
Iraq and instead concentrated its global counterterrorism
efforts on Afghanistan, including 2500 troops in Kandahar
Province and its largest bilateral donor program worldwide.
With the highest casualty rate among NATO partners and only
about 65,000 Canadian Forces overall, there is virtually zero
willingness across the Canadian political spectrum to extend
the current Parliamentary mandate for these forces in
Afghanistan beyond 2011, but Canada could offer up
significant new funding to strengthen the Afghan National
Army and Afghan National Police. Much will depend upon
convincing Canada that its continued contributions to the
Afghanistan effort are a critical component of your strategy
for success in Afghanistan.

¶11. (C) No matter which political party forms the Canadian
government during your Administration, Canada will remain one
of our staunchest and most like-minded of allies, our largest
trading and energy partner, and our most reliable neighbor
and friend.

KEY THEMES
———-

¶12. (SBU) In your public remarks and media availability,
these points would be most useful from Mission Canada’s
perspective:

– Canada is a true friend, trusted ally, valued trading
partner, and democratic model for the world;
– around the world, the U.S. and Canada are working
together to defeat terrorism, promote economic development
through trade and investment, prevent the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, and advance the cause of human
freedom and dignity;
– Canada and the U.S. are blessed to share the beauties and
riches of North America, and will strive individually and
jointly to protect and preserve its environment, while
ensuring that our nations and the world benefit from its
extensive natural and human resources;
– our highly integrated economies are now facing enormous
challenges, but with our traditional resilience, creativity,
sacrifice, and cooperation, our two countries will emerge
from this crisis stronger than ever;
– while we share the prosperity that comes with the world’s
largest bilateral trade relationship, we also share the
threats to that prosperity from international terrorism;
– 21st century technology can help ensure ever more safe
and efficient transit of goods and people across this longest
undefended border in the world, and we need to work together
more fully to understand each other’s security and trade
needs and to build a shared vision for the security of our
two nations from new threats while investing in technology
and infrastructure that can secure, support, and expand the
benefits of our trade;
– the U.S. and Canada maintain extensive cooperation in the
Arctic. The U.S. views the Northwest Passage as a strait
used for international navigation — not Canada’s territorial
sea — but does not dispute Canada’s sovereignty over its
Arctic islands;
– Canada has paid a disproportionately high price in human
Q– Canada has paid a disproportionately high price in human
life to help the people of Afghanistan emerge from their dark
era under the Taliban, and the U.S. salutes these Canadian
contributions to the building of a democratic and successful
society in that troubled land and counts on continued
Canadian cooperation to achieve this goal;
– U.S. Presidents and Canadian Prime Ministers come and go,
but our shared values and aspirations will continue to
underpin a robust, mutually respectful, and hugely successful
friendship and partnership that benefits not only our two
peoples but the world.

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

BREESE

The Canadian news media have been engaged in a lot of hand-wringing and debate over the Russell Williams trial and their coverage of it. Should they have published photos of him dressed in his victims’ lingerie? Should newspapers have kept the photos off the front page? Should the details of his crimes have been reported, in their every lurid, sexually violent aspect?

It makes you wish for the days when the media were less punctilious. It also reveals the extent to which they’ve decided their job is to control the flow of information, especially if that information might be disturbing.

The Toronto Star got it right, by publishing a photo of Williams posing in women’s underwear alongside another of him saluting in full-dress military uniform. As publisher John Cruickshank told the CBC, “I think it’s that pair of photos — not the single photo — that tell an extraordinary, disturbing story.” Quite so. But Cruickshank really hit the mark when he added: “This is a day you hate as a publisher. I would much rather have a victorious Leafs cover celebrating their victory.” Why? Because the hockey pic would sell papers and leave everyone feeling good, as opposed to the Williams diptych, which you can bet resulted in a lot of cancelled subscriptions and ill-will towards the Star.

The decision to publish or not-to-publish, especially on the front page, was really a business decision, no matter how piously Cruickshank’s competitors explained otherwise. The Star made the hard choice; others did not.

Note, too, that the media’s squeamishness focussed mostly on those photos, as opposed to Williams’ murders. But cross-dressing isn’t a crime; if the still mostly-macho culture of our newsrooms can’t handle it, that isn’t a reason to suppress images of it. It’s a reason to get editors with more capacity for the complete range of human behaviour.

The job of the news media is to tell and show us what happened, period. It’s not to decide what we can or cannot handle, what is or isn’t tasteful, what should or shouldn’t be seen or known. And as a public, we have no more right to demand that newspapers keep shocking images off the front page than we do to insist cities remove homeless people from the streets. Reality is reality. Don’t like it? Can’t help you there.

Unfortunately, more and more news organizations do assist those readers (or viewers) who prefer not to be upset — not just in matters of human psychopathy, but more broadly as well. Prefer not to know that the CIA used drug profits to finance its war against the Nicaraguan contras? Hey, no problem. Or that the Bush Administration lied America into war? We’re on it. Or that evidence indicates foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks extended well beyond whoever hijacked the planes? Leave that to us.

Of course, these really big stories are suppressed for other reasons too, including fear of, or manipulation by, political overlords. But when the media set themselves up, not as conduits, but as filters, we’re all the poorer for it. No matter how much we might prefer to be kept in the dark.

Photo: j-source.ca

Television reporter Tom Clark parts company with CTV News, and the network issues a public statement to that effect. Kevin Newman steps down as Global anchor, and his network does the same. But what happens when dozens, perhaps hundreds of print reporters in this country leave their jobs, either voluntarily or otherwise? Silence.

Postmedia Network, successor to CanWest, has started cutting jobs at its newspapers. No surprise there. It paid $1.1 billion for the papers, and has to cover its costs somehow. This has been standard policy in the newspaper business for more than 30 years. Whenever publishers run into money problems, they devalue the product by getting rid of staff and then filling up the white space between the ads with more and more wire copy. Mind you, they rarely get rid of senior managers when they do this purging. These are the ones handing out the pink slips, after all. The managers get to stay so they can continue to manage . . . what, exactly? With fewer and fewer staffers to supervise, they busy themselves with other jobs. I knew a senior editorial manager at one paper whose job it was to check all the signed cab slips that came back to the newsroom after the reporters used taxis to carry out their assignments. The job of checking the slips could have been done by a part-time office assistant, yet it was given to this senior manager who remained at the paper from cradle to grave. How well did he handle his awesome responsibility? Let me put it this way: Every time I used a cab, I signed my name “Donald Duck.”

You didn’t read about the Postmedia job cuts in any of the Postmedia newspapers. That’s standard newspaper policy, too. Whenever the National Post lays off staff, it leaves it up to The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star to cover the story. The Post will write about job cuts in other industries, but it won’t cover any stories that happen under its own roof. The original source for the Postmedia story was an internal memo sent by a company vice-president to staff at the Victoria Times-Colonist. “We must continue to find ways to serve our readers and advertisers in more cost-effective ways,” wrote the VP, Kevin Bent. The memo was leaked to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, and that’s how you got to read about it in the Globe.

Postmedia has confirmed there are layoffs, but won’t give the numbers. Nor will it give any names. The Globe, citing sources, says about 20 jobs were cut at the Edmonton Journal and 30 at the Calgary Herald. An unspecified number will be leaving such other papers as the Vancouver Sun and Province, the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen. Are any of our favourite columnists affected? If they were working for one of the television networks, we’d know the answer.

“They don’t bother us. It’s just that they are annoying,” a “senior Conservative official” told the G&M’s Dear Jane yesterday about the public’s uproar in reaction to the Cons’ scrapping of the compulsory long-form census.

“Census freedom,” this same anonymous Conbot amusingly called it.

Apparently we the public are “annoying” to Steve now.

And not just the Lib/NDP/Green/I-don’t-fucking-vote-for-any-of-those-bastards public either. Not even Con voters support Steve’s “Après moi, le déluge” style of government.

According to Angus Reid, only 31% of people who voted Con last time “side with the government’s argument that the long form census is intrusive,” while 53% of previous Con voters “believe that the long form census yields data that is important to make policy decisions in all areas of public service, and should remain mandatory.”

Jane’s column header today is Clement digs in heels and gains a supporter on census. The “supporter” turns out to be a rightwing radiohead.

Okay . . . that’s one. I dunno, Jane, I don’t think you’re helping here.
.
Over the weekend Feschuk took the piss out of Jane’s many columns consisting almost entirely of quotes from anonymous “seniory super-inside long-time party whatever” Con sources. Lols.
.
For a decent column on the census containing actual, you know, facts : the incomparable Zerb.