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### Viewing cable 08OTTAWA1258, THE U.S. IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION -- NOT!

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
08OTTAWA1258 | 2008-09-22 18:06 | 2010-12-01 18:06 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Ottawa
Appears in these articles: nytimes.com

`

    VZCZCXRO8662
    PP RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHMT RUEHQU RUEHVC
    DE RUEHOT #1258/01 2661859
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    P 221859Z SEP 08
    FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8532
    INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
    RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

` `

    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

`