U.S. diplomatic cables stress need to dispel Canadian 'inferiority complex'

OTTAWA - A newly released diplomatic note says Canada protested to the United States about being cut out of the intelligence loop as "punishment" for not joining the war in Iraq.

The classified, November 2004 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa warned Washington the "potential irritant" might come up during a Canadian visit by then-president George Bush.

It is just one issue cited by American diplomats who flagged Canada's "habitual inferiority complex" for the State Department -- a recurring theme in several cables posted Wednesday on the website of online whistleblower WikiLeaks.

They characterized CBC programs Little Mosque on the Prairie and since-cancelled The Border as "anti-American melodrama;" encouraged Bush to stress that the U.S. values Canada with no strings attached; and predicted Barack Obama's prompt visit to Ottawa last year would help dispel the notion Washington pays "far less attention to Canada than Canada does to us."

The U.S. plan to share secret information about Iraq only with Britain and Australia effectively froze Canada out of an intelligence-sharing club that had long included all four countries.

"(Canada) 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," says the 2004 cable.

It notes then-prime minister Paul Martin might raise this with Bush privately.

"The Canadians need to be reassured that at the end of the day, whatever tactical disagreements we may have ... we are firmly united," the cable says.

David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said Wednesday he had no knowledge of the U.S. denying Canada intelligence about Iraq.

"I don't know what they did, and I'm not going to comment on that," he said in an interview.

"The United States and Canada co-operate extensively with respect to the sharing of intelligence information."

WikiLeaks says as many as 2,648 documents about Canada are among the quarter-million it plans to release in coming days.

Another note disclosed Wednesday laments the lack of foreign policy debate in the fall 2008 Canadian election campaign that overlapped with the historic U.S. contest that eventually brought Obama to power.

"This likely reflects an almost inherent inferiority complex of Canadians vis-a-vis their sole neighbour as well as an underlying assumption that the fundamentals of the relationship are strong," says the September 2008 note.

The cable notes that foreign affairs and the war in Afghanistan were barely registering in the election, except for when Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged that Canadian troops would leave Afghanistan by 2011.

A U.S. message prepared in advance of Obama's brief but memorable February 2009 visit to Ottawa stressed the sensitivity of the Afghanistan war in Canada, which had suffered one of the highest casualty rates in NATO, and stated there was "zero willingness across the Canadian political spectrum for extending the mission."

Obama did not publicly ask Harper to extend Canada's military commitment to Afghanistan beyond 2011 during the trip.

The cable noted that the newly elected president enjoyed unusually high support among Canadians, attributing his popularity to the fact no Canadian politician was nearly as inspiring, and a "historically low" voter turnout for the October 2008 Canadian campaign that ended just weeks before Obama's striking victory.

"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."

Obama capped his five-hour, whirlwind visit to Canada's capital by buying cookies for his daughters at a local bakery and declaring at a Parliament Hill news conference: "I love this country. We could not have a better friend and ally."

A January 2008 analysis of CBC television says a fictional portrayal of CIA rendition flights and a scheme to steal Canada's water is programming that "hardly constitutes a public diplomacy crisis" but emblematic of the "insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada."

The cable also points out how the CBC shows, "financed by Canadian tax dollars, twist current events to feed long-standing negative images of the U.S."

Jacobson, who has travelled Canada extensively, said he has encountered "an incredible fondness" toward the United States, adding "the relationship is as strong as it has ever been, and nothing about WikiLeaks is going to impact on that."

A July 2008 U.S. note released by WikiLeaks earlier this week said then-Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Jim Judd told a senior State Department official Canadians and their courts had an 'Alice in Wonderland' world view about security.

He also said judges had tied CSIS 'in knots,' making it ever more difficult to detect and prevent terror attacks in Canada and abroad.

In a letter Wednesday to current CSIS director Dick Fadden and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, minister responsible for the spy service, Amnesty International called the remarks "deeply troubling."

"We look to you both to reject these comments and reaffirm that the government and CSIS recognize and welcome the crucial role of the courts in supervising the activities of all government agencies and departments, including CSIS."

Toews said Wednesday he didn't even read the U.S. cable. "I'm not familiar with Mr. Judd's comments."

Judd also lamented that a soon-to-be released video of Toronto-born teenager Omar Khadr's interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would trigger "knee-jerk anti-Americanism" and "paroxysms of moral outrage.

The Harper government consistently rebuffed calls to bring Khadr back to Canada, saying he faced serious U.S. charges.

But it appears Khadr had an ally in France. In February 2009, Bernard Kouchner, then French foreign minister, raised Khadr's case with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, another U.S. cable shows. It says Clinton agreed to review the case.