Kyle Bell

The Canadian government is doing a tag team with John McCain to attempt to undermine Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. The Canadian press, the CBC, ran an article touting McCain’s words. “U.S. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain reaffirmed his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement on Friday, scolding his Democratic rivals for saying they would reopen the 15-year-old treaty,” the article reads.

“I want to tell our Canadian friends … that I will negotiate and conclude free trade agreements and I will not, after entering into solemn agreements, go and say that I will abrogate those agreements.” That comes in stark contrast from Barack Obama, who says that he will renegotiate the deal signed into law by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Unfortunately for states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania (two of which have yet to vote), NAFTA has meant a huge loss of jobs for the industrial core of America.

Despite Hillary’s past support for NAFTA, she now says she would take the same approach as Barack Obama. After the Ohio debate last week where NAFTA played a pivotal role in the discussion, John McCain and the Canadian government pounced on Obama. So too, did Hillary Clinton, despite her flip-flopping and now holding the same position as Obama.

A memo surfaced supposedly referencing to an aide to Obama meeting in Chicago with a Canadian official to assure them that his rhetoric was nothing but political theater for Ohio and Pennsylvania. A source close to Canadian TV said that, “when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.”

It turns out that an Obama official did meet with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but that he was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign. Furthermore, the economic adviser to Obama, a professor at the University of Chicago, claims that his words were misquoted entirely. “This thing about ‘it’s more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,’ that’s this guy’s language,” he said of Joseph DeMora, the Canadian consulate official who wrote the memo. “He’s not quoting me… I certainly did not use that phrase in any way.”

What we are seeing is a right-wing tag team. The conservative party ruling Canada would like to do what it can to not just save the Republicans, their allies to the South, but also to prevent NAFTA from being renegotiated. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to go to Ohio and tell people one thing while your aide is calling the Canadian ambassador and telling him something else,” McCain said recently. “I certainly don’t think that’s straight talk.”

This is exactly the kind of stuff George Bush complained about in 2004 when John Kerry claimed that foreign leaders expressed to him a desire to have him as president. What’s different is that the Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Harper, is actively meddling in our election process. American voters should not tolerate this, and neither should Hillary Clinton or John McCain. They should both be ashamed of themselves for tag teaming with a foreign government to win an election.