The Jan. 2008 cable, written toward the end of the Bush administration as US popularity had dropped around the world, has the US embassy official in Ottawa complaining about an “onslaught” of “anti-American melodrama,” on Canadian TV.
“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 US — and the extent to which the Canadian public seems willing to indulge in the feast — is noteworthy,” the cable says.
It also warns Americans must do “everything we can to make it more difficult for Canadians to fall into the trap of seeing all US policies as the result of nefarious faceless US bureaucrats anxious to squeeze their northern neighbor.”
The cable mentions a popular Canadian show entitled “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” with episodes involving rude US consular officials and characters mistakenly ending up on American terror watch lists.
The diplomat also cites “The Border,” a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. show featuring a Department of Homeland Security agent described as “sort of a cross between Salma Hayek and Cruella De Vil,” who bosses around her “more compassionate Canadian colleagues.” “Who do you think provides the muscle to protect your fine ideals?” the cable quotes the character as saying at one point.
Former US Ambassador David Wilkins, whose name is at the bottom of the cable, told The Associated Press he didn’t write or approve the cable. Wilkins said he doesn’t remember having had similar concerns and denies the subject was even discussed.
“You’re talking about 200,000 cables from the embassy in Ottawa on Canada and about the only thing that’s being talked about is a three-page cable about Canadian media,” Wilkins said. “If that’s all that’s being talked about we have a pretty solid relationship.” Current US Ambassador David Jackobson joked to CTV television that he hasn’t seen the shows because he only watches hockey.
Canadian opposition Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff expressed surprise that a US diplomat would spend time writing about Canadian television.
“I find it a little amusing that American diplomats would spend their time watching “Little Mosque on the Prairie.” It’s a great show, but I would have thought they had other things to do,” Ignatieff said.
Four other cables involving Canada were also released by WikiLeaks Wednesday.
In a July 2008 cable from the US embassy in Ottawa Jim Judd, the former head of Canada’s spy service, lamented that a soon-to-be released video of young Canadian Omar Khadr’s interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would trigger “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and “paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty.” A Nov. 2004 cable says Canada protested to the US about being cut out of the intelligence loop as “punishment” for not joining the war in Iraq.
Another note prepared in advance of President Obama’s Feb. 2009 visit to Ottawa 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.
“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 US and its chronic but accurate complaint that the US pays far less attention to Canada than Canada does to us,” the cable says.
