OTTAWA - Canada appears destined to be dragged into the centre of the U.S. presidential debate once again.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain has sought and received an invitation to Ottawa to give a speech next week on free trade.
The Vietnam war hero's presence in Canada's national capital and his choice of subject matter is bound to revive controversy over the so-called NAFTA-gate affair, which embarrassed his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, earlier this year.
McCain, an avowed free-trader, is slated to speak to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa on June 20.
According to the club's public affairs manager, Nicolee Tattersall, McCain's campaign approached the club about arranging a speech in Canada's capital. She said the non-partisan club is happy to give politicians of every stripe a chance to talk about economic matters.
Tattersall said the club has checked with three historians and, as far as they can tell, this will be the first time a U.S. presidential nominee has come to Canada mid-campaign.
"Basically it's going to be a speech on free trade,'' she said.
The club announced McCain's speaking engagement Wednesday and the event was virtually sold out within an hour.
McCain's choice of topic and venue is unlikely to be coincidental. Even if the nominee himself makes no mention of NAFTA-gate, the planeload of American reporters travelling with him will undoubtedly make the link, prompting yet more grief for Obama.
His appearance may also provoke some additional awkwardness for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Obama's sincerity was called into question last March after the leak of a Canadian diplomatic memo, which summarized a meeting between a senior Obama adviser, Austan Goulsbee, and Georges Rioux, Canada's consul general in Chicago.
According to the memo, Goulsbee suggested Canada shouldn't take seriously Obama's campaign rhetoric about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Goulsbee insisted his words had been misrepresented but the leak is widely thought to have cost Obama victory in the crucial Democratic primary in Ohio, where NAFTA is unpopular.
For Harper, any reminder of the sorry episode is bound to be awkward since it originated with his own chief of staff, Ian Brodie.
Brodie told some CTV reporters during the budget lockup that it was rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton whose team had signalled she had no intention of following through on her tough talk about renegotiating NAFTA. While Brodie apparently got the candidate wrong, his comments set reporters on the trail of the story, which eventually led to the leaked memo.
Opposition parties have accused the Harper government of being a "farm team'' for the U.S. Republicans. As such, they've suggested the leak was a deliberate attempt to torpedo Obama.
Harper, determined to prove his government was not intentionally interfering, ordered Canada's top public servant, Kevin Lynch, to conduct an inquiry into the leak.
Lynch cleared Brodie and Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to Washington, last month. He blamed Foreign Affairs bureaucrats for disseminating the memo too widely to maintain secrecy.
A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll conducted last month suggested Canadians would prefer to see Obama elected president over McCain. U.S. surveys also put McCain behind his Democratic rival.
