OTTAWA - Stephen Harper's government is saying next to nothing publicly about the deluge of WikiLeaks flooding cyberspace.
But behind closed doors, it's a very different story, newly obtained memos show.
The declassified correspondence reveals the depth of the Conservative government's concerns about leaked U.S. diplomatic messages that continue to grab headlines in Canada and around the globe.
Harper received several secret briefings from the country's top public servant on the American cables published by WikiLeaks.
The Foreign Affairs Department immediately passed any documents of importance to relevant federal agencies, and a summary was produced twice daily.
In addition, a Who's Who of intelligence officials including Harper's national security adviser, the deputy ministers of Foreign Affairs and Public Safety, and officials from the spy outfits -- the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment -- were "engaging daily on approach and implications."
The Canadian Press obtained the memos -- with many paragraphs blacked out -- under the Access to Information Act.
A four-page, late November missive to Harper from Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters -- marked "top secret" and "Canadian eyes only / limited distribution" -- assessed the "likely implications for Canada" of the coming stream of more than 250,000 leaked cables.
The assessment -- almost entirely deleted from the memo -- appears to be based on advance information provided to Canada by the U.S. State Department.
A Nov. 30 update for Harper from Wouters said Foreign Affairs "is following the release of documents and reviews them for implications for Canada as they appear," noting 2,648 of the U.S. cables are related to Canada.
The memo, most of which was again withheld, likely deals with the previous evening's release of a July 2008 U.S. cable that quoted extensively from a meeting with then-CSIS director Jim Judd.
Judd confided that the spy agency was "vigorously harassing" known Hezbollah members in Canada, and predicted a soon-to-be released video of Omar Khadr's interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would trigger "paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty."
Extracts of a cable about possible terror targets in Canada were flagged for Harper, who was also kept apprised of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's pronouncements, as well as cyber-attacks against both the organization's website and companies perceived to be anti-WikiLeaks.
By early December, with less than one per cent of the leaks having trickled out, Foreign Affairs had scaled back its efforts, producing summaries "only as and when necessary."
"Any documents of importance identified would still be immediately passed to relevant departments and deputy ministers, led by the national security adviser, would engage on implications," says a memo.
WikiLeaks has disclosed less than two per cent of the U.S. diplomatic notes to date.
Other cables involving Canada already made public touch on RCMP drug investigations in British Columbia, a threat by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to nationalize Petro-Canada's operations in his country and the firm belief of a Canadian diplomat that Tunisia tortured prisoners accused of terrorism.
Memos previously released to The Canadian Press show Canadian military and intelligence officials held two secret damage assessments last summer amid federal worries about an earlier cache of WikiLeaks documents on the war in Afghanistan.
Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman said Friday the department had no comment on the latest memos.
