Terry Breese
WikiLeaks reveals that Terry Breese, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Ottawa, wrote a cable titled ‘Stephen Harper’s Christmas Wish List’ on December 23, 2008. Among the entries on the imaginary wish list, Breese writes, “Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams recants his Venezuelan/Che Guevara economic theories and gives free rights to Newfie water to AbitibiBowater in perpetuity, leading Maude Barlow to emigrate to Zimbabwe…”
The Canadian Press reports, “The entry refers to the former premier’s fight to keep proceeds from the province’s mineral and oil resources in the province — and his spat with Harper that led the Conservative premier to campaign against Harper in the 2008 election. Barlow is a well-known activist and nationalist who has pressed for stronger Canadian control of the economy. Williams also got into an expropriation battle with AbitibiBowater over the company’s rights to resources.”
An on-line biography notes that Breese was the deputy chief of mission from 2007 to 2010, but also that from, “1991 (to 1994) he was assigned to Ottawa, Canada, as Senior Trade Policy Officer at the American Embassy. In that capacity he was responsible for implementation of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and was involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations.”
The Globe and Mail article highlighting this WikiLeak is at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-christmas-wish-list-courtesy-of-wikileaks/article2002827/. The Canadian Press report is at http://www.therecord.com/news/canada/article/523842–harper-s-wife-seen-as-political-asset-in-new-wikileaks-release.
