Cablegate: Stephen Harper's Christmas Wishlist

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P 231812Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8908
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS OTTAWA 001585

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ECON CA
SUBJECT: STEPHEN HARPER'S CHRISTMAS WISHLIST

1. (SBU) As Santa Claus prepares to leave his North Pole
(Canada) base to deliver presents around the world (with
NORAD dutifully tracking his progress), Prime Minister
Stephen Harper may be offering up his own wistful wish list
for Christmas 2008, perhaps as follows:

-- President Obama's first phone call after the inauguration
is to PM Harper, with an invitation to visit the White House
ASAP to learn from Harper's insights and experience;
-- the North American recession turns out to have been a
"Dallas"-like dream sequence, and we all wake up to healthy,
expanding economies with solvent banks (based on the Canadian
regulatory model) and full employment;
-- the 2009 Canadian budget passes the House of Commons
unanimously;
-- 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;
-- Quebec voters come to their senses, abandon the Bloc
Quebecois, and vote en masse for the Conservatives in the
next election, creating a stable Conservative majority in the
House of Commons;
-- the three opposition parties in Parliament drop all
objections to an elected Senate, which all provinces then
rush to endorse as well;
-- the Liberal Party national convention delegates in May
2009 unanimously pick discredited ex-leader Stephane Dion as
the party's new permanent "Leader-for-Life;"
-- scientists discover that Canada's oil sands have a
positive effect on climate change and can be efficiently
extracted even at a world oil price of $10 per barrel;
-- Russia abandons all claims to the Arctic and donates its
nuclear submarine that remains wedged between two ice floes
to the Canadian Navy, thereby doubling Canada's blue-water
capabilities;
-- millions of newly rich Chinese consumers develop a sudden
craze for Canadian-made SUVs and trucks;
-- after successfully democratic Afghan elections in 2009,
the Taliban and al-Qaeda give up and "go home," peace and
stability emerge throughout Afghanistan, and the Canadian
Forces and other ISAF troops depart in victory;
-- Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" stop making fun of
Canada and Canadian politics.

2. (U) Best wishes for happy holidays and a joyous 2009 --
and may your own wishlists have better chances of success!

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

BREESE

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