OTTAWA - Laureen Harper gets top grades in the latest dump of confidential Wikileaks cables originating from the American embassy in Ottawa.
"Extroverted and friendly, she is widely credited for 'softening' her more reserved husband's political image," says a message dispatched to Washington in early 2009 by Terry Breese, then second-in-command at the embassy.
"Described as personable, free-spirited and with considerable personal charm, Mrs. Harper is a pro at working a room, and many observers believe her to be more at ease in front of cameras and strangers than her husband."
The cable offers a potted biography of the prime minister's spouse, who has spent the current election campaign close by Stephen Harper's side.
Breese's cable notes that Laureen loves animals, especially cats, and that she enjoys her blue-and-white Yamaha XT22 motorcycle, which she bought in 2005.
The release Thursday of hundreds of cables obtained by Wikileaks ranges from the light-hearted to the grindingly serious, on a broad number of issues between Canada and the United States.
A rare attempt at humour appears in a December 2008 cable by Breese that purports to reproduce Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Christmas wish list. Among the 12 imaginary entries:
"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 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.
Another wish on the decidedly undiplomatic Christmas list is that Liberals, at the party's May 2009 convention, "unanimously pick discredited ex-leader Stephane Dion as the party's new permanent 'Leader-for-Life'."
Breese's breezy cables are in stark contrast to his buttoned-down, stiff public demeanour.
Most of the uncensored cables are dry recitations of recent Canadian politics, as exercised in the last few years under a Conservative minority, that will be mined by historians and political scientists for years.
Some comments appear disdainful of Conservative political moves, such as the appointment of five new senators to gain control of the upper house.
"The Conservatives have used Senate reform and law-and-order as political 'wedge' issues to bolster their base and to label the Liberals as soft-on-crime," the current ambassador, David Jacobson, wrote in early 2010.
"In doing so, the Conservatives have often overstated the Senate's ability to obstruct legislation."
But Jacobson is also occasionally skeptical of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, noting in early 2010 the party's "muted response to PM Harper's late December prorogation of Parliament suggests a lack of energy and hands-on leadership -- Ignatieff has reportedly not yet returned from vacation in France."
Jacobson concludes, with some prescience: "The Liberals face a tough road ahead if they hope to beat the Conservatives in the next federal election -- whether in 2010 or 2011."
Throughout the cables, the ambassador suggests the political games waged in Ottawa over the last few years were likely having little impact on ordinary citizens.
"These Parliamentary manoeuvres are well off the radar scope for most Canadians, but Ottawa politicos remain riveted by the curious ebbs and flows of these short-term tactical alliances," he writes in a September 2009 missive.
A spokeswoman for the American embassy in Ottawa was not immediately available for comment.
