By Doug Cunningham

Canada’s CTV News says a senior economic advisor to Barack Obama’s campaign phoned the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and told him that Obama’s anti-NAFTA statements are just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. CTV says Austan Goolsbee, a free trader economist at the University of Chicago, made the call. Rick Sloan of the International Association of Machinists says it’s outrageous.

[Sloan]: “I think this story has such powerful resonance that if it’s out people are going to stop and say wait a second. Now, he tells us one thing, but before he tells us that he signals the Canadian government that it’s only just campaign rhetoric? That’s unconscionable.”

The Obama campaign denies that it’s saying one thing in public on NAFTA and secretly communicating the opposite to Canada’s government. But CTV News stands by its story, citing sources at the highest level of the Canadian government.