Canada has been drawn into the centre of the U.S. election campaign as Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama over the memo that said a top Obama advisor told Canada not to take his anti-NAFTA talk seriously.

Clinton's team is referring to the memo incident as "NAFTA-gate," in an 11th hour attempt to pull ahead of Obama in Tuesday's primaries that are seen as a dead-heat between the Democratic rivals.

The Canadian memo supports what CTV News reported exclusively last week: that Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee assured Canadian officials that the senator's tough talk on the North American Free Trade deal should not be taken seriously by the Harper government.

"Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign,'' said the memo, obtained by The Associated Press.

"He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.''

The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of a meeting that CTV reported on between Goolsbee and the Canadian consulate in Chicago. But the memo's contents are being disputed by Goolsbee.

Memo details

On Monday, Clinton held up the memo as evidence of doublespeak, saying it shows Obama's campaign was giving Canadians "the old wink-wink" about North American free trade.

"I don't think people should come to Ohio and tell the people of Ohio one thing and then have your campaign tell a foreign government something else behind closed doors," Clinton said in a statement.

The debate over NAFTA emerged after both Obama and Clinton took aim at the North American Free Trade Agreement in a Democratic presidential candidates' debate last Tuesday.

Both Obama and Clinton said they would use the six-month opt-out clause in NAFTA as leverage to negotiate a better deal for the U.S.

The memo that has now emerged, which was widely distributed within the Canadian government, was written by Joseph DeMora, who works at the Canadian consulate in Chicago, The Associated Press reported Monday.

DeMora wrote the memo after a Feb. 8 meeting with Goolsbee and Canada's consul general in Chicago, Georges Rioux.

But Goolsbee denied the comments in a response to The Associated Press.

"This thing about 'it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language,'' Goolsbee said of DeMora.

"He's not quoting me. I certainly did not use that phrase in any way."

The document, which is more than 1,300 words, is the first public confirmation that a meeting took place.

Embassy responds

The Canadian Embassy in Washington issued a statement on Monday saying its envoys "regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials."

The statement went on to say that in the recent report from the Consulate General in Chicago, "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA.

"We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect."

The statement added that Canada will not "interfere" in the American electoral process.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Sunday that Goolsbee's visit was not as a representative of the campaign but rather as a professor from the University of Chicago.

Goolsbee said the visit was about 40 minutes and only two to three minutes were spent talking about NAFTA.

He said the Canadian officials inquired about Obama and raised concerns that he appears to sound like a protectionist.

Goolsbee said he told them that Obama was not a protectionist but that he was interested in balance between supporting the struggles of working Americans and recognizing the benefits of free trade on the economy.

Goolsbee said the memo's account was "a pretty ham-handed description of what I answered."

"A: In no possible way was that a reference to NAFTA. And B: In no possible way was I inferring that he was going to introduce any policies that you should ignore and he had no intention of enacting. Those are both completely crazy.''

DeMora was not available for comment Sunday.

NAFTA, which was implemented in 1994, replaced the Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by Canada and the U.S. in the 1980s.

The new trade deal brought Mexico into the fold and has been blamed for job losses in states such as Ohio, a pivotal state in the Democratic primary race.

Ohio has lost more than 200,000 jobs since 2001 and it's estimated as many as 900,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. in NAFTA's first decade.

But Canadian officials say cross-border trade supports more than 275,000 jobs in Ohio alone.

Economists also point out that NAFTA is not the sole factor when determining job losses. The effects of globalization and more efficient companies that do more with fewer workers have decreased the number of jobs.

The U.S. presidential election also spilled into the House of Commons Monday as NDP leader Jack Layton attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the issue.

With files from The Associated Press