The rock group Tokyo Police Club were the headliners at last week’s Canadian Blast BBQ event in Austin, Texas, but there was also a celebrity guest who showed up unannounced: a cardboard cut-out of Justin Trudeau.

A steady stream of visitors lined up to wear red hats, wave flags and take selfies with the photogenic leader, hoisting their drinks and putting their arms around his cardboard shoulders.

“Seems like you got a pretty cool prime minister,” one Texan among many told the Star’s pop music critic, Ben Rayner, on Wednesday at the South by Southwest Festival.

The festival fans in general seemed to display an uncommon level of knowledge and enthusiasm for a Canadian politician, but perhaps they were getting a little too friendly.

Global Affairs Canada has instructed its diplomatic missions in the United States to stop using life-size cardboard cut-outs of the prime minister to promote Canada.

The order follows the revelation last week that prime ministerial replicas turned up at an event last June organized by the Canadian Consulate in Atlanta and this month at South by Southwest.

The Canadian Embassy in Washington also rush-ordered a cut-out of its own for use at Canada Day celebrations last year, at a cost of $147.79, including $72.80 for next-day delivery.

The embassy has not explained whether the cardboard Trudeau was ever actually used.

Regardless, it will now have to go into storage.

“We are aware of instances where our missions in the United States had decided to purchase and use these cut-outs,” said a Global Affairs spokesperson, Natasha Nystrom.

“The missions have been asked to no longer use these for their events.”

It’s not clear if the missions ever had departmental permission to deploy the cardboard cut-outs.

According to emails obtained by the Conservatives through access to information laws, the Washington embassy’s interest in using a cardboard likeness was sparked by word that the Atlanta consulate had put one on display at a pre-Canada Day event last year.

Asked if Ottawa had given permission, Louise Blais, the Atlanta consul general, advised the embassy that she did ask but “never got an answer.”

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“Which I took as no objections. But as added cover, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa has one of the Obamas.”

Anna Gibbs, senior events production manager at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, was excited about the prospect of putting Trudeau’s image on display.

“I think this will be a hoot and extremely popular and go well with our Snapchat filter,” she wrote in an email.

While some of her colleagues felt the magnified photo of Trudeau in a black suit, black shirt and silver tie “doesn’t seem very prime ministerial,” Gibbs gushed: “Looks (oh so) fine to me!”

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