Filmmaker Michael Moore says he had to rush a copy of his new film Sicko into Canada just before travelling to the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year because he feared U.S. federal investigators would seize it.

"I had to literally get a master of my film brought to Canada here so it could be safely placed in a country that would not violate my civil liberties," Moore said in an interview with CBC Radio.

Michael Moore, shown in October 2002, premiered his movie Sicko in London last week.
(Associated Press)

"Why as an American would I have to ship my movie to Canada to protect it?" he asked.

Sicko won acclaim when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year.

U.S. investigators are looking into a trip to Cuba Moore made while filming Sicko. Moore took 9/11 rescue workers, who had been cut off medical coverage in the U.S., to Cuba to see if they could be treated there.

"We, according to them, violated the trade embargo, which means we went down there and conducted business — made this film — and the film now has value that was obtained while we were making part of it in Cuba," Moore said.

"So they may claim … they can confiscate my movie. I'm living with a real threat of that over the next few weeks."

Sicko, which compares the U.S. medical system with medicare in Canada, Britain and France, is due to open in commercial cinemas June 29.

Moore was in London, Ont., last week to premiere the film, saying he has family ties in the area.

His attorneys say the Bush administration may be trying to prosecute Moore over breaking the Cuban trade embargo because he was critical of the government in his film Fahrenheit 9/11.

"I am concerned that Mr. Moore has been selected for discriminatory treatment by your office," Moore’s attorney, David Boies, said in a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. 

Moore told CBC Radio he was surprised the federal prosecution began now, just ahead of the release of the film, when it was guaranteed to generate the most buzz for his documentary.

Moore also criticized the law that prohibits U.S. citizens from travelling to Cuba.

"Part of living in free country means you can travel freely, anywhere you want to go; that's what you can do as Canadians," he said. 

Saying he thinks American "jaws are going to drop" when they see the health care other people enjoy, Moore said he doesn't portray Canadian health care as perfect in Sicko.

"My job is to show that Canadians — not so much have the best health care system in the world, which it isn't — but rather that Canadians have a core value belief that says, we're all Canadians, we're all in the same boat, we sink or swim together and we have to take care of each other," he said.
 
"It doesn't matter if you are a conservative or a liberal here, but that's what you believe and I wish we were more like that."