Reply #55: and it deserves to be watched closely. [View All]

[JohnyCanuck]

By who? The corporately controlled, mainstream, whore media refuses to cover it, and DUers and non-corporate types are not being invited to these confabs where the decisions are being taken. So just how effectively can we "watch closely" what is being decided on our behalf? I guess we are supposed to trust the politicians who rely on their corporate sponsors to win elections and who have a record (especially in the US) of using spin, propaganda, bullshit and outright lies when they deem it necessary to get a desired policy through.

Opening up the Security and Prosperity Partnership

By Stuart Trew

The Hill Times, February 19, 2007

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff will be in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 23, to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts. If you're a little fuzzy on exactly what this tri-national agreement entails, that's because except for an exclusive team of MPs and chief executive officers, you have been categorically left out of the discussion.

This is not an oversight. In fact, the SPP was designed to dodge Parliamentary or public debate so that its more than 300 recommendations on sector deregulation, policy harmonization, and security and energy integration between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico can be implemented fairly rapidly by the executive branches in each country. It's about making policy behind-closed doors. (emphasis added) Or, in the words of a June 2005 SPP report, it's about "roundtables with stakeholders, meetings with business groups and briefing sessions with legislatures."

Since then-prime minister Paul Martin, U.S. President George W. Bush and then-Mexican president Vicente Fox ratified the SPP in March 2005, working groups comprised of bureaucrats and CEOs from all three countries have been integrating Canadian and U.S. policies around food and drug safety, anti-terrorism, the environment, immigration and energy, all without legislative review. Only those MPs whose portfolios touch the SPP directly–Industry, Public Safety, Foreign Affairs and International Trade–have been regularly included in tri-lateral discussions.

The private sector has fared much better. At the March 2006 SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Bush and Fox created the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), comprised of 10 CEOs from each country, to come up with a blue sky scenario for North American integration. Council members include representatives from Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, Merck, General Motors, Home Depot, Linamar and Suncor. It is expected that they too will converge in Ottawa this Friday to report on their recommendations for North American integration.

A top priority of the NACC is "energy integration." As we learned in CBC reports last month, this includes a five-fold increase in Alberta oil sands production. Canadians and most of their official federal parties seem intent on meeting Kyoto targets by significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy integration will make meeting those targets physically impossible.

But the SPP is clearly not about what the Canadian public wants. It's about shielding from public debate what corporate Canada wants. (emphasis added)

http://canadians.org/media/council/2007/19-Feb-07.html

Here is a snip from the Canadian New Democratic Party's recent press release on SPP/NAU:

“The previous Liberal government engaged Canada in a slow merger process with the United States and Stephen Harper is accelerating the agenda,” said Julian. “The NDP demands a full debate in Parliament on this issue. Everyday Canadians have the right to know what is being negotiated.”

Changes to some 300 policy and program areas are being promoted as benign “efficiency” measures. The ongoing extensive consultations in the SPP process will lead to an unacceptable level of regulatory harmonization with the surrender of Canadian energy, immigration, health care, food safety, and environmental policies and to complete military integration with the US.

“Canada is not the gas tank of the United States. NAFTA already locks us into supplying energy to the United States even if ordinary Canadians go without; a North American Union would only make this worse,” said Bevington.

“Canadians should know that the SPP process supports a North American Union (NAU). The NDP rejects the secretive process surrounding these ongoing discussions (emphasis added). Canadians will never support a political ideology which aims at turning North America into a fortress for corporate interests and neglects the interests of ordinary Canadians. Canadian sovereignty is not for sale to the highest bidder and the federal government has no authority to push for a NAU without a mandate from Canadians,” said Julian.

http://www.ndp.ca/page/4927

And excuse for being leery and no offense to you and any other US DUers, but I want the least possible integration with any country governed by the likes of your crazy-ass, war criminal, war mongering mindfucks.