- If the machinations going on in this country regarding
so-called "deep integration" were instead a communist conspiracy
to take over the country (you will, of course, have to try hard to imagine
this) the news media would be blaring the story.
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- Pundits would pontificate, editorialists would erupt,
security forces would be unleashed.
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- Instead, a virtual conspiracy to make the country disappear
through assimilation into the U.S. gets barely a mention.
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- But news of the scheme -- formally called the <http://www.spp.gov/>Security
and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) -- is finally breaking
out of the secret chambers of the ruling elite and the federal government.
This is both good news and bad. It's good that ordinary citizens are finally
getting a glimpse of the betrayal of their country. The news is bad because
it reflects just how much of this scheme is already being implemented.
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- Given the meetings of CEOs and politicians to advance
the scheme politically, as well as all that must go into its actual implementation,
there is simply too much activity to keep secret.
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- Ten dots to connect
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- Here are 10 developments in the plan to disappear Canada.
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- 1) Pesticides 'harmonized.' The most thoroughly reported
story (though even this did not go much beyond the CanWest chain) was the
revelation that Canada was about to "harmonize" its regulations,
setting limits for pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables. In 40 per
cent of the cases, the U.S. allows for higher levels. Richard Aucoin, chief
registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada's
pesticide levels, said that Canada's higher levels were a "trade irritant."
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- The downgrading of health protection had been a NAFTA
initiative, but is being "fast-tracked" as part of the Security
and Prosperity Partnership. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Some 300
regulatory regimes are currently going through the same process.
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- 2) Tory tirade. The next story that broke through the
wall of media silence reported on the paranoid reaction of the Harper Conservatives
to any criticism of the SPP. The occasion was hearings of the Commons International
Trade Committee into the SPP, forced by the NDP.
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- Gordon Laxer, head of Alberta's Parkland Institute, was
testifying on the energy implications of the SPP, warning that eastern
Canada could end up "freezing in the dark." He had barely started
when the chair of the committee, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, demanded
that Laxer halt his "irrelevant" testimony. The Committee members
overruled Benoit -- who promptly (and illegally) adjourned the meeting
and stomped out. The NDP and Liberal members nonetheless continued without
him.
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- 3) Council of corporate power. The SPP initiative began
in earnest back in 2002 with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (formerly
the BCNI), the most powerful corporate body in the country. It continues
it leadership role, but does not promote the scheme just in its own name.
It instead has helped create several supportive bodies that now help drive
the agenda. Included in these are the <http://tinyurl.com/yw2yox>North
American Competitive Council (NACC), which includes CEOs of the largest
North American corporations, and which institutionalizes the exclusively
corporate nature of the agreement. The NACC is the only advisory group
to the three NAFTA/SPP governments.
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- 4) Secretive summit. The NACC at least is public. But
much of what happens in building the elite consensus for deep integration
is done in absolute secrecy or very privately, away from the prying eyes
of the media. The most secretive of these was held last year from Sept.
12 to 14, in Banff Springs. As The Tyee reported, the gathering was sponsored
by something called the North American Forum (http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/06/08/
DeepIntegrate/#correction1)* and it was attended by some of the most powerful
members of the North American ruling elite.
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- Attendees, according to a leaked list that could not
be confirmed, included Donald Rumsfeld, George Schultz (former U.S. Secretary
of State), General Rick Hillier, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Minister
of Public Safety Stockwell Day. The media was not informed of the meeting
and it was first revealed by the weekly Banff Crag & Canyon.
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- Stockwell Day refused to even confirm he was there, but
said that even if he was, it was a "private" meeting that he
would not comment on. There is no better indication that these meetings,
and the SPP itself, constitute a parallel governing structure -- unaccountable
to any democratic institution or the public.
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- 5) 'No fly' coordination. Canada will have its own "no-fly"
list just like our U.S. "partner."
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- As the Council of Canadians pointed out: "The no-fly
list is very much a Security and Prosperity Partnership initiative. 'The
SPP Report to Leaders, August 2006' outlines <http://tinyurl.com/28ufzp>105
SPP initiatives. Initiative #93 states, 'Develop, test, evaluate and implement
a plan to establish comparable aviation passenger screening, and the screening
of baggage and air cargo (for North America).'"
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- Canada's privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has raised
a number of concerns about the plan including the fact that the list will
be shared with the U.S., that "false positives" are a virtual
certainty, and that there is no evidence put forward by the government
that the list will improve airline security.
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- 6) Bye, bye Canadian dollar? David Dodge, the head of
the Bank of Canada, told a Chicago audience that a single currency for
North America "is possible." That would see a big chunk of Canadian
sovereignty and the ability to guide the economy through monetary policy
go out the window. It's not the first time Dodge has mused about abandoning
the Canadian dollar - or <http://tinyurl.com/2u8vde>deep integration.
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- 7) Water and oil giveaways. The deep integrationists
clearly see Canadian water as a North American resource, not a Canadian
resource. At yet another very private meeting, held in Calgary on April
27th under the auspices of yet another forum, it was made clear that water
is on the table for <http://tinyurl.com/yoft8l>negotiation.
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- Discussion of bulk "water transfers" and diversions
took place at a Calgary meeting of the North American Future 2025 Project
(partly funded by the U.S. government). The meeting based its deliberations
on the false notion that Canada has 20 per cent of the world's fresh water.
Actual available supply amounts to only around six per cent -- about the
same as has the U.S.
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- The water (and environment) meeting was preceded by another
on April 26th talking about "North American" energy. The beneficiary
of these discussions is pretty clear when you realize Canada has no national
energy policy. We are the only energy exporting country in the world without
a one.
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- Gordon Laxer told the Parliamentary committee: "The
National Energy Board wrote me on April 12: 'Unfortunately, the NEB has
not undertaken any studies on security of supply.'" He was also told
by the NEB that Canada does not maintain a 90 day energy reserve as other
developed nations do. As Laxer points out, "Canada may be a net exporter,
but it still imports 40 per cent of its oil -- 850,000 barrels per day
-- to meet 90 per cent of Atlantic Canada's and Quebec's needs, and 40
per cent of Ontario's."
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- Canada exports 63 per cent of its oil production and
56 per cent of its natural gas, percentages that can <http://tinyurl.com/36d6rb>never
decrease under NAFTA.
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- 8) NAFTA Superhighway. State governments in the U.S.
are becoming increasingly alarmed at the prospects of deep integration.
Earlier this year, Idaho became the first state to pass a legislative resolution
directing the U.S. Congress to drop out of the SPP, which is referred to
as the North American Union amongst <http://tinyurl.com/yp4pdu>U.S.
opponents. Thirteen states in addition to Idaho are calling on Congress
to abandon the SPP: Georgia, Arizona, Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, Montana,
South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington and
Virginia.
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- Part of the opposition is focused on plans for a so-called
NAFTA Superhighway: actually a corridor several hundred metres wide including
rail lines, freeways and pipelines from Mexico to the Canadian border.
There is a growing grass roots movement against the SPP in the U.S., but
led by the right over the issue of compromising American sovereignty.
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- 9) Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).
While U.S. states, concerned about state rights under an unaccountable
"North American Union," are organizing against the scheme, Canadian
provinces are either blithely unaware or knowingly complicit in the deal.
More Canadians may be aware of TILMA -- the investors' rights agreement
between B.C. and Albert -- than they are about the SPP, but in reality
they are one and the same.
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- TILMA is major piece of the deep integration, deregulation
imperative and fits hand in glove with the SPP. There is a similar, though
more informal, process evolving in the Atlantic provinces, called "Atlantica."
And B.C. is now pushing the so-called Gateway Initiative, a kind of regional
superhighway project that will see huge and environmentally disastrous
expansion of ports, highways and pipelines to further supply the U.S.'s
insatiable demand for resources and cheap Asian goods.
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- 10) The next SPP summit. The third leaders summit on
the SPP will take place this August 21-22nd in Montebello, Quebec, not
far from Ottawa. By the time it does many more Canadian will be aware of
it.
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- Part of the reason that news of the SPP/deep integration
issue is finally seeing the light of day is that opposition is growing
and groups fighting the SPP are having an impact. The Council of Canadians,
the CLC and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives held an SPP teach-in
in Ottawa last month and many civil society groups are now taking deep
integration to their members. Demonstrations are planned for the summit.
The NDP continues to press the government on SPP secrecy and the Green
Party's Elizabeth May has said deep integration will be a focus of the
party's election platform.
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- It is hard to think of any other issue in modern Canadian
history, especially one that will literally determine whether the country
survives or not, that has taken so long to get public attention. I first
wrote about it September, 2002.
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- By the time the SPP summit has come and gone and the
fall political season begins, deep integration, the most treacherous plan
for the country yet devised by Bay Street, will be increasingly exposed.
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- And by the next election, we could see a repeat of the
great "free trade" election of 1988. This time we have to win.
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- *Correction note: At 12:20 p.m. on June 4, we corrected
- http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/06/08/DeepIntegrate/#back1
- the name of the forum.
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