The SPP was founded in 2005 at a meeting in Waco, Texas, between Bush, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin and then-Mexican President Vincente Fox. Proponents of the partnership hail it as a simpler way of ensuring that Canada, Mexico and the United States can gradually move beyond barriers on trade and safety issues. The partnership, reads the Canadian government’s website on the SPP, “is a dialogue […] by which the three countries can resolve unnecessary barriers to trade and a means to improve our response to emergencies and increase security.”
But for critics of both the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas(FTAA), the SPP is the next step in submerging the rights of citizens to the rights of big business and –- more recently –- the ability for the US to carry out its War on Terror. “It is quite literally about eliminating Canada’s ability to determine independent regulatory standards, environmental protections, energy security, foreign, military, immigration and other policies,” Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, stated in testimony to the parliamentary Committee on International Trade last May.
Full article: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1309
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Bringing The SPP Out Of The Shadows
Posted on Monday, August 13 at 15:27 by sthompsonContributed By
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I wonder how many people were paying attention at the time. And how many of those are paying more attention now.
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A really bad place to start would be to assume that the "war on terror" is nothing but an American caused illusion, and we can safely dismiss it entirely. Again, any thinking which takes this position has abandoned reality and handed over all serious decision making to the right wingers. International terrorism is unfortunately a reality, and will remain so, long after George W. is gone.
I defer to those who have studied this initiative more than I, and won't try to defend SPP. What I am asking is, if not SPP, then what? Pure isolationism simply is a non-starter, for more reasons than I have time to go into right now. The left in Canada could increase its credibility and influence immeasurably if it began its deliberations with a recognition that we are tied to the US in a way that no other country in the world is, and will remain so, no matter what ideologies govern which governments. Co-operation is an imperative. If we miss this unalterable historical point, we simply abandon the field to SPP type schemes and interests.
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Brett Mann