At least that's according to Thomas D'Aquino, head of the CCCE, which planned and launched the SPP.
According to D'Aquino and other architects of the SPP, it has absolutely no effect on Canadian sovereignty--it only erases the small differences between Canada and the US, or what they call barriers to trade--little things like whether you can board a plane, the amount of pesticide on the fruits and vegetables you eat, how much oil Canada exports, and most insignificant of all, our entire military and foreign policy.
As for the idea that the SPP could lead to the creation of a NAU modelled on the EU, according to D'Aquino that's
"a gigantic load of B.S. and misinformation."
And anyone who believes the SPP is a blueprint for continental integration is "smoking something".
Where would people get the idea, after all, that the SPP would create a NAU, when the SPP involves creating a common foreign and security policy, and a common trade policy, while the EU involved...well, creating a common foreign and security policy, and a common trade policy?
CRAZY that people don't see the difference, isn't it?
And the craziness doesn't stop there. According to the US Embassy to Canada, which has released a list of myths about the SPP, the SPP is not even an agreement--it's a dialogue.
If you're wondering what the difference is, apparently when you call something a dialogue, you don't have to actually have Parliamentary oversight or seek input from the people the dialogue will affect--namely, Canadians.
So far, the only people who have been allowed to participate in the SPP dialogue have been the CEOs of giant companies.
But this shouldn't be a surprise--after all, the SPP was their idea in the first place.
The only advisory group to the Canadian, Mexican and American governments on the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). Like the other groups that came before it, members of the council are all rich businesspeople, who represent some of the largest corporations in the world.
American members of the council include the President and CEO of Wal-Mart, the chairman, president and CEO of Lockheed Martin (America’s biggest weapons contractor), the chairman of Ford Motor Company and the chairman and CEO of Chevron.
Canadian members include the president and CEO of Scotiabank who is also a member of the IMF's Capital Markets Consultative Group, the president of Canadian operations for the US-owned company Home Depot, and the American-born CEO of Suncor (who is also a member of the board of directors of a U.S. offshore and onshore drilling company, ).
Are you sensing a pattern here?
All along the line, the public has been shut out of the SPP process entirely while North America’s richest CEOs have had and continue to have a permanent seat at the table.
In fact, the SPP decision-making process is described officially this way: “meetings” are held for business, "roundtables” for stakeholders and “briefing sessions” for Parliament. In other words, business people set priorities for the continent, and then our democratically elected Members of Parliament are told what to do.
As George Grant wrote in his classic book “Lament for Nation” over 40 years ago,
“The wealthy rarely maintain their nationalism when it is in conflict with the economic drive of the day.”
This is no less true today. It is the wealthy who are putting the SPP in place, the wealthy who are pushing for continental integration, the wealthy who are making a buck by selling this country off piece by piece even as they tell us they are “standing up for Canada”.
To these people, the differences between Canada and the US don't mean anything except a limit on their profit margins.
To them, erasing those differences is no big loss.
To them, it really is no big deal.
But when you add all those differences up, don't they define us?? Don't they mark out a border between our culture and national ideals and the culture and national ideals of the US?
And by erasing those differences systematically, aren't we just condemning Canada to death by a thousand cuts?
The few things we have learned about how the SPP is already affecting Canada show that yes, the SPP is leading to a loss of our sovereignty and unique identity.
And what will happen in the future, once all of our regulations have been changed to match those of the US? Will we need to lobby Washington to change Canadian regulations and policy if we realize something isn't working and we want to make a change?
So what do we do? How do we stop the SPP?
Mainly, we speak up.
We speak up across Canada and we speak up here in Alberta.
Alberta is a key front in the battle against deep integration with the US for two important reasons.
The first is our oil, which the US views as key to their own energy security and which it is pushing us to export south of the border under the SPP.
The second reason is (TILMA)
TILMA is like the SPP on a smaller scale because it enshrines the rights of corporations over rules and regulations developed through the democratic process. Also, like the SPP, it was signed without public input and most people remain largely unaware that it exists or what its implications actually are.
As Albertans, we must speak up against TILMA, our own miniature version of the SPP, as part of the fight to protect our unique identity both as a province and as a nation.
Above all, we must speak up.
Canadians are still largely unaware that their country—and the things they love most about it, the things they are the most proud of—is being sold out from under them.
We must raise awareness and we must continue to protest so long as we are kept outside of the meetings that will decide the fate of this country.
Together, we must face down the ruling elites who would sacrifice our collective dreams in the name of their own individual profit.
We must declare in a voice louder than we have ever dared, that this country is ours and we are ready to defend it.
And above all, we must insist that deciding the future of our country IS a big deal--a big enough deal that all Canadians, not just the rich, should have a say in it.
Thank you.
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So What's The Big Deal?
Posted on Sunday, August 19 at 18:27 by sthompsonContributed By
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see it here<br />
<a href="http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/SPP_ENG.pdf">http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/SPP_ENG.pdf</a><br />
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<p>---<br>When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp
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<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=2317342939&view=all">http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=2317342939&view=all</a><br />
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The question couldn't be more appropriate here in the Okanagan Valley.
Neither CHBC nor Global aired anything about it that as far as I can tell
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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
William Blake
I've been trying to stay out of the SPP discussions because I have concerns with this process myself, but I have a problem with the above statement. No, not all differences between Canada and the US are useful, or are part of the definition of Canada. We cling to some of them out of what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences".
Many of these things are simply irritants deliberately put into place by protectionist politicians and bureaucrats as non-tariff barriers to trade. Some are accidental differences put into place by independent policy-making entities. Others represent legitimate divergences based on differing political systems and popular opinion between the two countries.
Each of these proposals need to be evaluated on its own merit. I believe that's what the SPP process was trying to do by keeping the discussions low key. The organizers of this conference didn't want the discussion prematurely degenerating into yet another Maude Barlow/Tom D'Aquino pissing match, like every other trade initiative between Canada and the US has.
Frankly, what would you do if you or Barlow's Council of Collectivists were invited? Would you put forth constructive alternatives or suggest differing priorities in terms of cooperation? Or would you simply be there to try to scuttle the whole thing, and ideally place even *more* barriers between the three counties. Asking a Canadian nationalist/protectionist to a trade discussion is like inviting a vegan to a barbecue. What's the point?
There should be debate in the House of Commons on these proposals. I have every faith that there will be. But I think these folks have a right to put together their list of proposals without having to worry about being shouted down by anti-American leftists.
If only the differences were small. The amount of Pesticides Canadians are willing to tolerate on foods is a big part of who we are - we like our safety.
"Many of these things are simply irritants deliberately put into place by protectionist politicians and bureaucrats as non-tariff barriers to trade."
Such as tripling the output of Alberta's oilsands, which triples the pollution output in Alberta - not the US?
"Would you put forth constructive alternatives or suggest differing priorities in terms of cooperation?"
Why is co-operation required? What co-operation will big business give the citizens? Why do these policies need to be 'harmonized'? What about the current system is a deterrent to our Security or Prosperity? Tell us what is proposed first, then we'll see if we are for or against it. So far, we are against simply because this it looking more and more like the shaft the EU got, and the shaft we got with NAFTA.
These are the people we elect to represent you and I who are making the deals. Why are we not kept informed? Instead they play the 'cooperation' card, and brand opponents of this process 'anarchists' and 'looney lefties'.
"There should be debate in the House of Commons on these proposals. I have every faith that there will be."
I agree it should be, but I don't think it will be. As we've seen this 'agreement' bypassed the US Senate because it's an 'agreement', not a treaty. Just as the Softwood Lumber 'agreement' bypassed Parliament as an Order in Council.
"But I think these folks have a right to put together their list of proposals without having to worry about being shouted down by anti-American leftists."
See, there you go. So the Americans opposed to this are anti-american leftists? The Mexicans opposed to it?
There will be no proposal. Nor will the 'citizens' have any say - and that is what we oppose. The secrecy, the back room deals. If it's so good for us - bring it into the open.
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"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va
The US is calling the shots in this deal so far, thanks of course to their disproportionate size and power. Pesticides is one example that has been well-documented, and which the Doc has aptly pointed out. Another early one is the US-style no-fly list we've recently adopted in Canada, which has already had a 10 year old kid banned from flying (gotta keep those scary terrorists grounded).
Re immigration, it was Canada who adopted US standards on refugees rather than the other way around, through the Safe Third Country Agreement.
In terms of "security", it obviously won't be the US who is adopting Canada's traditional role as a peacekeeper and its relative lack of paranoia re terrorism (if only). Instead, it will be Canada who will be supporting the US focus on unilateral, aggressive action.
And then there's energy security, which the Doc has also alluded to. Canada has no national energy security plan at all, as the University of Alberta's Gordon Laxer has also pointed out, and which you can check yourself by asking the appropriate federal agency. We have no strategic oil reserve and no plan to have one. We have no right to stop exporting oil (under NAFTA's porportionality clause) at high levels once we're doing it. Therefore we have no energy security, and no plan to ensure our energy security. Yet the US has a national security plan. The US has an emergency reserve. And Cheney has clearly stated that Canada's oil is key to US energy security, and this is why the US is demanding that increase production by 5 fold (not 3, 5) purely for export to them under the SPP. Again, it's all about US wants/needs/demands/standards--it's all about US national security when they say that the SPP is about continental security. This concerns me hugely as a northern Albertan with oilsands in my backyard.
Re the "narcissism of small differences"--calling the policies and regulations involved "small differences" is really a nice bit of spin by proponents. As I pointed out in my speech, and as I agree with the Doc, it seems to me that things like our entire foreign policy direction or the other issues listed above are not small.
But it depends what your principles are--if profit is your only principle, then the border will certainly seem like an anachronism and one country trying to protect its citizens (such as from unsafe food) will certainly seem like a "trade irritant" to you.
To quote George Grant again, who was in fact a conservative:
"Capitalism is, after all, a way of life based on the principle that the most important activity is profit-making. That activity led the wealthy in the direction of continentalism. They lost nothing essential to the principle of their lives in losing their country."
And
"In its simplest form, continentalism is the view of those who do not see what all the fuss is about. The purpose of life is consumption, and therefore the border is an anachronism."
I simply believe that governments are supposed to balance the needs of big business and making profit with the well-being of their citizens. What this agreement does is make profit and the needs of big business supreme--there is no balance here, no seeming concern at all for the public interest, as exemplified by the fact that only CEOs have been consulted and involved and not the public at all, not even through their elected representatives.
You criticize the idea of letting the Council of Canadians get involved in discussing the SPP because you say they would automatically reject the deal. Perhaps that's true, although it's certainly no less one-sided to have only proponents of deep integration form a task force to decide whether deep integration is good for Canada (ie the Trinational Task Force on the Future of North America that preceeded the NACC and the SPP).
But remember, my criticism is not that the Council of Canadians wasn't consulted or involved in SPP discussions. It's that the public in general wasn't consulted and still isn't. Do we know what the public in general thinks of this agreement? Because no one has asked or involved Canadian citizens (or American citizens, or Mexican citizens). You can't assume that the general public will reject the SPP out of hand--neither can you assume the public will accept it. The point is they haven't been asked nor even informed.
Further, to prevent a "pissing match" between D'Aquino and Barlow, would you have advocated that D'Aquino not be involved? Because he's the man who helped plan and implement the SPP, first through the CCCE's "brainstorming" document that later helped give the SPP its name, then through the task force on integration, now through the NACC which is the only body allowed to advise government on integration and the SPP. He's one of the very few they've let sit at the table. And he's been allowed to voice his opinions at leisure, which are hardly comforting or explanatory, but rather patronizing and incendiary, as the choice quotes I included in my speech illustrate.
And by mainly getting input from him and not seeking any sort of input from diverse groups of actual Canadian citizens, a "pissing match" between Barlow and D'Aquino was almost guaranteed, because they were the only people who even knew about the bloody thing.
The protests are aimed in large part at raising enough awareness about this issue among Canadians that they demand some input and parliamentary oversight becomes a possibility. Until now, democratic involvement in this thing has been seen basically as red tape.
Maude Barlow is also not in the House of Commons. Instead it's mainly populated with the Liberals and Conservatives who signed us on to the SPP, so I don't see why it would have been so detrimental to have some parliamentary (and congressional for that matter) oversight of this issue, which proponents of the SPP have avoided like the plague and certainly have no plans to implement as yet whether or not YOU think it's a good idea and you have faith in their intentions. Even the so-called "father of the NAU" Robert Pastor has recently criticized the secrecy of the SPP.
Individualist, if you have any evidence to actually refute me or support your faith that giant corporations are really thinking about your quality of life and your best interests while implementing the SPP, I suggest you post it. Otherwise you're just asking us to take you on faith, when all evidence suggests you're wrong.
Regardless, you should be demanding with the rest of us that this thing comes out into the open and allows you to have a say.
(Incidentally, remember Doc that according to the US Embassy the SPP is not even an agreement--that's a myth, and it's a "dialogue". Which leaves it in legal limbo somewhere and away from any pesky attempts to make it transparent, democratic, and accountable.)
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Don't want to be an American idiot / One nation controlled by the media / Information age of hysteria / It's calling out to idiot America.--Green Day
Excellent point, one which the media seems to be flogging the last couple days. Global used the example of a Canadian car parts manufacturer as an example of a business already benefiting from the SPP. They are on the list of 'preferred' exporters, so their truck go through the FAST lane at the border. Which, I agree it of benefit.
But, Canada doesn't care who exports stuff. It the US that has let them skip the normal 'pat down' at the border because they have shown they can be trusted. Harmonizing the requirements between all 3 countries makes sense - but why does it take the leaders of all 3 countries to do this? Can't the border agencies of all 3 countries get together and do it?
And what does any of this have to do with how much e-coli is in my salad? Or how much pollution is in our air?
One of the speakers at the conference made a good point too. The 'migrant worker' syndrome that is prevalent in the US south could be a problem here. That's where the free movement of cheap labour from Mexico could drive wages down to where the average Canadian couldn't' afford to live on it. The 'no one wants to flip burgers' jobs could become 'no one could afford to live on it' jobs.
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