Despite the allegedly unqualified success of NAFTA, 2004 was another year filled with trade disputes between Canada and the U.S.
BSE:
The U.S. border slammed shut to Canadian beef last year and the crisis has continued throughout 2004, as ranchers have had to try to make a living while getting rock-bottom prices for beef. Some argue harmonization is the solution, but others, including many ranchers, say it is the source of the problem. It's generally underreported, but across Canada ranchers have been trying to fight the system by developing the "made in Canada" solution of reducing dependence on the US through the creation of farmer-owned slaughter facilities. At their membership meetings these farmers argue that U.S. ownership and control of the business is the true root of the crisis, and vow to take back their industry. Meanwhile, few would argue that at the very least the BSE crisis proves once again that even with "free" trade, the U.S. is always ready and willing to be protectionist. The softwood lumber dispute also lingered on and the WTO approved sanctions against the U.S. over the Byrd Amendment, a U.S. trade law that allows the country to funnel to American businesses any cash that is earned from U.S. duties levied on foreign business competitors.
December 30: USDA says Canadian cattle pose 'minimal risk'
December 29: Cellucci tells Canada to sanction US over Byrd
6. THE ELITES VS. THE STREETS
A big (and largely ignored in the mainstream) story in 2004 was the fact that even as poll after poll showed Canadians increasingly questioning U.S. foreign policy and the Bush administration's choices, Canada's elites have continued to advocate integration and harmonization with the country under that very same administration. Why the disconnect? What will it mean for our future? Two of the best articles on this issue this year appeared here on Vive as well:
October 25: Canadian Self-Haters Grow Shrill
November 27: Is Canada's Elite at War with Citizens?
5. MORE MILITARY COOPERATION
One story which could have used more exposure even here on Vive was the continuing negotiation over harmonization of the Canadian and U.S. militaries. In 2002 a bi-national planning group was created, and as of 2004 the group is soon expected to release a report recommending how the two countries' militaries can "work together more effectively to counter land-based and maritime threats."
2002: U.S. and Canada Sign Bi-National Agreement on Military Planning
2002: Enhanced Canada-U.S. Security Cooperation
2003: Text of the Canada-U.S. Security Cooperation Agreement
2003: NORAD, NorthCom, and the Binational Planning Group: The Evolution of Canada–US Defence Relations — Part 5
2004: Is the Annexation of Canada part of Bush's Military Agenda?
2004: Planning Group Weighs Value of Maritime NORAD
Nov 12: Deadline looms on continental defence project
4. MORE FOREIGN OWNERSHIP
If you've read Mel Hurtig, you know that Canada is the most foreign-owned country in the world--chiefly because we have such lax restrictions on who buys up our companies. Tim Horton's and other Canadian icons are already among the fallen, but this year U.S. companies had their eyes on the Bay and Molson's, too. And the Liberal government even decided to sell off PetroCanada, which was originally created by Trudeau to make sure we kept some control of our oil (leaving only one or two Canadian-owned oil companies in Canada, last we checked).
And if you weren't worried enough about our superpower neighbour buying up control of Canadian companies and resources, the really bad news this year was that the U.S. isn't the only superpower interested. The U.S. has some new competition from China and Russia, and China says the controversial $7-billion takeover of Noranda Inc. is just the beginning.
october 6: Noranda and Chinese government ownership of Canada
October 14: Stelco: Russian takeover--Another Canadian icon to be sold to foreigners
October 25: China to buy up Canadian resouces
3. THE COUNCIL OF CANADIANS CONDUCTS "COLONY OR COUNTRY" TOUR AND "CROSSING THE LINE" CITIZENS' INQUIRIES
This year marked the launch of a major Council of Canadians campaign to oppose deep integration with the U.S. The Council organized the "Colony or Country" tour, stopping in cities across the country and speaking about the issues, while also conducting activist strategy sessions at each stop (one of which, in Edmonton, was attended by a Vive). The organization is also currently conducting a ten-city tour called Crossing The Line: A Citizens' Inquiry on Canada-U.S. Relations. According to the CoC website, they are "seeking to raise awareness of the dangers of the push from Canadian corporate lobby groups for more economic and social integration with the United States." This is a major development as it may help raise sovereignty to the level of a national debate, and it is one of the first major efforts to coordinate activist opposition to deep integration in Canada.
(FYI, there is supposed to be another activist meeting coordinated by the CoC in the New Year which Vive may be involved with. We'll keep you posted, and meanwhile we'll keep working on our own actions and initiatives, including continuing to provide up-to-date resources and information on deep integration.)
Colony or Country Tour:
March 4: Colony or Country Press Release
march 11: Will Canada be a Colony or a Country? It's Up to Us
March 22: Colony or Country on TV (and online)
December 22: Report on Colony or Country tour (Council of Canadians)
Crossing the Line (continuing into 2005):
Crossing The Line: A Citizens' Inquiry on Canada-U.S. Relations
2. MISSILE DEFENCE
The issue of whether Canada should join the proposed U.S. system of "missile defence" is a huge issue for Canadian sovereignty, with proponents saying that joining the system is the only way to protect our sovereignty, and opponents arguing that by joining we will actually damage our sovereignty. Prominent nationalists, members of the scientific community, Canadian celebrities, the NDP and the general population seem to agree with the latter argument, and so does Vive.
Although the issue arose in 2003, not 2004, it has continued to be a major story this year. Ceasefire.ca has been leading efforts to oppose joining the system, Mel Hurtig released a book on the issue called "Rushing to Armageddon," significant numbers of federal Liberals have dissented from the party to object, and U.S. President Bush made it a point to raise the issue during his late 2004 visit to Halifax. No doubt this will continue to be huge issue in 2005.
(There are so many important articles on this issue we can't possibly list them all, so here are just a few. Enter "missile defence" in the Vive search box for more.)
January 9: NDP action against Star Wars
February 27: Thirty Liberals break ranks, support Bloc motion on missile defence shield
March 22: Prominent Canadians Oppose Missile Defence
March 26:Americans and their bloody missiles
October 4: Please help ceasefire.ca
December 6: Quebec federal Liberals reject missile defence
December 15: Mel Hurtig's Presentation to the House on BMD
And here it is, the most important story of 2004...
1. TASK FORCE PLANS NAFTA PLUS, AKA DEEP INTEGRATION
So we've had NAFTA for over a decade, and the elites in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico have apparently decided it's time for an upgrade. A Canada-U.S.-Mexico task force headed by former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister John Manley is devising a plan to establish a continent-wide customs union with a common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security that would virtually eliminate existing national borders. The idea is to compete with the EU, forgetting that in our case it would be harmonization between the world's largest superpower and two countries that have virtually no chance of maintaining their own identities once swallowed by the elephant. The article NAFTA on Steroids, which hasn't yet appeared on Vive,describes the proposed agreement extremely well. The task force is supposed to issue its report in the spring of 2005.
Essentially, NAFTA Plus equals everything Vive is against--the erosion and loss of the ability to set unique policy and maintain a unique identity.
April 26: Martin, Bush urged to discuss 'NAFTA plus'
May 15: NAFTA plus or minus?
October 18: NAFTA-plus talks aim for security pact
December 22: Bush's victory and Canada's choice
Stumble It!
To this day, I try to avoid gassing up at Petro Canada, even though it's not privatized. It remains for me a powerful symbol of big government out of control.
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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --
Winston Churchill
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Dave Ruston
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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --
Winston Churchill
Petro Kanada and the NEP were about Liberal bureaucrats confiscating wealth from Western Canada for the benefit of Central Canada. It was also an attempt to prevent Albertans from becoming politically powerful within Confederation.
It succeeded in its first objective (for a while anyway), but gave birth to the movement that defeated the Red Tories and posed the first real threat to the left-lib, redistributionist, big government consensus that had dominated Canada since the end of World War II. Unfortunately, that consensus still holds (at least for now). But this is only the beginning. Dalton Camp and Pierre Trudeau are dead, and their statist vision of Canada is dying as well.
The left-liberal intelligensia has reason to be concerned. But they're only reaping what they've sown from economic policies going all the way back to MacDonald's mercantilist National Policy.
Why shouldn't Alberta sell its oil to the US? The US and Central Canada have something in common. Both have stolen oil to serve their own interests. But Central Canada didn't need guns and bombs in their theft - only legislation and a crown corporation.
Be real about Alberta's oil. It's not Alberta-owned, it's foreign-owned. Phoney.
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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --
Winston Churchill
The way I see it, PetroCan is significant now because it was created by the government and sold by the government, ie it didn't HAVE to be lost, but the larger point is the sale just follows suit with the general pattern of private sell-offs and taveovers. Last I checked there might have been one or two oil companies still Canadian-owned, making the sale of PetroCan a big disappointment just for that reason. And that means in reality there IS no Albertan control of the industry anymore either, since that's all been sold off to headquarters in Texas and apaprently even China.
Meanwhile, we have a provincial government here which is too scared to "strangle the golden goose" (quoting a local MLA directly) to try to get a truly significant portion of money out of the oil companies' profits in return, despite the convincing argument which can be made that the citizens of the province own its resources, not the companies who "produce" it (ie, pull it out of the ground). Worse, under the proportional sharing clause of NAFTA, the more profits we reap in the short-term by upping our production and selling barrels to the U.S. now before we run out (and the AEUB's own information clearly shows conventional reserves are declining now), the more likely we are to freeze in the dark ourselves later. That's because once we export at a certain level we have to keep that level up, whether or not we still have the oil to do so--and we aren't allowed to keep any aside for our own people either (read Chptr 11 sometime).
So high oil prices mean high profits yes (as I well know, living in northern Alberta with a welder husband), but at some point, Albertans aren't going to be able to afford their own black gold. And I highly doubt that the American CEOS in charge of the oil care all that much what happens to us here. They're going to want to keep the oil flowing to feed the US machine. Even the BSE crisis offers an example: the US-owned packers and feedlots played it all to their advantage, buying up Canadian beef at firesale prices, getting BSE aid from the government, posting record profits in Canada, while keeping prices higher in the U.S.
The real point here is that we've sold the Alberta Advantage to the U.S., and for that you can blame our own comprador provincial government. You're so fixated on the past you aren't realizing that any threat from out east has been far eclipsed by the threat from down south. What political power will Alberta have at all when the oil's gone, sent south in our many pipelines (according to AEUB conventional reserves will prob be gone in next decade or two, oil sands MAY last 100 years)? What wealth will we have left after letting it all go without a fight for more of a percentage of the $$? PetroCan is just part of this larger problem, and by no means is US foreign ownership and selling our oil to them under NAFTA the lesser of two evils. If anything, PetroCan was the devil we knew. And we just sold it off to the devil we don't. At least, not quite yet.
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Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard, and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign.--Rimmer, Red Dwarf
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"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men" - George Orwell
Our 'sovereign' Federal government gets pushed around by organized crime.
A former minister & Canadian ambassador has his name come up in organized crime stories in New York.
Ministers use their ministries for granting personal favours, like permits.
etc. etc....
Canada is a joke. Canadian 'Sovereignty' is a bigger joke.
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"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men" - George Orwell
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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --
Winston Churchill
Anon, how is living in la la land anyways?
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If there was ever a time for Canadians to become pushy - now is the time - for time is running out on this nation called Canada.
What Alberta's conservatism has impeded is the imposition of soft-socialism and politically correct social engineering by our left-liberal elites. Alberta's fight for greater justice and provincial autonomy within Conferderation has forced those very same elites to shift attention away from their obsession with appeasing Quebecois ethnic nationalism long enough to remember that there is more to Canada than just Ontario and Quebec.
If the oil was in Quebec instead of Alberta, would there have been a National Energy Program or a Petro Canada? Not bloody likely!