Some have described the Canada-Mexico partnership as a failed opportunity with Ottawa more preoccupied with U.S. concerns. Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s recent trip to Canada was seen as a chance to strengthen bilateral bonds and push for more trade and investment between the two NAFTA partners. In a press statement Calderón highlighted, “The reason for this visit is to consolidate and expand our bilateral relationship at all levels.” While addressing a joint session of Parliament, he called for closer ties with Canada and the United States. He emphasized that, “Integration is key to restoring strong sustained growth in North America.” Calderón characterized Mexico as a, “valuable neighbor and a strategic partner for the future of North America's prosperity.” His message was clear as he championed the need for deeper economic integration and warned against protectionism. Also on the agenda was North American security as Canada is being called upon to expand and deepen cooperation with Mexico on police and judicial issues.
At the 2009 North American Leaders Summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada was working with the U.S. and Mexico in the fight against drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. He launched the Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program which will invest $15 million per year and, “expand Canadian law enforcement and criminal justice capacity building assistance to targeted states in the Americas. Assistance will be provided for projects that reflect Canada's policy priorities and obligations within the key international anti-crime conventions. This includes illicit drugs, corruption, human trafficking, money laundering, security system reform and crime prevention.” Under the program, Canada has already provided RCMP personnel and funding to help train Mexican Federal police. During Calderón’s recent visit, “Canada and Mexico also announced several (other) anti-crime capacity building projects that the Government of Canada will be undertaking to support Mexico’s robust and ongoing efforts to combat corruption and reform its legal system. This includes training for Mexican judges and lawyers and a harmonization of Mexico’s criminal law.”
full article http://beyourownleader.blogspot.com/2010/06/strengthening-nafta-ties-and-push.html
Stumble It!
I don't suppose it has ever occurred to these (alleged) free market proponents, to use the free market to curtail this multi-billion dollar trade in illicit drugs. Namely, go after the buyers and not the sellers. With few to buy the products, the sellers and growers would disappear. Problem solved.
However, and despite the current perception among the general populace that this multi-billion dollar industry is being supported by a few homeless "bums", the drug use pandemic is driven by those who can afford it, namely the "stalwart" middle class.
This has got to be known by our "fearless" leaders. Their collective refusal to quash drug use means they have some other reason for continuing this insane "war on drugs".
I guess it could truly be called a "snow" job.
The more "competitive", the poorer, and the more "terrorism" we get, because all forms of competition increase costs, which are then forced on the public to absorb, leading to hopelessness and suicidal terrorism.
Terrorism is the transferred real cost of the "cheap products" we're inundated with.
What we now have is not "trade" between countries and peoples, but between the hundreds of names the multinational corporate mafia operates under, exploiting the producers in the export and the buyers in the receiving countries.
Canada has now become a "resource based economy", thanks to our miseducated economists and bought politicians, selling the country from under our feet to pay for the skyscrapers of the "service economy".
The same as when the owners of a factory fire the production workers, but increase the office staff and pay them from the sale of the machinery, infrasctucture and land the factory is built on.
The sale of resources is not an income, something the public will have to come to grips with one day, and products imported from Chine, from our own resources, are not "cheaper", because we're paying for them dearly with poverty, homelessness and little, bald headed children in the cancer wards, sent there by the pollution caused by the ships and planes piling the seas and skies, carrying goods that could easily and more efficiently be made at home, with lower energy inputs and pollution.
In short, neoclassical monetary economics are the biggest crime wave in history, while our crooked and idiot economists and politicians demand more and are trying to enforce it with "security", more military, and more violence against humanity and the environment.
And now off to town to buy some more junk made by our Asian slave labour, so our "investors" can rake in more profits and demand more protection for their criminal activities, because there's nothing left there "Made in Canada".
Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.
Here's one definition that seems to fit:
http://www.answers.com/topic/made
Having been invented; contrived: These made excuses of yours just won't wash.
President Calderon of Mexico, along with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, addressed Canadian Parliament on the issues of Integration, protectionism, nationalization, globalization, labour mobility and the many successes of NAFTA and the Canada-Mexico Partnership (CMP). Calderon here on a 3 day stay, will be doing his best to demonstrate to the Canadian elite that Mexico not only has the desire but also the means to be a serious player in the North American Union.
full article
http://nauresistance.org/2010/05/harper ... re-as-one/
Right!
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/06/01/GuestWorkers/
Ed Deak.
Of course, "we have to become more competitive"..............but........who the hell are we competing against, and for what? For lower wages than in the child and slave labour countries?
Ed Deak.
According to some nutbars posting on other sites, we are "competing" for a "fair days work for a fair day's wage - something we evidently don't have today.......