The ABCs of the SPP: An introduction to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

In March 2005, as a result of intense lobbying from North America’s richest corporations, the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States met in Waco, Texas to shake hands on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP was a pledge to speed up the corporate goal of continental economic integration by linking it to U.S. government security demands.

In a post-9/11 world where, for the Bush administration, “security trumps trade,” the Canadian and Mexican governments have agreed to fully integrate their security apparatuses with the U.S. and fully participate in its “war on terror” in return for vague assurances of continued market access for their largest corporations. But the SPP goes much further than this. Plans for regulatory convergence, energy sector integration and a potential common external tariff will make independent Canadian policies on agriculture, the environment and energy impossible.

Since March 2005, without public input and with little public awareness, all three North American governments have been moving quickly toward establishing a continental resource pact, a North American security perimeter, and common agricultural and other health, safety and environmental policies. Working groups comprised of government officials and corporate leaders are quietly putting this “partnership” into action, and to date only industry “stakeholders” have been consulted, often in private, closed-door meetings. Not even our elected Members of Parliament have been kept in the loop.

The first report of the SPP in 2005 described how all future decisions affecting Canada-U.S.-Mexico relations would be made: “meetings” for business, “consultations” for stakeholders and “briefings” for Parliament. In other words, there would be no legislative debate on the SPP and the public would be left out of the picture completely. North America’s corporate elite, on the other hand, has a permanent seat at the table. A public-private sector dialogue on the SPP from January 2006 talked about “marrying policy issues with business priorities,” and establishing a permanent all-CEO working group to guide future discussions on integration. Lo and behold, a few months later, the Canadian, American and Mexican governments handed the private sector complete control of the SPP process by creating the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC).

On top of official SPP meetings, corporate leaders have been colluding with top military brass and government officials from all three countries at secret meetings on integration like the North American Forum. In September 2006, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day joined a host of Canadian, U.S. and Mexican military officers and other government reps to discuss things like “Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American Integration.” Leaked documents show that at least one participant said that integration will happen as a process of “evolution by stealth.” In April 2006, another closed-door meeting related to the SPP, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and paid for by the U.S. government, discussed bulk water exports from Canada to the U.S.

But the SPP is not all just high-level policy talk. It is already affecting our lives directly. In early 2007, an SPP priority to harmonize rules on pesticide residues resulted in Canada allowing higher levels of pesticides in the food we eat. The SPP’s goal of creating a North American no-fly list means that air travelers are being stopped from boarding their flights just because their names resemble one of almost half a million people U.S. officials implausibly consider an immediate threat. And the SPP’s plan for a fivefold increase in Alberta tar sands production makes it impossible for Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – putting everyone at increased risk from climate change. Clearly the public needs a much larger say in these kinds of decisions.

Those pushing the SPP, be they senior government ministers, top bureaucrats or members of the business elite, have had it pretty easy so far. They shrug off criticism of the “partnership” by claiming that the SPP is about making this continent safer and more prosperous. But if the SPP were really about everyone’s security and everyone’s prosperity, our leaders would have included more than just a handful of North America’s richest CEOs in the discussion.

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