BACK TO SQUARE ONE?
Corporate elite want a new SPP but poll shows
Canadians oppose continental integration
It was probably the most secretive
Security and Prosperity Partnership
(SPP) summit yet. Journalists were
offered nothing beyond painstakingly
staged press conferences to
help flesh out the fourth annual
meeting of North American leaders,
which took place in New Orleans
April 21 and 22. Not surprisingly, the
media reported nothing much happened
at the summit, that the SPP has
stalled, and that the real story was U.S.
President George W. Bush, Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and
Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s
defence of NAFTA in response to
calls for renegotiation from the U.S.
Democrats.
For possibly the first time in SPP
history, the journalists got it right
According to an article in Maclean’s
magazine, many of the business leaders
on the elite North American
Competitiveness Council didn’t bother
to show up (although those who did got
an hour and a half of President Bush’s
uninterrupted attention). And despite
renewed executive-level political support
for the SPP’s projected harmonization
of Canadian, American and Mexican
border security, energy and regulatory
policies, no new plans were announced
this year.
Is there something to celebrate here?
The answer is yes … no … and
maybe so..
Canadians are opposed to the SPP
The SPP is clearly not dead, as
Canadian columnist John Ibbitson
prematurely proclaimed after the
Montebello SPP summit last August.
But public opposition in all three
countries – particularly in Canada –
has mortally wounded it. This is
good news.
According to an Environics poll conducted
for the Council of Canadians in
April, Canadians are overwhelmingly
opposed to the main tenets of the official
“security and prosperity” agenda.
Instead of energy integration, 89 per
cent of Canadians want an energy policy
that protects the environment and
Canadian supplies, and would support
limits on exports and foreign ownership.
Instead of regulatory harmonization of
pesticides and toxic chemicals, 87 per
cent support independent environmental,
health and safety standards.
And rather than including water in SPP
discussions, 88 per cent of Canadians
want a national policy that would ban
bulk exports and recognize water as
a basic human right – something the
Liberals and Conservatives have been
unwilling to do at the United Nations.
Most importantly, 86 per cent of
Canadians want the SPP agreement
brought to Parliament for a full debate
and vote.
In other words, there is no democratic
mandate in Canada for Prime Minister
Harper to continue the secretive SPP
discussions with his American and
Mexican counterparts.
The bad news is that the Prime
Minister isn’t listening. Rather than
cease all further SPP talks until the
agreement can be debated, or even open
up these annual summits and periodic
SPP working group sessions to public
scrutiny and input, the Harper government
has endorsed yet another corporate
brainstorming session to develop a
post-SPP bilateral agreement with the
United States.
Dusting off some “big ideas”
On April 21, as the fourth SPP summit
was getting under way in New Orleans,
a review body composed of academics,
government officials and private sector
representatives was set up to develop a
post-U.S. election (November 2008)
strategy for approaching Canada-U.S.
relations. To be clear, this is not an
all-party committee or anything nearly
so democratic. Instead, a handful of
free-trade ideologues have been asked to
develop Canadian foreign policy.
The players involved are as familiar as
will be the conclusions of their summer
discussions. Derek Burney, a former
ambassador to the U.S. who now sits
on the boards of directors for both Shell
Canada and TransCanada Pipelines
Ltd., will be a strong voice for further
energy integration, arguably the U.S.
government’s major priority in the SPP.
And Thomas D’Aquino, the Canadian
Council of Chief Executives’ (CCCE)
top corporate lobbyist, will probably fill
in the details. He gave us a hint of what
those would be at a lecture in Ottawa
this past March.
Canada should respond to U.S.
concerns about NAFTA’s effect on
workers and the environment with
“a winning strategy,” said D’Aquino
in a speech organized by Carleton
University’s Norman Paterson School
of International Affairs. “It requires a
compelling vision, a big idea that will
motivate Americans and Canadians
alike to redefine their co-operation with
one another in 21st century terms.”
Sounds like 2001 all over again. In fact
the “big idea” he’s talking about involves
exactly the same components he and
his business associates infused into
pre-SPP documents like the CCCE’s
Security and Prosperity Initiative, and
the Council on Foreign Relations’ Task
Force on the Future of North America.
Even though recent Statistics Canada
data show the poor getting poorer, the
rich getting richer and the middle class
stuck in neutral as a result of the course
of free trade with the United States, D’Aquino is again promoting
intensified integration.
We need to move the U.S. border
(and U.S. border agents) into Canada
throJuly 17, 2008id D’Aquino. We need regulatory
convergence in most policy areas,
a new binding legal infrastructure for
handling international disputes, and a
common external tariff. We also need a
common security perimeter, U.S. police
officers in Canadian enforcement teams,
and joint military bases for the air and
naval defence of North America, he said.
Thus the post–New Orleans shift
toward a bilateral SPP with teeth.
Sovereignty is impacted
by continental integration
In his speech this March, D’Aquino
concluded that a new bilateral agreement
with the United States is crucial
“because a significant number of the
more far-reaching proposals I have discussed
in the context of the new big
idea cannot be implemented trilaterally
– at least not in the near term. Mexican
concerns about sovereignty would not
allow it …”
As the Council of Canadians’
Environics poll in April 2008 proves,
Canadian concerns about sovereignty
and democracy also should keep further
integration talks from continuing,
whether tri- or bilaterally. But they are
continuing, without any of the parliamentary
checks and balances you would
expect from a democratic nation.
Despite widespread public opposition,
Prime Minister Harper has significantly
intensified the pace of regulatory harmonization
with the United States in
the areas of food, drugs, pesticides, toxic
chemicals and consumer product safety.
He has further undermined Canada’s
energy security by allowing the approval
of several new pipelines to carry tar
sands crude to U.S. refineries, despite
the environmental costs. And he continues
to undermine the real security of
Canadians through U.S. law enforcement
and military pacts, hopelessly flawed cross-July 17, 2008ic databases that put
our privacy at risk.
So should we celebrate the fizzling out
of the SPP just yet? If only we could.
Unfortunately the “security and prosperity”
agenda will be rehashed again and
again by Canada’s corporate and political
ideologues unless we continue to
fight it in all its forms.
The good news is that NAFTA renegotiation
– a strong possibility if the
Democrats are elected in the United
States – is not a threat to Canada, but
an opportunity to confront and then
reverse the course of integration being
plotted through secretive SPP meetings.
The challenge for us is to be ready and
organized when the next U.S. president
comes knocking on Canada’s door with
his or her own “big ideas” for North
America.
For the full results of the
Council of Canadians’ poll, visit
www.canadians.org and click on the
report “Not Counting Canadians: The
Security and Prosperity Partnership
and Public Opinion.”
Stuart Trew is the Ontario-Quebec Regional
Organizer for the Council of Canadians.
Printer-friendly version: Back to Square One? in PDF Format (163kB)
Photo: Members of the Council of Canadians’ Windsor
chapter participated in a mock funeral
procession to mark the death of Canadian
sovereignty in protest of the SPP summit
taking place in New Orleans.
