.
I'm gradually migrating copies of all the SPP posts over here from Creekside.
The Labels on the left should make it easier to search for specific links and information.
So far I'm only up to Sept 2007. Getting there...
Meantime a couple of excellent primers written by my betters :
Ten Easy Questions and Ten Tougher Ones Regarding the SPP of N.A.
The Militarization and Annexation of North America
The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) unmasked
by Stephen Lendman
"Deep Integration"—the Anti-Democratic Expansion of NAFTA
by Laura Carlsen
Relevant Documents - Know thine enemy :
The Future of North America - Replacing a Bad Neighbour Policy
by Robert Pastor, Center for North American Studies
Building a North American Community
Co-chair John Manley ... Vice-chair Thomas d'Aquino
Council on Foreign Relations
Private Sector Priorities For the SPP
from the North American Competitiveness Council
North American Security and Prosperity Initiative
by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives
North American Future 2025 Project
from the Center for Strategic and International Studies
more to come...
Showing posts with label Tom d'Aquino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom d'Aquino. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Saturday, June 9, 2007
"We're the Indians now." **
"The Plan to Disappear Canada" in yesterday's Tyee outlines ten recent developments in deep integration that have received media coverage.
As author Murray Dobbin points out : it's good that our media is finally giving it some tentative attention but it's bad that it's taken them so long to notice that The Big Idea is already well underway.
Several people have emailed it to me along with their comments, which mostly run to the "those fucking Americans" variety, and it's this idea that deep integration is someone else's fault that I'd like to address here. Specifically I'd like to hear a lot more about complicity from certain "fucking Canadians".
Mulroney gave us the 1989 Free Trade Agreement, Chretien gave us NAFTA, Paul Martin the Security and Prosperity Partnership, and Harper - Harper's knees are covered in callouses and his lower jaw has gone numb.
In their April 2004 position paper "New Frontiers - North American Security and Prosperity Initiative", the Canadian Council of Chief Executives bragged :
"The Council was the private sector leader in the development and promotion of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement during the 1980s and of the subsequent trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement. North American economic integration is now well advanced and irreversible."
Canadians all.
The 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, also a Canadian initiative, included :
- John Manley, Task Force Canada Chair, former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Finance Minister
- Tom D'Aquino, Chief Exec of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives
- Tom Axworthy*, former Chief of Staff to Trudeau
- Jim Dinning, former Alberta Finance Minister, lost to Stelmach in leadership bid
- Wendy Dobson, Pres. C.D. Howe Institute, Ass Deputy Minister of Finance of Canada
- Pierre-Marc Johnson, former Quebec Premier
- Michael Wilson, former Canada Finance Minister, ex-Minister of International Trade, and Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.
who, along with their US and Mexican counterparts, variously advocated and signed off on :
- a North American brand name, "portraying NA as a club of privileged members"
- a North American security perimeter - "Security issues trump all other issues."
- an educational project to teach "a shared NA identity in schools"
- a North American passport.
- a feasibility study on North American currency union.
- an integrated NA electrical grid
- a NA "resource pact allowing greater trade and investment in non-renewable resources, such as oil, gas, and fresh water"
- the complaint that "Governance has not kept pace with economic realities and is preventing further integration."
(*Tom Axworthy appended a dissenting view, disagreeing with creating one security perimeter and also with moving bulk water exports and cultural protections from national to NA jurisdiction.)
Plus Smart Borders and the Smart Regulations harmonization with US regs and the Fire Sale of Canadian companies.
So please, let's admit that Canadian corporations and think tanks and politicians have more than met "those effing Americans" half-way here. However horrified we may be at the idea of hitching our wagon to the stars and stripes of the war-mongering imperialistic plutocracy to the south, let's at least admit it's Canadians who are selling off our wagon.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Whiny-ass deep integration titty-babies
.
I mean, what the hell is taking so long?
WASHINGTON (CP) - Some major U.S. businesses are worried that North American co-operation is falling off the agenda, even as leaders of the three countries get ready to meet in Quebec in August.
Uncertainty about progress on a host of cross-border initiatives is rattling some nerves in American boardrooms before President George W. Bush joins Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico's Felipe Calderon for an annual get-together.
Some quotes from above-mentioned WADITBs :
"There has to be a plan to implement this, a road map. They asked the business community to do a lot. We're not seeing any results."
"If we end up with nothing, why would I want to bring my chairman into an embarrassing meeting?"
"Either they demonstrate some progress, change the agenda or the leaders don't meet."
I'm sorry, what was that last bit again?
"Either they demonstrate some progress, change the agenda or the leadersdon't meet."
Yes, that's what I thought you said.
And then there's Ron Covais. You remember Ron Covais, don't you?
President of Lockheed Martin Americas, former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney, chair of the North American Competitiveness Council and the not-so-secret-after-all Banff meeting, and the author of these happy remarks as reported in Macleans last year :
Ron Covais is in a hurry. Covais figures they've got less than two years of political will to make it happen. That's when the Bush administration exits, and "The clock will stop if the Harper minority government falls or a new government is elected."
"The guidance from the ministers was, 'tell us what we need to do and we'll make it happen."
This is how the future of North America now promises to be written: not in a sweeping trade agreement on which elections will turn, but by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes implemented by executive agencies, bureaucraciesand regulators.
"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere."
Well Ron isn't too happy with the slow rate of progress either:
"We're asking for a status update" from top bureaucrats, he said. "By mid-June, we have to have at least a sense of where we're at."
Or what, asshole? You'll withdraw your support for all that non-legislative change? Take water and oil off the agenda to punish us? Toss the keys to the kingdoms and go home? What exactly?
Luckily Canadian Council of Chief Executives chief quisling and NAU cheerleader Tom d'Aquino is right there to reassure Colonel Sanders that the Canadian chickens really really support whatever the hell it is the colonel wants this time :
"The view from Canada is that all the fretting is unnecessary, said Thomas d'Aquino. "I would like to see more speed," but there's already been a lot of movement, he said."
And he has a remedy :
"One problem, he said, is that the leaders haven't been out publicly defending the SPP, "even though armies are working on it."
"We are urging our governments to do that."
Bring it, Tom. Bring it. We'd love to hear Harper defend being called to account by your US corporate buddies.
Bonus : If you click the Macleans link above for the Ron Covais quotes, you'll also find some bonus bitching from Dr. Ron Pastor, author of "Toward A North American Community" and member of the board of directors for the North American Forum on Integration, the group shilling the NAU to students.
.
I mean, what the hell is taking so long?
WASHINGTON (CP) - Some major U.S. businesses are worried that North American co-operation is falling off the agenda, even as leaders of the three countries get ready to meet in Quebec in August.
Uncertainty about progress on a host of cross-border initiatives is rattling some nerves in American boardrooms before President George W. Bush joins Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico's Felipe Calderon for an annual get-together.
Some quotes from above-mentioned WADITBs :
"There has to be a plan to implement this, a road map. They asked the business community to do a lot. We're not seeing any results."
"If we end up with nothing, why would I want to bring my chairman into an embarrassing meeting?"
"Either they demonstrate some progress, change the agenda or the leaders don't meet."
I'm sorry, what was that last bit again?
"Either they demonstrate some progress, change the agenda or the leadersdon't meet."
Yes, that's what I thought you said.
And then there's Ron Covais. You remember Ron Covais, don't you?
President of Lockheed Martin Americas, former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney, chair of the North American Competitiveness Council and the not-so-secret-after-all Banff meeting, and the author of these happy remarks as reported in Macleans last year :
Ron Covais is in a hurry. Covais figures they've got less than two years of political will to make it happen. That's when the Bush administration exits, and "The clock will stop if the Harper minority government falls or a new government is elected."
"The guidance from the ministers was, 'tell us what we need to do and we'll make it happen."
This is how the future of North America now promises to be written: not in a sweeping trade agreement on which elections will turn, but by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes implemented by executive agencies, bureaucraciesand regulators.
"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere."
Well Ron isn't too happy with the slow rate of progress either:
"We're asking for a status update" from top bureaucrats, he said. "By mid-June, we have to have at least a sense of where we're at."
Or what, asshole? You'll withdraw your support for all that non-legislative change? Take water and oil off the agenda to punish us? Toss the keys to the kingdoms and go home? What exactly?
Luckily Canadian Council of Chief Executives chief quisling and NAU cheerleader Tom d'Aquino is right there to reassure Colonel Sanders that the Canadian chickens really really support whatever the hell it is the colonel wants this time :
"The view from Canada is that all the fretting is unnecessary, said Thomas d'Aquino. "I would like to see more speed," but there's already been a lot of movement, he said."
And he has a remedy :
"One problem, he said, is that the leaders haven't been out publicly defending the SPP, "even though armies are working on it."
"We are urging our governments to do that."
Bring it, Tom. Bring it. We'd love to hear Harper defend being called to account by your US corporate buddies.
Bonus : If you click the Macleans link above for the Ron Covais quotes, you'll also find some bonus bitching from Dr. Ron Pastor, author of "Toward A North American Community" and member of the board of directors for the North American Forum on Integration, the group shilling the NAU to students.
.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Canada's version of Frank Carlucci
Tom D'Aquino, chief of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, was on CBC's The House this morning defending yesterday's Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting in Ottawa yesterday. See post below.
He both began and ended his interview with a reference to 9/11.
A bit puzzling to Canadians till you remember Frank Luntz' advice :
Always open and close every speech with the words "9/11".
In between, Tom touted the SPP as corporate Canada's intention to implement Kyoto and better labour standards.
Bad bad lefties for doubting this.
Tom also denies that the North American Business Council has anything to do with the North American Union. (Note to Tom : Best get this off your website then.)
Also, it isn't so much that the SPP is secret - it's just that apparently the rest of us are too stupid to be bothered with.
Oh, and the North American Business Council? It's ok - they're just "business people".
See, that's the whole point, Tom. We didn't elect them.
Audio of Tom on CBC's The House - starts at 33:40.
h/t to Pete for Carlucci analogy
He both began and ended his interview with a reference to 9/11.
A bit puzzling to Canadians till you remember Frank Luntz' advice :
Always open and close every speech with the words "9/11".
In between, Tom touted the SPP as corporate Canada's intention to implement Kyoto and better labour standards.
Bad bad lefties for doubting this.
Tom also denies that the North American Business Council has anything to do with the North American Union. (Note to Tom : Best get this off your website then.)
Also, it isn't so much that the SPP is secret - it's just that apparently the rest of us are too stupid to be bothered with.
Oh, and the North American Business Council? It's ok - they're just "business people".
See, that's the whole point, Tom. We didn't elect them.
Audio of Tom on CBC's The House - starts at 33:40.
h/t to Pete for Carlucci analogy
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