SPP : Sodding Parliamentary Perfidy

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Parkland Institute Professor Gordon Laxer's testimony before the trade committee on the SPP was disrupted by International Trade Chair Leon Benoit's procedural meltdown last Friday. Benoit adjourned the meeting, stomping out with the three other Con committee members in tow, after which Laxer finished his presentation.
At a subsequent meeting the committee voted six to four (guess which ones!) to include Laxer's testimony in the record and here it is :

Presentation on the SPP to the International Trade CommitteeGordon Laxer May 10, 2007
For all you non-clickers out there, here's a couple of choice bits:

"NAFTA's proportionality clause : You won't convince Canadians to cut fossil fuel use, as we must, if it means that whatever we save is exported to the U.S., the proportional requirement rises, and tarsands carbon emissions remain unchanged."

"We import about 40% of our oil, 850,000 barrels a day - to meet 90% of Atlantic Canada and Quebec's needs, and 40% of Ontario's. A rising share, 45% comes from OPEC countries, primarily Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Imports from North Sea suppliers - Norway and Britain - are shrinking (37%)."

"Western Canada can't supply all of eastern Canada's needs, because NAFTA reserves Canadian oil for Americans' security of supply. Canada now exports 63% of our oil and 56% of our natural gas production. Those export shares are currently locked in place by NAFTA's proportionality clause, which requires us not to reduce recent export proportions. Mexico refused proportionality. It only applies to Canada."


I know. It all sounds pretty grim.
But at least SPP will now get a public airing in the House of sodding Commons.
For their part, the Cons are now saying it never has been a secret.

UPDATE : Decent edi in yesterday's Embassy Mag
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Spazzing out on the SPP

Leon Benoit's little hissy fit yesterday at the parliamentary hearings on SPP deep integration has already been deftly covered by Dave and 1337hax0r and The Jurist.

Chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade Leon Benoit attempted to silence an expert witness about the consequences of guaranteeing unlimited energy supplies to the U.S, lost the vote on allowing the witness to proceed, and so promptly adjourned the hearing and stomped out, followed by three other Cons.

Quel friggin surprise.

Here is how Con/Alliance/Reform MP Committee Chair Benoit opened the hearings on SPP deep integration on April 26, 2007 : (bold mine)

"Good morning, everyone.
We're here today pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). The House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade is undertaking a study examining the opportunities and challenges Canadian businesses face with respect to the Canada-U.S. relationship.

The committee is specifically interested in identifying and removing the obstacles that stand in the way of stronger economic ties with the U.S. and answering the question of what the Government of Canada can do to help Canadian businesses take better advantage of trade, investment, and business opportunities."


So you can see how invited witness Prof Gordon Laxer of the Parkland Institute explaining that we have no laws to protect ourselves against freezing in the dark should the US so demand might put a little crimp in his agenda.

The hearings continued without Benoit and I will be interested to see if the gnugovs credit and publish in Hansard what discussion ensued after the departure of his sorry ass. I'll let you know. (Only three committee members are required to be present in order to hear testimony.) For some unimaginable reason they are lagging about three meetings behind on publishing the SPP committee notes.

Happily, NDP MP Peter Julian is on the committee and provides transcripts from May1 and May3 here at Vive le Canada.

Here's a taste from one witness, Prof Michael Hart, Carleton University :

" We have to build a higher level of concern in Washington at the highest levels that the continued health and prosperity of the North American economy means that we must deal with the border differently. That means a willingness on our part to, for example, strengthen the perimeter around North America in order to deal with security issues that are uppermost in American minds: it should also be of concern to us. Similarly, we need to be prepared to sit down with the Americans and be good partners.

I think over the last 10 or so years we have not been as good a partner as we might have been, raising suspicion in Washington as to whether or not we would continue to be the kind of partner they're looking for. In the end, these are political choices. You make the political choices and you reap the results.

We have made a political choice that we wanted a more deeply integrated North American economy. We have benefited greatly from that, despite what some of the witnesses are saying. We must now decide whether we want to make that work, or do we want to put various kinds of obstacles in its way, including allowing the Americans to build up the security framework they're pursuing."


When you read all three days of testimony, you find a lot of that from the various witnesses with business interests. They worry that US concerns with border security will countermand their access to US markets. They feel the urgency to get Canada inside the North American fortress before the US security drawbridge goes up. To this end, they expect the rest of us to go along, to push or at least allow the Canadian government to appease the US in whatever the US wants : oil, ballistic missile umbrella, whatever it takes. They are not too keen to discuss the things that must be traded away to achieve this. It's a very narrow view, far too narrow to represent Canada. We cannot allow them to represent us.

Thank you, Peter Julian, for opening this up to public debate, and to Maud Barlow for your testimony on our behalf.

UPDATE : The real reason for Benoit's hissy fit? Dave nails it.
UPDATE 2 : Lib MP Mark Holland was at this meeting. A BCer in TO provides Holland's facebook account of the events.
UPDATE 3 : The committee voted 6 to 4 to include the rest of the nearly derailed testimony on the record. Next stop - the floor of the HoC and better media coverage. Finally.

SPP : Securing Prosperity for the Plutocracy

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You just gotta love The Fraser Institute.

In their ironically named new report, "International Leadership by a Canada Strong and Free", The Fraser Institute attempts to do for Canada/US deep integration what Last Tango in Paris did for ass-fucking : make it acceptable.

The main thrust of their argument is that Canada should become the world's leading proponent of free trade by boldly throwing open our economy and resources to the US. They explain that the other countries aren't really worth bothering with.

Some exact quotes from the first 75 pages of this fawning lubricant, written by Fraser Institute Senior Fellows Mike Harris, ex-premier of Ontario, and Preston Manning, formerly of the Alliance/Reform Party :

~ Deepening integration with the US economy must be on the agenda as the best way for Canadians to increase our trade, prosperity, and leadership potential.

~For Canada, Mexico’s presence at the NAFTA table is no reason to avoid action on our urgent national interest in pursuing a formal structure to manage irreversible economic and security integration with the United States.

~The 2005 Security and Prosperity Initiative adopted by Prime Minister Martin and President Bush and confirmed by the Harper government a year later laid a promising foundation. Both governments now receive regular status reports on its implementation. The earlier Smart Border Accord gave security and access to the United States a higher priority than before September 11. Both, however, operate within existing laws and policies and are therefore limited in scope. Extracting the full benefit of deeper integration requires a more ambitious initiative.

~ The federal government should revisit the decision not to participate in the Ballistic Missile Defence program

~The central importance of good US-Canada relations to Canada’s interests across virtually every domestic and international issue requires that the federal government make that relationship its highest international priority.

~ In order to facilitate the integrated coordination of their two economies, the two governments need to create a customs union involving a common external tariff, a joint approach to the treatment of third-country goods, a fully integrated energy market, a common approach to trade remedies, and an integrated government procurement regime.

~Government has no place in the decision-making of Canadian consumers, importers, or exporters.

~The tradition of subordinating bilateral cooperation with the United States to the broader North Atlantic Alliance is no longer sustainable.

~If Canadians wish to contribute to global peace and security they can only do so effectively as partners with the United States.

~There is much to be said for Canada and the United States developing a North American energy security accord that looks at the best way to develop and distribute the continent’s resources to the benefit of people on both sides of the border.


Please feel free to make liberal use of the above exact quotes in your letters and phone calls to CBC the next time they interview anyone from The Fraser Institute as an expert on free trade or Canada/US relations.
Probably best not to mention the ass-fucking though.
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All your water are belong to us - Part 2

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Go read the post below this one first. Go on - I'll wait.

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OK - Update :Northumberland Local News April 27 2007 :

Canada has "no intentions" of entering into bulk water export negotiations, the Hon. Peter MacKay said Thursday in Ottawa Thursday. Canada's government is not participating at today's North American Future 2025 Project roundtable in Calgary, nor is Canada providing any funding for the meeting, a statement by Northumberland-Quinte West MP Rick Norlock says.

"On the issue of bulk water export, the government has no intention of entering into any negotiations behind closed doors, or otherwise, regarding the matter of bulk water exports," Mr. MacKay is quoted as saying."
Suggesting we would even discuss bulk water exports is totally false," Mr. Norlock said. "Canada's government is committed to protecting water in its natural state and to preserving the integrity of ecosystems, and will continue to do so."

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Ok, good. That's pretty unequivocable, wouldn't you say?

So then why does Page 2 of the North American Future 2025 Project read :

"Each of the roundtables will convene a combination of practitioners (from each respective administration and legislature); stakeholders (from the private sector and conceivably even labor unions); and highly specialized academics and analysts from Canada, the United States, and Mexico."

and

"The North American Future 2025 project will also examine relevant future-looking work dealing with each of the six topics on which the three governments have agreed -- namely labor mobility, energy, the environment, security, competitiveness, and border infrastructure and logistics.
The final deliverable will be a report on options and policy recommendations on the future of North American integration that will be presented in September 2007 to the executive and legislative branches of the three governments of North America."

and

"The CSIS North American Project will convene pertinent government officials from Canada, the United States, and Mexico, along with selected nongovernmental experts....."

And so on for another 20 pages.

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Here's Page 16 :"Project Timeline - July 1, 2006 - Sept 30, 2007

Planning Phase - July 2006 - January 2007
~ Meet with U.S., Canadian, and Mexican government officials to identify government participants for each of the roundtable meetings."

There are seven such roundtables listed, with #6 and #7 being yesterday and today.

So what did Mr MacKay mean when he said that no Canadian government officials were at today's meetings?

What about all the other days?

Are any Canadian government officials going to be at this one in July?

Page 17 : "Review Phase - June 12, 2007 - July 17, 2007
~ July 2 - July 8 : Review of edited report by U.S., Mexican, and Canadian governments."

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Because even if Mr MacKay is adamant about not selling off and/or diverting Canadian water to the States, if Canadian government officials are participants in this, there's enough else damning information in the North American Future 2050 Program, that I'd still be worried.

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Go read the damn thing for yourself.

Take special note of the C.V.s of the U.S. participants, and the Canadian too, at the end.

I'm going for a nap now but I'll be back.

And if anyone hears anything in the meantime, let me know.

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UPDATE : And I got nothin' - yet.

Although it is interesting, as noted in comments, that although the Conference Board of Canada have criticized the idea of bulk water exports in the past and have stated that their participation and logo on the North American Future 2025 Project does not signify compliance with all NAF2025Project's opinions, the Conference Board was an architect and booster of that other great SPP initiative : TILMA

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All your water are belong to us

"It's no secret that the U.S. is going to need water. ...
It's no secret that Canada is going to have an overabundance of water.

At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements."

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So says Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the North American Future 2025 Project, which is wrapping up its closed-door two-day conference in Calgary today.

NAF2025 Project is the trilateral spawn of the US thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada, and CIDE, a Mexican policy institute.
Its mandate is implementing the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the deep integration deal signed by Bush, Fox, and Martin in 2005 and further expanded by Bush, Fox, and Harper in 2006.

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From an outline of the conference :
"the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water."

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Not bad.
'All your water are belong to us' would have been catchier.
Still, the message is unmistakable, isn't it?

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From the World Business Council For Sustainable Development :
"North American Future 2025 Project - an effort to draft a blueprint for economic integration of the continent."
"On a world scale, Canadians enjoy an overabundance of freshwater that is out of proportion to the national population, when compared with other countries.
With the impacts of climate change a present reality as well as a future certainty, Canada will be increasingly pressured to bolster North America's freshwater supplies. The policy, business, and social responses to this issue will be vital to ensuring the prosperity and environmental integrity of the entire continent.
There are many legal and international trade issues involved, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) could possibly be used as the basis for a challenge to Canada's right to control water exports. That challenge rests largely on the definition of water as either a ‘vital resource' or a 'commodity."

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Amazingly, Canada has no enforceable water policy.

"Maude Barlow, National chair of the Council of Canadians, points out in a statement that provincial accords to prevent exports are voluntary, and that the only existing prohibition on bulk water exports contained in the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty Act (IBWTA) only applies to waters that are shared with the U.S., and not on water from Canada's North."

What Canada does have however is the Conference Board of Canada working away at deep integration.

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Maude Barlow : “The big business community and corporate lobby groups have been granted executive level access to the integration process. No equivalent role has been granted to labour groups, civil society or even Parliament in Canada.”

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NDP MP Peter Julian intends to change all that when he brings the SPP issue to committee for its very first parliamentary debate :
Julian : "Canada stands to lose millions of litres of fresh water as a result of bulk water exports if the Conservatives enact proposals being discussed later this week in a closed-door meeting in Calgary.
Today NDP MPs stood on the steps of Parliament Hill and called for a full parliamentary debate on the issue of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) - before the government implements this deep integration with the U.S. any further." continued ...

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Unlike the notorious secret Banff meeting, and the one that followed it, this time at least there is some media coverage.
Thank you, Peter Julian, for bringing this to open public debate.
It's a start.

Fixed : Link to Peter Julian's press release
Link to North American Future 2025 Project pdf

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O'Connor's "Bumps along the road and little glitches"

Just a couple of guys who were both the victims of bad intelligence.

On the heels of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's apology for misleading the House with assurances that the Red Cross would report any mistreatment of Afghan prisoners to Canadian authorities, the Globe and Mail reports today that O'Connor was the victim of bad intelligence from his policy advisors."

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The group, led by assistant deputy minister for policy Vincent Rigby, first advised Mr. O'Connor last May that "if pressed" in the Commons with questions about detainee follow-up, he should respond by saying: "If the ICRC advised us of some problems with transferred detainees, we would discuss the issue with the government of Afghanistan."

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This has certainly been Mr Rigby's own preferred response when pressed :

Rigby, addressing the Standing Committee on National Defence on Dec 11, 2006:

"With respect to the International Committee of the Red Cross, again, they have an international mandate to follow up in this regard with detainees who are transferred to Afghan authorities. Our relationship with the ICRC has been excellent. They have all the information we've provided to them, and certainly they've had access and have been following up with detainees we've transferred to Afghan authorities."

and

"We're very comfortable with the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, and with our access to prisons as required. We've had absolutely no information passed to us directly by the ICRC or the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission or Afghan authorities themselves as to mistreatment of detainees passed on to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces."

There's lots more quotes like this from Rigby but you get the gist : he never actually states that we're depending on the ICRC to report back to us about the prisoners we hand over; he just mentions them in the same sentence every time it comes up.

The previous May, O'Connor was deferring all such questions regarding prisoners to Rigby.

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From the Standing Committee on National Defence, May 30, 2006 :

"NDP Ms Dawn Black: I've had a lot of interest and questions about the detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan. Has NATO concluded a detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan, and when will that agreement be made public? I would assume that it will be, if indeed there is an agreement with NATO, and that it would govern Canadian transfers once NATO assumes control through ISAF in the south.

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Hon. Gordon O'Connor: I don't know that, ma'am. I'm going to have to ask Mr. Rigby.

Is there such a thing as a NATO agreement for detainees?

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Mr. Vincent Rigby (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy), Department of National Defence): We're certainly working on that right now, Ms. Black, in a NATO context. Certainly Canada is very involved in Brussels in helping draft that document, but it's not finished yet. I'm not aware of exactly how.... One of the issues is how it will relate to the Canadian detainee arrangement and the other detainee arrangements that NATO allies have right now, so it's still a work in progress; we still have a little ways to go.

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NDP MP Ms Dawn Black: Essentially, are Canadian soldiers instructed to give minimal protections because this is not an international conflict, or do we give the full prisoner-of-war protections, such as preventing prisoners from being humiliated or being put as public curiosities and photographed?

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Hon. Gordon O'Connor: My understanding is the latter--that we maintain the highest standards.

I'll ask Mr. Rigby to confirm that."

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Yeah, ok, that's enough of that. You get the idea. O'Connor doesn't appear to know anything about prisoners and repeatedly cues Rigby up to "imply".

And it was all going just swimmingly until O'Connor stood in Parliament - without Rigby - and made that one small causative embellishment on Rigby's usual series of passive-voice obfuscations :

"The Red Cross or the Red Crescent is responsible to supervise their treatment once the prisoners are in the hands of the Afghan authorities. If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action."

and another time :

"The process is that if Canadian soldiers capture insurgents or terrorists they hand them over to the Afghan authorities and then the International Red Cross or Red Crescent supervise the detainees. If there is any problem, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and then we would become involved."

At which point the ICRC was forced to say that no, they wouldn't, because it was not in their mandate to report back to third parties.

The US State Dept, Louise Arbor at the UN, Amir Attaran, Michael Byers, and the Afghan International Human Rights Committee have all described torture of detainees in Afghanistan as "routine".

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But O'Connor's getting his advice from a guy who once described Canada's decision to stay out of Iraq and the US Ballistic Missile Defense Program as "bumps along the road and little glitches".

That was Vincent Rigby in his powerpoint presentation to the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

You can watch it here.

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UPDATE : Well now look - you guys have pissed Dave off with your Bushwhackery.

That link to Rigby's Dec 2006 appearance before the National Defence Standing Committee keeps going down so here it is in a cached pdf

And I forgot to thank Audacious Ontology for the G&M link.

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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

"Canada is not the gas tank of the U.S."

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Hey Canadians - wake up! It's Feb. 23, Condi's here, and it's time for another gnu-gov installment of Security, Prosperity and Peace For Our Time Partnership.
In addition to Condi, attending the meeting today will be Peter MacKay, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, and their Mexican counterparts.

The North American Competitiveness Council, these guys, will deliver 50 recommendations to the SPP ministers.
I'll just bet they will.
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From Canadian Press :
"It's not often governments have to put out a press release reassuring their citizens they're not selling out their sovereignty."

"The SPP is legal and in no way violates the Constitution or affects the legal authorities of the participating executive agencies," reads the U.S. Security and Prosperity Partnership website.

MacKay addressed the concerns earlier this week.
"It's ensuring that Canada's sovereignty, Canada's interests and Canada's prosperity and security are going to be advanced through this partnership and through these very open and high-level dialogues," he said.
Still, the Canadian government provided no official briefing on what was expected from the meetings."

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Heh. By "open", Stockboy is presumably referring to his public denial of the existence of the Banff SPP meeting in September, later followed up by his clarification that it wasn't actually "secret".
Typically, the Americans are rather more straight forward about it :
"We're working on a trilateral initiative on energy..." Tom Shannon, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Thursday.

NDP Energy Critic, Dennis Bevington :
"Canada is not the gas tank of the United States. NAFTA already locks us into supplying energy to the United States even if ordinary Canadians go without; a North American Union would only make this worse."

and NDP Trade Critic Peter Julian :
"The Harper government must pull out of further talks on continental integration with the United States and Mexico or risk our national sovereignty.
Canadians should know that the SPP process supports a North American Union (NAU). The NDP rejects the secretive process surrounding these ongoing discussions. Canadians will never support a political ideology which aims at turning North America into a fortress for corporate interests and neglects the interests of ordinary Canadians. Canadian sovereignty is not for sale to the highest bidder and the federal government has no authority to push for a NAU without a mandate from Canadians,” said Julian
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Julian is calling for a public debate.
You may remember him calling for one on the softwood lumber deal after a US negotiating lawyer informed us we were being sucker-punched. He also called for one on the Banff meeting.

Don't be looking to the Libs for any help on this - they're the ones who started it.
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So, bloggers, start your engines.
Steve reading aloud from a tabloid in the House and bringing a whole gnu nuance to the poo-flinging more commonly known as Question Period is certainly rivetting stuff. But he was a dick the day before and will still be one tomorrow, so let's not be so diverted by that little Punch and Judy Show that we miss what's going on behind the curtain.

Both the links above, CP and NDP, are well worth a read.
With many thanks to Holly Stick for the nudge and the links.

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LATE NIGHT UPDATE : MSM coverage of SPP implications of today's meeting
Nothing on CBC TV News or website, except for a pic of a protester being escorted away with no explanation as to what she was doing.
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Nothing in the major dailies either but for this from the Hamilton Spectator :
"OTTAWA Top North American ministers deflected criticism that they had consulted only big business for their talks on trade and security rules, suggesting there are "different venues" for public interest and labour groups to raise concerns."

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Different venues for public interest than our elected officials?
And what would those be, pray tell?
Legs on this south of the border though : Lou Dobbs on CNN
Anyone hear of any coverage up here?

Notes from the Anschluss

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Remember that secret "deep integration" meeting held in Banff last September?
A total news blackout accompanied the week long conference - nothing in the news while it was going on but for this one local Banff paper, who have updated their scoop here.
At the time, some small amusement was provided by Stockwell Day who first asserted that there was no meeting and then later admitted that there had indeed been one but it wasn't a secret.

Now, courtesy of US Freedom of Information laws and the gods of irony, Canadians have access to some notes from those meetings.
From the Ottawa Citizen : Canadian, U.S. and Mexican officials held secretive meeting on integration
"Canadian, U.S. and Mexican politicians discussed using "stealth" to overcome public resistance to the integration of the three countries at a confidential meeting last year, according to documents just released under U.S. Freedom of Information laws.
Top military brass, corporate executives and diplomats also attended the meeting in Banff, Alta., where participants discussed everything from the harmonization of food and drug standards, to common immigration policies, and the pooling of energy resources.
The secret guest list of the North American Forum included then-U.S. secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld, Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Pengrowth Corp. CEO James Kinnear and Lockheed Martin executive Ron Covais.
Presentation outlines for the forum acknowledge that the concept of North American integration - which some call a "North American Union" - is unpopular, and note that it might be tough to sell as a concept.
"While a vision is appealing, working on the infrastructure might yield more benefit and bring more people on board ('evolution by stealth')," the notes said."

Well, that explains all the secrecy quite well, doesn't it?.

"But, former finance minister John Manley, who attended the meeting, said the forum was "not part of a nefarious plan to yield sovereignty to the U.S. .... It was just some informed private citizens and government officials having a conversation on how best to co-operate to ensure their citizens enjoyed a safe and prosperous future."

Reassuring words. Or rather they would be had John Manley not been the Canadian Chair on the Task Force on the Future of North America back in 2005. You know, the one that called for one currency, one security perimeter, one passport, and a resource pact for oil, gas, and fresh water. To be fair to Manley, he did append some dissenting opinions on sovereignty to the final report before it was delivered to the Washington think tank who commissioned it.

Anyway back to this "partnership" thingey....Council of Canadians has expressed concern that :
"Most of the 300 policy recommendations within the accord may not require legislative changes."

So there's your "evolution by stealth".

Banff attendee Ron Covais, President of the Americas for Lockheed Martin and a former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney, explained it this way to Macleans :
"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, bureaucracies and regulators.
"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere."
"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."

So let's stop the damn clock.
Security and Prosperity Partnership web page at the White House.

U.S. urges fivefold expansion in Alberta

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U.S. urges "fivefold expansion" in Alberta oilsands production
"The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could have major implications on the environment.
U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion" in oilsands production in a relatively "short time span.
Canada is already the top exporter of oil to the American market, exporting the equivalent of one million barrels a day — the exact amount that the oilsands industry in Alberta currently produces."

Which reminded us of this :
"But the current extraction of oil from the tarsands results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: it's already the biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions in Canada."

But it's cool because Steve is on it :
"Canada's natural resources will be developed but that will not be done at the expense of the environment," Dmitri Soudas [PM's office] told the Canadian Press.
Canada's main oil lobby group said there is no pledge to increase production five-fold for the Americans.
"There is no promise," said Greg Stringham of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers."

OK. So why then did Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn stand beside federal Environment Minister John Baird yesterday and say this? :
"As we see the potential increase in (oilsands) production, moving from a million barrels a day up to four or five (million), we need to do better. I think there's great promise in the oilsands for nuclear energy," Lunn said."There's a great opportunity to pursue nuclear energy -- something that I'm very keen on."

Why so very keen, Gary? Well, perhaps because of this :
"Paul Michael Weaby, a Washington insider and an expert on the geo-strategic aspect of the oil industry, said Bush is counting on Canada to help wean the United States off Middle Eastern oil — a goal now defined as a national security objective."
He wanted to have a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from the Middle East. Although he did not mention Canada, that is in fact where the replacement supply will come from."

The Alberta oilsands as a U.S. national security objective.
Surprised? No. Me neither.
Think if Canada doesn't grow some nukes and produce those 5 million barrels a day, that we will be treated any better than Venezuela, that other old western U.S. oil supplier?
No. Me neither.

WTF is it NAU?

The Royal Bank has been refusing to open American dollar accounts for Canadian citizens with dual citizenship in Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea or Myanmar since April 2006.
The Royal Bank has confirmed it is conforming with U.S. Treasury Department laws.

According to CBC :
"A spokesperson for the federal Finance Department said it was unaware of the practice, and that the bank could be liable for heavy fines."

Now, as it happens, the Royal Bank has a blog [Ed. note - and rivetting stuff it is too] and on this blog they are running a contest : The Next Great Innovator Challenge.
Drop by and let them know that your idea of a great innovation is abiding by Canadian law.

Bonus Reading : The Case For the Amero - The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union, a Fraser Institute report by Conservative/Reform Party member Herb Grubel.
I especially liked this line with its quotation marks :
"#39 Resistance to the amero will be lessened by continuing to call it officially a "dollar".

SPP : Stupid Papineauville Policy

Does the Municipality of Papineauville, Quebec have any idea of the irony of pronouncing the authority of the US Army to deny the Council of Canadians the right to protest deep integration with the US on Canadian soil?

From the Council of Canadians :
"The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometres from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum on Sunday August 19, on the eve of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit.

The Council of Canadians has been told that the RCMP and the SQ will be enforcing a 25-kilometre security perimeter around the Chateau Montebello, where Stephen Harper will meet with George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón on August 20 and 21."

The US Army will not allow the municipality...?
A 25K security perimeter? WTF?

From the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms :
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

• a) freedom of conscience and religion;
• b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
• c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
• d) freedom of association.

No mention in there anywhere of these rights being subject to the whims of the US Army.
Note that Papineauville evidently didn't feel the authority of the RCMP was sufficient unto itself here.
Or have we officially given up bothering to distinguish between the policies of the RCMP and those of the US Army?

UPDATE : From Thursday's Ottawa Citizen :
"Mr. Patterson [of Council of Canada] said Frederic Castonguay, the town's general manager, reported that Guy Cote, of the Quebec police force in Montreal, had told him the council "is an activist organization opposed to the summit and that it would not be wise to have us set up in the community centre."

Mr. Castonguay yesterday confirmed he had been called by Mr. Cote, who told him that the police and U.S. army need the community centre as a base of operations for summit security."

Canada says torture flights "lawful"

From Macleans :
"Extraordinary rendition, the U.S. practice of shipping terrorism suspects to foreign prisons, may be legal in some cases, says the Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore :
"Whether any particular rendition is lawful would depend on the facts of each individual case."

But hey, not to worry because :
"The government said earlier this year a review of dozens of alleged CIA aircraft landing at Canadian airports uncovered no evidence of illegal activity."

Even though :
"Alex Neve of Amnesty International Canada accused Ottawa on Monday of failing to "launch a thorough and comprehensive probe" of the possible use of Canadian airstrips by planes involved in extraordinary rendition."
Some of those same planes implicated in the European cases are known to have made use of Canadian airspace and airstrips," he said."

Alleged CIA torture flights in 2005 : UK-210, Gemany-437, Canada, um, 0

At the same time this secret Foreign Affairs/Justice Dept report was being prepared last November, Condi Rice was jetting around Europe telling everyone to just shut up shut up shut up about torture flights.

Times-Online Dec 6, 2005
"Rice challenged European leaders to back controversial American anti-terrorism tactics yesterday as she robustly defended the CIA’s extrajudicial seizure, transportation and interrogation of thousands of suspects.
Dr Rice said that she expected American allies to co-operate and keep quiet about sensitive anti-terrorism operations....she pointedly reminded European governments that they had helped the US for years in a “lawful” policy of rendition — the removal of suspects to third countries for interrogation."

Ah, there we go - "lawful".

Canada, a nation within the United States

From the Glib&Mall :
"The Conservative government is floating plans to block takeovers and investment from foreign state-owned firms should it detect a threat to Canada in the transaction, a move triggered by China's global prowl for acquisitions."

Well, I've certainly argued for this, although I wouldn't have singled out China or bothered with delicate distinctions between foreign state-owned firms and firm-owned states. (Firms? Who says firms any more?)
But look at the assumptions in this next bit :

"Greater Chinese inroads into the oil sands would certainly unnerve American policy makers, who always include Canada's tar-rich deposits in the equation when they discuss how the United States could achieve energy independence."

So Canada is now voluntarily initiating policy to facilitate a smoother US takeover of our resources?
When did the US cease to be a foreign power?
Yeah, I know, but it bugs me the G&M just takes it for granted.
The list of 'unfriendlies' is interesting : Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Venezuela. What - no North Korea?

The Cons - vigilantly protecting the national interests of the US.

The man that time forgot

Atlantica, Cascadia, and presumably also Pointsinbetweenica* will soon be getting a boost as a replacement for Canada, thanks to the appointment of right wing free marketeer Brian Lee Crowley to a position as senior policy adviser to the federal Finance Department.

Crowley is the founding president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, created to promote Atlantica as the economic union of the Atlantic provinces with the New England states. He's also a big fan of NASCO, the ten lane corridor almost a quarter of a mile wide with gas, oil, electricity, and water pipelines running up either side, which is being proposed to link Mexico, with her non-union truck drivers, directly to Winnipeg.

The Canada/US border, according to Crowley, is merely an impediment to "continental integration" :
"The east-west axis for development of North America is being supplemented by a drive to stitch back together the old north-south trade routes that had flourished across the continent before 1867."

Ah yes, the goode olde dayes.
Other concepts from before 1867 that win Crowley's approval are lack of pay equity for women, lack of regional development funding, lack of EI and welfare, and lack of government interference in the glorious free market.

The Federal Bureau of Integration

FBI agents are carrying out investigations in Canada without the approval of the Canadian government. Yeah, I know - quel surprise.

But there's an interesting bit of vid up on CBC about it here : Video - Evan Dyer.
I know you hate the clicky/linky thing so here's the gist of it.
RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli assured Canadians that no effort would be spared to avoid a repetition of the Arar debacle, and he has since put in place procedures that centralize and properly vet "paper documentation" going to U.S. authorities.

However Evan Dyer reports that this means doodly because members of the FBI are in fact physically present at those very meetings. The Canadian Integrated National Security & Enforcement Teams are there when ongoing investigations are discussed. Ongoing, as in unproven.
INSET handled the intel on Arar and the Toronto 17.

Dyer further points out that this is particularly troubling given the recent passage of the U.S. Military Commissions Bill, which allows the U.S. to prosecute foreigners, including Canadians, on hearsay evidence.

I'm guessing despite Zac's concern about vetting "paper documentation", the FBI will probably manage to take its own notes at those meetings.

"When asked about the report during question period, Day said Canadian security forces work with Canada's allies, including the U.S, and have agreements in terms of information sharing."
Shorter Day : It's ok if the FBI doesn't ask our permission first before initiating their own investigation because we already said they don't have to.

Shorter me : Isn't this where we came in? Stockwell Day has Stockholm Syndrome.

Senate endorses leaky umbrella

A senate defence committee report released Thursday says Canada should sign on to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.

Because signing on to a program that can't even pass its own tests on a good day under ideal conditions in that sink hole of escalating pre-emptive militarization and weaponization of space that is the flagship of U.S. diplomacy just seems like the right thing to do.

.

Here's a better test of Canadian security for you - How many Canadian students travelling abroad sport a US flag on their backpacks?

To be fair, the Senate Defence Committee also advises doubling the amount of money we assign to foreign aid :

"The likelihood of reducing world turmoil through military responses is a mug's game. Force won't work on its own."

Yeah, well, they got the first sentence right.

Link. Much better coverage of this at No BMD, eh?

The Anschluss watchdogs

Remember the super-secret deep integration conference at the Banff Springs Hotel last week?And the quite spectacular non-coverage it received from CBC and the print media?

Well today it just became a whole lot more visible thanks to ...

Aaron Paton at the Banff Crag and Canyon who scooped the mainstream media.
Susan Thompson at Vive le Canada who followed up on publishing Mel Hurtig's email last week with a list of the conference's participants and agenda, and
Maude Barlow of Council of Canadians who provides a concise overview in today's Toronto Star, the first big paper to make any mention of it.

On the blogs, skdadl at Pogge summarizes the progress so far, while Ross at The Gazetteer has been pushing on this all week in five separate posts.

Take a bow, Anschluss watchdogs, for paying attention to the little men behind the curtain.

Update : Gosh, and thanks just ever so, CBC, for this truly stellar piece of investigative journalism.
And to think they were working without a media press kit from Stockboy!
They did at least quote Banff taxi driver Chris Foote, who as Herbinator mentioned below, should have been prominantly included in my list above for his part in getting the word out.

Stop the clock

Yesterday I was furious that there was no mention on CBC or in any newspaper of the Canada/US "deep integration" conference wrapping up today in Banff. One would have thought that the possibility of Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Canada would have rated at least a one-liner somewhere.

Nada. Ditto today.

Silly me. I should have been looking among the Anschluss fans :
"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, bureaucracies and regulators. "We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere." "

"The guidance from the ministers was, 'tell us what we need to do and we'll make it happen,' " recalls Covais, who chairs the U.S. section of the council, which includes 10 CEOs of big companies like Wal-Mart, General Motors and Merck."

"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."

That's Ron Covais - President of the Americas for Lockheed Martin, a former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney and Chair of the US section of the North American Competitiveness Council created during the Harper/Bush Cancun meet in March.
He made these remarks following the last deep integration conference in Washington in June.
The objective of the current Banff conference is to draw up a list of recommendations for ministers of "Canada's New Government" for the reopening of parliament in October.

Stop the clock. Stop it any way you can.

Write to the CBC, national newspapers, your MLA.
It may be inevitable/necessary/natural that one day we will see a North America union with one coin, one flag, one defense perimeter, one education system, one health care system, one energy resource pool, etc.
Opposition to this idea in Canada is often spun as anti-Americanism by its corporate sponsors and their government flacks.
It isn't. It's anti-corporatism. And most Americans agree with us.

Stop the clock.


Update : Sept 20/06
Ok, this story has now finally made it into the mainstream press.
Here's Maude Barlow of Council of Canadians in today's Toronto Star.
Note how many of the details are still very much under wraps.

Emerson : NAFTA is crap

No, he didn't actually use the word "crap".
He did one better : he explained why it *is* crap for Canada.

"I want people to remember that NAFTA is built on domestic laws," Emerson said. "You can win a legal victory today, and think you have established a legal precedent, only to have Congress change the laws affecting the industry and the way disputes are litigated in the future."

In other words - if no US law is broken, the US wins the dispute.
If a US law is broken causing the US to lose the dispute, Congress simply changes that law and mounts an appeal.

We would like to thank David Emerson for being the first member of Harper's cabinet to publicly admit that NAFTA is a crappy deal for Canada.

Of course, Emerson is only knocking NAFTA to sell his and Steve's 'Firesale! softwood diplomacy' as a better alternative. And we already know that Steve intends to blackmail the opposition into accepting it rather than risk having the government go down in a non-confidence vote this fall.
As Toronto Star's David Crane puts it :
"Because U.S. courts were finding for Canada, the Bush administration wanted an immediate settlement.The Harper government caved. Now we will have to see whether the opposition parties will do the same."

Bonus : Dave's Snarky (Northern) Canadian Blog explains Emerson's affinity for Firesale! diplomacy.