Bye bye "Buy Local' - Hello "Buy North American"

Harper and Co have been working hard. They have decided the prorogation of parliament is the ideal time to implement a crippling new extension of NAFTA into our lives .

The Deal :
In exchange for a 10 day window in which Canadian corporations will theoretically be allowed exemption from some of Obama's protectionist Buy America economic provisions, Canadian provinces and municipalities will permanently relinquish their right to award local contracts to local businesses.
Our taxes, our jobs. Bye bye 'Buy Local', hello WTO.

As Harper has previously stated :"I do think that the proliferation of domestic preferences in subnational government procurement is really problematic."

Stockwell Day has been pushing the provinces towards this since last June, even though many US cities and states continue to have laws restricting their contracts to their own domestic contractors and much of Obama's US-only stimulous spending has already been spent. Well, these are the folks who negotiated the softwood lumber deal for us after all.

CP :

"Harper says he doesn't believe there will be any opposition to the agreement, but adds his government could ratify the deal without Parliament."

John Manley, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, former Liberal deputy prime minister, Canada Chair of the deep integration project 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, and co-author of "Building A North American Community" for the US Council on Foreign Relations, is also celebrating the deal :

"It's good that it has given us a relationship with the United States that recognizes the degree of integration of our economies."

2010 was of course the date by which Manley predicted "the establishment of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

Or, as a Chicago School alumni once told me, Canadians will be ok with the integration of their culture, industry, and military into the US as long as they still get to vote and keep their flag.

We'll see :
"More than 25 organizations are meeting today in Ottawa to launch efforts to counter this and other trade deals whose aim is to destroy local democratic control over public spending."

Update : Walkom says it better.

The SPP is dead; long live the SPP

Just three months shy of 2010 - the date by which the Canadian Council of Chief Executives originally projected the goals of the Security and Prosperity Partnership would be completed - yet some people have been mourning or celebrating for years already.

The SPP is dead - a short history :

Oct. 10, 2007 "The Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead," wrote John Ibbitson in the G&M. "Nothing's going to happen anytime soon."

Aug. 1, 2008 "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead," says Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" available in book form with co-author John Manley.

Feb. 25, 2009 "The SPP is probably dead," Canadian Council of Chief Executives President Tom d’Aquino tells the foreign affairs committee, adding that "something else" will replace it.

July 13, 2009 "The SPP is in hibernation," - Chris Sands, Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Hudson Institute, in Toward a New Frontier which recommends "rebranding a revived SPP.".

Aug. 2009 "The SPP's Death Knell has Sounded" - Embassy Mag. "The Security and Prosperity Partnership, as we knew it, is dead. May it rest in peace."

Aug. 19, 2009 "The SPP is dead, so where's the champagne?" - Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians, at Rabble.

Sept. 24, 2009 "The SPP is dead. Let's keep in that way." - Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, long time foe of deep integration, and one of my personal heroes.

That's two whole years of announcements about the SPP nailed to its perch and pining for the fjords.

The most recent - Dobbin and Trew - do not imagine for a moment that the push towards deep integration is over by any stretch, yet Dobbin does not see any successor on the horizon:
"Some on the left are so accustomed to losing that they make the claim the SPP will just re-emerge with another name."

And indeed I do so here - Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas.
Bush's outgoing gift to Obama has been embraced and described by Hillary Clinton as "a multilateral initiative to promote shared security and prosperity throughout the Americas".
Stockwell Day has already begun dutifully using the phrase "pathways to prosperity" in the House, while exPM Paul Martin, Chris Sands, d'Aquino, David Emerson and other fans of deep integration assure us of the inevitability of some future SPP rebrand and relaunch.

But what worries me is : do we even need a rebrand and relaunch anymore?

In 2003 the Canadian Council of Chief Executives' came up with the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative to shape Canada's future within North America. It called for "reinventing borders; regulatory efficiency; resource security; and a North American defence perimeter."

Here's how that agenda has been achieved through the SPP so far :
Joint RCMP-Homeland Security “Shiprider” pilot project
Civil Assistance Plan signed in Feb. 2008 allows the military of one nation to support the other during a civil emergency
Passenger Protect no-fly list
Sharing military responsibilities in the arctic"
Smart Borders' and unmanned drones patrolling the Canada US border
The exile and/or detainment in Canada of persons of interest to Homeland Security
Canada's cats paw FTAs with countries the US hopes to reach
The Canada Israel 'Homeland Security' pact
Canada helps the US occupy Afghanistan
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
Biometric data into visas for foreign nationals
RFID drivers' licences - a de facto continental ID
Run-of-river projects and ramped up tarsands extraction for energy export
Proposal for national Canadian energy or water policy blocked
Streamlining regulations on food, drugs, pesticides, genetically modified seeds.
"Intermodal transportation concept for North America"
Integrated North American energy and resource program

Does anyone really think just because 30 odd CEOs from the North American Competitiveness Council aren't meeting as a designated SPP group anymore that that's the end of it?

Ten days ago Harper stood in the White House and said :

"Today, Canada is announcing a major hydroelectric project, a big transmission line in northwestern British Columbia, which has the capacity down the road to be part of a more integrated North American hydroelectric system."

"Canada is not leaving Afghanistan; Canada will be transitioning from a predominantly military mission to a mission that will be a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011."

So, no, I'm not celebrating anything until the SPP and the groundwork already laid by the CCCE - plus the unseen continued integration of its facets throughout the public service - can be stopped and rolled back.

Paul Manly is taking his film ‘You, Me and the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’ on the road.
The tour, which will visit 33 cities across Canada, will be launched with an Ottawa Premiere on Parliament Hill on October 1st. hosted by NDP International Trade Critic, Peter Julian.
The Ottawa screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q & A, featuring, Peter Julian, Teresa Healy (Senior Researcher, Canadian Labour Congress), Bruce Campbell (Executive Director, Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives), Maude Barlow (Chairperson, Council of Canadians), Louise Casselman (Common Frontiers) and Paul.

The screening and panel will be streamed live by Rabble.ca - see promo page

From Ottawa, the tour will be working its way east to Newfoundland and then back across Canada to British Columbia. You can see all the tour dates on the film website here

Each confirmed screening date has a pdf poster, handbill and press release that can be downloaded and used to promote the screening. Please help out where you can. All of the screenings are either free or by donation.

This ain't over yet ...

SPP : Manufacturing Content

Four collaborating alumni of the Task Force on the Future of North America are duking it out in the pages of the Globe and Mail over how best to hasten North American deep integration. At issue is the inclusion of Mexico, long considered by Team Canada to be a usurper of Canada's rightful pride of place in America's heart.

Team Canada, represented by John Manley and Gordon Giffin : Canada is more special to the US than Mexico.

Team Mexico/US, represented by Andrés Rozental and Robert Pastor : No, you aren't - try harder.

Good thing RevDave is here to guide us safely through the towering clichés and treacherous platitudes.

The SPP is dead - Long live the SPP!

Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" (now available in book form and co-authored by John Manley) and author of the book "Toward a North American Community" says the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead.

It was killed, he tells us, by the timid incremental approach of its policy makers who tried to fly the SPP below the radar of public opinion, thereby arousing their deepest suspicions.
Right wing fears of Mexican immigrants and a North American Union combined with left wing fears of unfair labour practices to create 'a perfect storm' of public alarm that scuttled its chances of success.

So that's it then. It's been nailed to its perch pining for the fjords since last April. It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile.
THIS IS AN EX-SPP!!

Well ok then.

In other totally unrelated news this week :

1) the U.S. is leaning on Mexico to privatize its state-owned oil consortium PEMEX

2) Saskatchewan has followed BC in introducing the Enhanced Driver's Licences demanded by Homeland Security for admission to the U.S.

3) U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan is calling for greater energy integration and enhanced energy supply routes between the U.S. and Canada, praising the benefits of "benefits of market-based free trade agreements" to "enhance energy security throughout North America".

4)Avi Lewis and Linda Carlsen on Democracy Now discuss "re-armouring NAFTA" : Plan Mexico, the $400 million regional cooperation security initiative that introduces a greater US military presence into Mexico under the guise of lending aid for the war on drugs.

5) The U.S. Navy has reactivated gunboat patrols off the coasts of Latin America to "send a strong signal to all Navies operating in the region".

You see we don't care what you call it : SPP, deep integration, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny. We don't care. Really. Call it whatever you like.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Operation Enduring Freedom From Inconvenient Facts

It was back in October when we first heard about the possibility of US Marines relocating from Iraq to Afghanistan :

"The US Marine Corps has insisted that its forces be removed from Iraq and sent to Afghanistan instead to take the lead in combat there.
According to senior military and Pentagon officials, the suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Defence Secretary Robert M Gates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders, theNew York Times reported.
This would leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while the Marines would play an important role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command."

Then came the Manley panel report and the whole drama of Harper's conditions for staying on in Afghanistan - where oh where would the 1000 extra troops and air power evah come from? - and now the US Marines are indeed relocating to Afghanistan as planned and Operation Enduring Freedom is in da house!

CBC : Afghanistan joint command

"There were sighs of relief in government circles earlier this month when the United States agreed to provide at least an additional 1,000 marines to the Canada-led mission in Kandahar.
Finding an extra 1,000 combat soldiers to help the 2,500-strong Canadian military mission in troubled southern Afghanistan was a key Canadian condition — along with more air power — for keeping our troops there until the end of 2011."

Way to keep up, CBC. I do believe we've already bitched that one.

But in what CBC refers to as the "new, more side-by-side relationship between American and Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan", a few questions arise about our differing policies.
Quite apart from how the command structure is supposed to work, there's the American propensity for wiping out marijuana and poppy crops, ie Afghani livelihood; their greater reliance on air strikes, ie bombing Afghan civilians; and the little matter of their torturing detainees/POWs, ie Bagram., the US internment facility where Afghan detainees known to be innocent of any crimes have been beaten to death.

Uh-oh - detainees. Already a big optics headache for Harper in Canada, news that detainees might fall under US - Canadian joint jurisdiction is bound to play badly for the Cons.
But wait!

CTV : Ottawa hopes to block probe into Afghan detainees :

"The government is seeking to block an independent investigation by the Military Police Complaints Commission into Canada's handling of Afghan detainees, according to court documents filed in Federal Court.
Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint with the commission last year, after allegations surfaced that detainees had been tortured by local Afghan authorities.
Government lawyers filed an application Friday to halt the investigation, saying the commission does not have jurisdiction to probe the complaints."

Something they really might have mentioned at any time since the commission began its investigation.
And as Pogge points out, if the commission doesn't have jurisdiction, then why has the government of Canada been complying, however reluctantly, with its demands for documentation up till now?

Possibly because now we're under deadline to get aligned with Operation Enduring Freedom From Inconvenient Facts before the 'joint partnership' begins in July.

SPP and Operation Enduring Freedom

Author Linda McQuaig thumps John Manley for his attempts to wrap Operation Enduring Freedom, better known here in Canada as our mission in Afghanistan, in Lester Pearson's mantle of peacekeeping.
She reminds us that "the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were both illegal under international law, in that neither received [UN] Security Council approval."

"The Manley report implies that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was endorsed by the Security Council, but Boyle notes that the Security Council resolution cited by Manley in no way authorized military action. Rather, it called for the perpetrators of 9/11 to be brought to justice – suggesting they be dealt with as criminals through extradition and the judicial system, not war.
After invading Afghanistan and toppling the government, Washington won UN authorization for the new government it installed, and for its ongoing intervention through NATO. As a result, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan – like the one in Iraq – now has "a veneer of UN authority," notes Osgoode Hall law professor Michael Mandel.

Manley has long been a proponent of closer relations with the U.S., and he and his panellists met with top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.Yet the Manley report avoids any suggestion that Ottawa's involvement in Afghanistan is about pleasing the Bush administration, which is widely disliked in Canada.
Indeed, the Manley report makes Washington all but disappear, emphasizing the UN and NATO, and Canada's role within NATO.
But NATO is just a military alliance ultimately run by Washington. Indeed, since it came into being in 1950, NATO has always been headed by a U.S. general (currently John Craddock).
In addition to NATO forces in Afghanistan, there are another 13,000 U.S. troops under direct U.S. command. This means that all troops serving in Afghanistan are ultimately under commander-in-chief George W. Bush, whose shadow looms large over the country."

We are, of course, still waiting for a debate on Manley's previous report, "Building a North American Community", now available at Amazon, which he co-authored with William Weld, Mitt Romney's campaign co-chair in New York State, and also Pedro Aspé, co-chair of the now infamous North American Forum held in Banff in Sept 2006, at which Manley was a moderator.

Cross-posted at Creekside

"Manley, Best-Selling Author?"

reads the incredulous Jan 30 headline at Embassy Mag, following the news that John Manley's Afghanistan panel report has been down-loaded 160,000 times since its release on Jan 22.

Oh man, Manley must be saying to himself right about now, how soon they forget!

Indeed, who could forget his previous hit best seller, Building A North American Community, written for the US Council on Foreign Relations with Thomas d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Robert A. Pastor, self-proclaimed father of the North American Union.

Here - let me refresh your memory with a quote from it :

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

In fact, right now at Amazon, you can get Manley's first best-seller pictured above, plus his co-author Robert Pastor's Toward A North American Community, both for the low, low price of $33.48.
Everyone agrees - It's a steal.

Cross-posted at Creekside