![The SPP…ever heard of it? [Update 8.20.07][Update 8.21.07]](https://progresspond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/pattern-1-1280x640.jpg)
[UPDATE 8.21.07]
Bush aims at closer ties with Canada and Mexico
U.S. President George W. Bush assured the leaders of Canada and Mexico on Tuesday that the United States wants to forge closer ties, despite the distraction of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and differences over immigration and the Arctic…
doesn’t appear that things went chimpy’s way up there, no major agreements for the next spin cycle…but it was peaceful…
[UPDATE 8.20.07]
Calderon announced he would be cutting his visit to Canada short to return home on Tuesday as the potentially catastrophic Hurricane Dean headed toward the Yucatan Peninsula….
MONTEBELLO, Quebec (Reuters) – Protesters and riot police clashed on Monday outside a posh Canadian resort where North American leaders are meeting to discuss trade, security, and the recent turmoil in global credit markets.
Police fired tear gas as they pushed back about 150 people outside the Chateau Montebello resort in Montebello, Quebec, which is about 70 km (40 miles) east of Ottawa.
[…]
The protesters were among about 2,000 people who demonstrated for several hours outside the site of the meeting…
If, like the majority of the people in this country, you get your news from the msm, it’s doubtful. But the canadian press and activists have been all over the the two day meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and President Bush, that begins monday in Quebec.
The ground work and agenda for this meeting was laid in february of this year in meetings between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay and Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa. the following priorities, which were set at the second summit meeting in mexico in march 2005, will be revisited:
Strengthening Competitiveness
Avian and Pandemic Influenza
Emergency Management
Energy Security
Secure Borders
Most certainly the issue of Canada’s claim to the arctic, most notably, the disputed Northwest Passage, will be a subject of private discussions between Harper and Bush. also on the agenda are the continuing efforts to assist Mexico in the “war on drugs” by increasing equipment [read arms] and training.
However, while all these are issues that each country represented has a high degree of interest in, what l find most intriguing is that the agenda clearly identifies competitiveness as the highest priority.
…governments “will need to begin assessing the potential impact of adopting recommendations made by the NACC and coordinating their response to the authors of the report.”
The memo states “the most dynamic element on the plenary agenda was a meeting with the NACC, the body created by the Leaders in 2006 to give the private sector a formal role in providing advice on how to enhance competitiveness in North America.”
The NACC consists of 30 multinational business corporations that advise SPP and set the action agenda for its 20 trilateral bureaucratic working groups….[and] was created by the leaders in 2006 “to give the private sector a formal role in providing advice on how to enhance competitiveness in North America.”
[…]
The memo suggested members were getting impatient, charging the speed of SPP regulatory change was too slow. The members complained of “the private sector’s seeming inability to influence the pace of regulatory change ‘from the bottom up.'”
[…]
Sounds a whole lot like NAFTA on steroids, doesn’t it…especially when you see the centerpiece priority placed, not upon the overall prosperity of the nations, but upon competitiveness…which one may safely assume is synonymous with profitability.
more below…
The make up of the NACC reads like the US Chamber of Commerce honor roll [pdf] and is in fact, very closely aligned with it. They will be presenting a list of 51 recommendations:
In February 2007, the trilateral NACC submitted an initial report to security and prosperity ministers, making a total of 51 recommendations for actions in three areas, both within and building upon the SPP: border crossing facilitation; standards and regulatory cooperation; and energy integration.
[…]
These trilateral recommendations were the product of many months of consultations and deliberations by hundreds of companies, sectoral associations and chambers of commerce throughout North America.
[…]
Once again, the corporate interests [see cheney energy task force] are involved at the highest level of trade, security and foreign affairs/policies of this administration. If this isn’t the definition of plutocracy, l don’t know what is.
While these efforts have received little, or no, attention in the american media, or even in progressive blogtopia, ysctp, the canadians have not been so sanguine about it:
…the SPP is being negotiated with input exclusively from the business elites in the three countries. Given the wide scope of areas under negotiation – national security, energy, trade – surely there’s a need for a much wider consultation involving the public.
Since the SPP initiative was officially launched in March 2005, the public has been effectively shut out of the process. There’s been little awareness, let alone public debate, about what’s going on. The key advisory body in the SPP is an all business group called the North American Competitiveness Council, made up of 30 CEOs from the United States, Canada and Mexico.
It’s fine to have input from business. But why only business? Corporations have interests that aren’t necessarily the same as the broader public interest. In fact, these two sets of interest are often in conflict.
[…]
At the meeting, to be held August 20-21 in Montebello, Quebec, the political leaders will weigh the advice of their business council, while an extensive security cordon will make sure that they continue to hear nothing from the people.
The canadian authorities, wishing to avoid a major confrontation at the summit, have taken pre-emptive measures to prevent any protests from disrupting the conference, going so far as arresting one of the protest organizers and banning him from participation in, or attendance of, any demonstration against the SPP:
Sawyer accused the police of making the arrests to try to quell dissent by cracking down on protest organizers, arguing that the conditions of his bail were proof.
[…]
“I think that points directly to the reason for the arrests, in that they’re trying to get organizers … out of play,” said Sawyer, who said the conditions violate his Charter rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
[…]
Police have already said they will have a large presence at protests at the summit in Montebello to maintain peace and order.
Protesters, numbering in the thousands are expected sunday, monday and tuesday, and residents are being urged to prepare for disruptions, detours, and longer travel times in downtown Ottawa because of the North American Leaders’ Summit in Montebello.
A recent article in Embassy, attempted to minimize the potential of the enterprise, and summarized the situation thusly:
Why is a routine undertaking causing such a fuss? For two reasons. One is that it’s a slippery slope between a FAST lane and a customs union; both speed things up at the border, but how do we draw a line between the mundane and the monumental? The other is that the process is being advised exclusively and somewhat secretively by business groups with names like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the North American Competitiveness Council.
While there is little wind in the SPP’s sails, some business leaders have great-and as yet unfulfilled-ambitions for the partnership. After 9/11, there were in two years 13 proposals from the continentalist right to go beyond NAFTA to take the next step with a big idea, a grand bargain.
These groups, realizing no such deal was emerging, started thinking about creating the necessary preconditions for what they often term a NAFTA-Plus, to advance the concept of a North American Community. For them, the SPP is about incremental steps leading to a customs union of common external tariffs and perhaps even a monetary union with the U.S.
[…]
What opponents of the SPP are mostly making a fuss about are the privileged access, secret meetings and grand ambitions of the SPP’s advisors from business….
It’s true that the SPP is an opportunity to retrofit NAFTA, and opponents in Canada-such as the Council of Canadians-are right in flagging a potential danger, even if it is relatively moribund.
[…]
…The bulk of Canadian opinion is skeptical, the U.S. is very protective of its prerogatives, and U.S. state legislatures are passing resolutions denouncing it, and, in Mexico, NAFTA has perhaps been the least successful.
A dramatic departure from the SPP’s current format will require a lot of public debate and parliamentary engagement, something that is not on the agenda of politicians in any of the three countries.
While there’s significant awareness and disapproval of the SPP by our neighbors to the north, there is little organized opposition happening here.
Canada’s largest union, CUPE has started to organize protests:
Time to protest the SPP
August 14, 2007 02:53 PM
This Mon., Aug. 20, the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico will meet in Montebello, Que., 75 km east of Ottawa, to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). The agreement will threaten our resources, our environment or our social programs. That’s why a large civil society coalition, including CUPE, is taking action.
The SPP, presented as an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), would reshape the institutions of the three countries to increase the power and profits of multinationals….
[…]
Given the general dislike of NAFTA by the labor unions, and others, it is surprising that this issue isn’t more front and center. The continuing pressure from this administration to coerce Canada and Mexico to lower selective standards to accommodate u.s. corporate interests, the ongoing militarization of the borders, and the potential for negative environmental impacts, l would expect a much more aggressive posture from many sources.
What you don’t know, can hurt you.
Additional references may be found here, here, here, and here
An update on today’s demonstration on Parliament Hill can be found here, and a brief slideshow is available here © kurttang
h/t to olivia for links, updates, and assistance.
