Complicated issue, worth looking into

If you don’t think there’s a conspiracy going on, remember the paranoid reaction of our federal Conservatives in May when the NDP pushed for hearings on the Commons International Trade Committee on the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). On that occasion political economist Gordon Laxer, who heads Alberta’s Parkland Institute, started to testify on energy implications of the SPP.

He had barely begun when the chair, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, told Laxer his remarks were “irrelevant.” The committee members overruled the chair, so Benoit stormed out, adjourning the meeting illegally. The other members went on without him. The question is why doesn’t the Harper regime want Canadians asking questions about easterners freezing the dark? I would say the answer is because Harper has already made a deal to send western energy resources south of the border and he doesn’t care about us. So when Michaele Kustudic stopped me on a fine summer day with the concerns of the Council of Canadians, I knew she wasn’t whistling up the wind. “The reason for our anxiety and concern about this issue is that plans for this 'North American Union' are being made and carried out 'below the radar' and behind closed doors by the executive levels of the three governments involved (Canada, the U.S. and Mexico) together with the CEOs of ‘Big Business’,” Kustudic says.

The third Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) leaders’ summit (referred to as a meeting of the Three Amigos) will take place Aug. 21-22 in Montebello, Que.

Demonstrations planned

Demonstrations against it are planned already. In Seattle, a public march is slated against the North American Union, but protestors aren’t allowed within 15 miles of Montebello.

Although business CEOs and federal officials will be present, no members of civil society have been invited to attend, although these plans could ultimately affect all of us, notes Kustudic.

She told me the council had planned to hold their event in a municipal building in Papineauville, a community 6km from Montebello.

They had already booked a hall and made a deposit when they were informed by municipal authorities that they would not be permitted to use the space because the RCMP, the Quebec provincial police, and - get this – the U.S. Army didn’t approve of the plan.

As a result, the council is holding its event in Ottawa and calling for a National Day of Action. Protests are planned for Aug. 19, the eve of the two-day summit, during which the leaders will gather to discuss bilateral issues.

Wise old columnist Silver Donald Cameron calls the SPP “a familiar old beast from the black lagoon, hydra-headed and slimy. SPP is the new name for the old American project of Manifest Destiny — absolute control over the whole continent.” He compares the European Union, an assembly of 27 mid-sized animals, to the North American Union; a union of two mice and an elephant.

In her newest book, Holding the Bully's Coat, journalist Linda McQuaig explains that Canada is currently America’s leading energy supplier and the U.S. will want more. She calls the tri-national SPP agreement an ugly corporate-led plot against the sovereignty of three nations for greater profits, enforced by a common hard line security strategy already in play in each country.

We are currently hamstrung by a 1993 NAFTA provision, McQuaig adds, because we gave up our right to reduce U.S. energy imports and, incomprehensibly, we are building a 720-mile oil pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to B.C. When completed, it will enable resources to be exported to China or any other oil-consuming nation our leaders choose to trade with.

For more information see the Council of Canadians’ website, www.canadians.org. This is truly a complicated issue, but one worth reading up on.