When European countries formed the European Union there was widespread debate in the parliaments of nations. Patriotic tempers raged, people were up in arms and media coverage was remarkable.
But when Canada, the United States, and Mexico entered into a similar agreement, it was silent in the House of Commons and Congress. Where were our leaders? Who represented our interests? Why didn’t the media warn us?
More disturbingly—why was the truth hidden from us?
On March 23, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin, President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox met in Waco, Texas and formed the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America. Issuing a t statement, the leaders expressed that “in a rapidly changing world, we must develop new avenues of co-operation that will make our open societies safer and more secure, our businesses more competitive, and our economies more resilient.”
The SPP is not an agreement or a treaty and according to the SPP website, no agreement was ever signed. Officially, governments have no involvement. On the surface, the discussion of co-operation seems benign, even beneficial to the average person. It appears that stronger borders, enhanced trade and energy market policies would strengthen our nations.
In other words, the SPP is redeg our economies to reduce the regulatory power of government and enhance the power of big business—and who better to make up the new rules than big business itself? As American journalist Jerome Corsi said in an interview to WorldNetDaily, “What we have here amounts to an istrative coup d’etat.” In mid-September 2006, a closed-door meeting of high-level government and business leaders took place at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alta., that was marked “Internal Document, Not for Public Release,” Jerome Corsi, of WorldNetDaily reported.
Some attendees included the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who delivered the keynote address. Mel Hurtig, a noted Canadian author and publisher, was given access to the agenda and attendee list of the North American Forum and, in a WorldNetDaily article said: “What is sinister about this meeting is that it involved high level government officials and some of the top and most powerful
business leaders of the three countries and the North American Forum in organizing the meeting
intentionally did not inform the press in any of the three countries. It was clear that the intention was to keep this important meeting about integrating the three countries out of the public eye.”
Hurtig also concluded that the venue had more to do with profit-driven militarization than “continental prosperity.”
Top executives from the military-industrial complex and major oil companies were present including Lockheed Martin, Chevron, Mexico’s PEMEX and Suncor Energy, according to an article published in the Centre for Research on Globalization’s website. A major area of discussion was further energy integration— something enormously appealing to U.S. corporate interests who wanted to push forward the development of Alberta’s oil sands and consolidate their guaranteed access to this vast resource.
SPP documents, published on their website, refer to the “North American energy market” and “North American energy security.” They make no distinction between Canadian and U.S. energy supplies and security. This is fine with both U.S. and Canadian business interests, where much of the Canadian energy business is U.S. owned. But where is the public interest in all this? Is Canadian energy security being sacrificed to ensure U.S. energy security and corporate hunger?
If this so-called harmonization of policies between three countries is healthy for our nation’s growth,
then why is the public shut out from all the good news? Whether we are considering changes in the approval process for new drugs or Canada’s immigration policy, these should beopenly and transparently debated through the proper democratic channels, not left to a cabal of self-appointed elites. As national governments continue to lose their autonomy to the unelected hydra of big business
and organizations such as the World Trade Organization, we will slowly come to the realization that
we could have leapt to action when our country was in need. It is time that we stand up for Canada, unlike the leaders that have sold us out.
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