Showing posts with label deep integration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deep integration. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Loonie Flashback

Guess they aren't too eager to adopt a blended currency now. Even though the Canadian business class has spent the past two elections and last six years promoting an integrated North American economy.

Yesterday
December 3, 2001 - The loonie's days may be numbered. Earlier this month a poll revealed more than half of Canadian business leaders think Canada should consider adopting the U.S. dollar. Conducted just after the Canadian dollar hit a record low of 62.30¢ U.S. on Nov. 9, the poll also showed that, even if Canada doesn't adopt the greenback, many companies will increasingly set prices for big-ticket items in U.S. dollars.


Today

The commodity boom, and the price of oil in particular, is what's been driving the Canadian dollar to an all-time high. If you did two lines on a chart, tracing the price of oil and the value of the loonie this year alone, you would find they track very closely together. After bottoming out at around $52 at the beginning of the year, the price of oil has rocketed to the mid-90s. And the Canadian dollar, which was thought to be pretty fully priced at 85 cents back in January, crossed $1.08 briefly yesterday, hitting a new all time high. That's a 21-per-cent appreciation relative to the U.S. dollar in only 10 months. Wow.

Only six years ago, the loonie was languishing in the low 60s, back when oil was in the low 20s, which only makes the point. "They are very closely linked," says Jeremy Leonard, an economist with the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Nothing, it seems, can stop the dollar, so long as nothing can stop the price of oil.

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Friday, August 24, 2007

The Peasants Are Revolting!

Gee Thomas, I seem to remember that as the crisis hit the auto industry last fall the Prime Minister not only did not have time, but outright refused, to talk to Buzz Hargrove of the CAW.

But of course Tom, can I call you Tom, goes even further and from his elitist ivory tower, looking down cries out; The Peasants Are Revolting!


The demonstrators are also decrying the secrecy surrounding the meeting and that the only people with access to the three leaders at the summit are 30 chief executives of some of the biggest corporations in the world.

But Thomas D'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, said getting access to political leaders is not the only way to be heard.

"I do not say to myself, 'If I don't get an hour with the prime minister in the next six months, I'm going to go out and protest and reject the system outright,' " he said. "I don't do that because civilized human beings — those who believe in democracy — don't do that."



“The peasants are revolting!”

“They always have been.”

Clearly Tom believes he and his pals represent the ne plus ultra of bourgeois civilization.

Democracy for him is private luncheons and back room meetings between
Heads of State and the executive committee of the ruling class.

And for the rest of us it's the same old crumbs from the same old cake.


SEE:

Police Black Bloc

Jelly Bean Summit

Kim Campbell on North American Union

How The MacDonald Commission Changed Canada

Nationalism Will Not Stop North American Union




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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Jelly Bean Summit

"They Melt in Your Mouth Not Your Hands."

Here is the official joint statement of the Three Amigos from the SPP / North American Union Summit in Montebello.

Not one mention of jelly beans, which appear to have been a big focus of trade discussions, which of course had to be kept secret.

Nor any mention of intergalactic highways. Which was a witty way for Harper to dismiss protests about this hush hush secret meeting. He was of course making fun of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's English. Low blow.

The official press release of the Leaders Statements post summit is just the usual neo-con pap about Free Trade, NAFTA, APEC, etc. So the question is; since we all know what the neo-con agenda is, why all the secrecy?


"I'm amused by the difference between what actually takes place in the meetings and what some are trying to say takes place," President Bush said at a news conference in Montebello, Quebec.


"It's quite comical, actually, when you realize the difference between reality and what some people are talking on TV about," Bush said. "You lay out a conspiracy and then force people to try to prove it doesn't exist.

































SEE:


Kim Campbell on North American Union

Mother Prevails

Nationalism Will Not Stop North American Union


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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Kim Campbell on North American Union

Former PC PM Kim Campbell was on the PBS News Hour last night revealing the dirty truth about Trilateralism, the SPP and the coming North American Union aka NAFTA2.

She was joined in her paean to the joy of Trilateralism and the new contientalism by former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda. Both of them criticized the 'secrecy' of the meetings between the Three Amigos and their Corporate Counterparts.


KIM CAMPBELL:We have the world's longest undefended border, and there is a concern to create a security perimeter that will create confidence on both sides of the border that those movements can pass relatively quickly, that there's trust in the documentation, trust in the broader security system. And we've had to deal with that.

It's something that predates 9/11, but the 9/11 brought it into very, very high profile. And I think we have to recognize we have in Canada, you know, the nationalists who are concerned that any kind of collaboration, any kind of harmonization of standards is the thin edge of the wedge of Canada losing its identity. And I'm amused to see that there are people in the United States who think that, you know, what they call "socialist Canada" is somehow going to come down and corrupt them.

But the fact of the matter is, our three countries are the world's largest trading region, the largest energy market. We really have an extraordinary future together, if we can find ways of dealing with the impediments for the movements of the things that we want to move and ways of ensuring that the public is confident that their security and that their standards of well-being are assured.

And I think one of the ways of doing that is to take this process -- this is the third summit in this security and prosperity partnership process -- is maybe to take it a little bit even more public and get the debate more open, because I think President Bush has been a bit quiet about it, even Prime Minister Harper. I don't know how President Calderon is dealing with this in Mexico. He's got a new government.

But these are important issues. And if we don't get them right, we really will lose the competitive battle, but also lose a lot of opportunities for prosperity and for security.



Building a trilateral relationship

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor, you heard the prime minister talking about the roles security has played in the trilateral relationship since 9/11. Is this a concern that is equally shared on both sides of these borders? Or is this a question of two close allies responding to what's seen as an American need, an American agenda, American wishes to toughen up both borders, north and south?

JORGE CASTANEDA: Well, Ray, I wouldn't want to speak for the Canadians, obviously. I think in Mexico we've been very forthcoming and very cooperative with the United States since 9/11 on security issues. Some of the things the Americans have asked for, we have done with great difficulty. Others we have suggested and they have accepted. And so I think we've come a long way.

But I agree completely with Prime Minister Campbell, Ray, that this could be a lost opportunity, this summit in Montebello, unless the three leaders really decide that they have nothing to be ashamed of in saying that they want to work towards a North American economic union, towards a North American security perimeter, towards a North American energy market.

If each one of the three leaders because of their domestic weaknesses get so scared of saying anything, of doing anything, of even moving an inch off just boiler-plate rhetoric, then this will be a huge lost opportunity. President Calderon has a lot to say about immigration, has a lot to say about drug enforcement, a lot to say about security.

President Bush has to understand that he has to combat his extreme right-wing in the United States which opposes any type of greater cooperation with Canada and with Mexico, because if he doesn't, they will eventually get to him and the Congress the way they got to him on immigration.

And Prime Minister Harper, I think, also perhaps should be a bit more forthcoming with a more trilateral vision of the relationship, instead of continuing to insist, as many Canadian prime ministers have in the past, that Canada has a better deal dealing bilaterally with the U.S. instead of trilateralizing the relationship, so to speak.

So I hope they really use this summit to move forward instead of standing still and being terrified of what their respective oppositions in the three countries would do to the three leaders if they were more forthright and clear about what they want.
Of course its hard to have open discussions when the agenda for Trilateralism and the New Contientalism is being pushed by the Corporate Elite.

The leaders will meet on Tuesday morning with the North American Competitiveness Council, a collection of 30 business leaders, 10 appointed by each country, who advise the leaders.

The Council was created in 2006 and is one of the only tangible results of the SPP process to date.

The group, whose Canadian executives include Dominic D'Alessandro of Manulife Financial, Paul Desmarais Jr. of Power Corporation, and Michael Sabia of Bell Canada, will present a progress report to the leaders.

It is the Council that is a main source of contention for critics of the SPP, who argue the North American governments are consulting only corporate leaders and ignoring labour leaders, human rights experts, environmentalists and even legislators.

"The problem with this process is that there has been no public consultation, and no parliamentary debate in any of our three countries," says Meera Karunananthan, a spokeswoman for the Council of Canadians, one of many activist organizations planning to attend the protests in Montebello.

You can't have authentic Trilateralism without Tripartitism, that is a balance between the interests of government, business and the missing partner in all this; labour and civil society.


SEE:

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?




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Mother Prevails


Mother Nature does what the protesters could not at the Trilateralist SPP/North American Union Summit in Montebello, Quebec.

Hurricane concerns to cut summit short


Oh he was hoping for more protesters to improve his profile?

Harper dismisses 'sad' summit protest as police fire tear gas

As riot police fired tear gas and pepper spray to hold back demonstrators outside the Montebello summit Monday, Stephen Harper shook hands with George W. Bush and dismissed the protest as a “sad” spectacle.

The prime minister welcomed Bush to the North American Leaders’ Summit as the U.S. president stepped off his helicopter on to the lush grounds of the posh — and heavily guarded — Chateau Montebello. “I’ve heard it’s nothing,” the prime minister said when asked whether he’d seen the protesters. “A couple hundred? It’s sad.”

And actually it was more than a couple of hundred protesters.

The protesters were among about 2,000 people who demonstrated for several hours outside the site of the meeting of U.S. President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.


And it is a secret meeting after all, and has not been as well publicized as the "secret" meetings of the Bilderberg's, or Davos World Social Forum of the ruling classes. Which also did not get a lot of protests until after Seattle.


Hallmarks of the People’s Global Action (PGA)

As agreed to by social movements at the PGA Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia, August 2001:

1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation;

2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings;

3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker;

4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements’ struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism;

5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

Ironically for Canada's Gnu Government, which which hates all things Liberal, and supports the SPP the idea for a North American Union was laid out back in the eighties by those nasty Liberals with their MacDonald Commission






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Monday, August 20, 2007

NAFTA Poisioning

With the liberalization of trade regulations, and the neo-con agenda of de-regulation, reducing public services, the privatization and contracting out of inspection services leads to consumer poisoning.

And it ain't just China that's to blame.

NAFTA2 aka the SPP is also to blame.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning the public not to consume Los Angeles Salad Company Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots because the product may be contaminated with Shigella.

The item is labelled as product of Mexico and is sold in 672 gram plastic bags and sell by dates up to and including August 13th, this year.

The agency says the product was sold in Costco stores in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland.




This is not the news story the three amigos and their corporate buddies wanted to hear this morning.



The Canadian Press reported Sunday night that the leaders will issue a statement regarding procedures aimed at keeping borders open should another 9/11-type emergency occur, yet political activists say there's apparent secrecy on other issues up for discussion.

They say business leaders have been invited to meetings with the "Three Amigos" in Montebello, while protesters have been shut out. Their signs and shouts will only be available to leaders via video link.

"We want Canadians, Americans and Mexicans to know that this is a big-business driven process, for them and by them, to deregulate all sorts of regulations across the board -- environment, health, safety worker standards," said Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, the main group behind a protest in Ottawa on Sunday.



Last time it was organic American spinach, then organic carrots. And under the SPP agreement being discussed today America wants Canada to reduce its food safety regulations.

Regulatory harmonization, or regulatory co-operation as it is euphemistically called, is another top priority for business. Leaders have asked their officials to complete a "regulatory framework agreement" in time for the Montebello meeting. This will set the guidelines for many SPP initiatives. It is unlikely that we will see the full framework agreement, and even less so that we will see how it is applied in specific circumstances. Critics believe the government is preparing to weaken Canadian health, safety and environmental regulations and standards in the name of trade.

Let’s take the example of food safety. The SPP’s business council (the NACC) called for the harmonization of Canadian and U.S. lists of toxic substances, which are preventing some U.S. products from being sold in Canada. We also know that an SPP committee is working to resolve differences in pesticide maximum-residue limits. But will we ever know the outcome of these negotiations?

In this case, we do know now, thanks to an astute Ottawa Citizen reporter, who discovered that the Canadian government is in fact planning under the SPP to relax its requirements on pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables entering from the U.S. Some 40 per cent of the pesticides Canada regulates have stricter limits than U.S. regulations. The U.S. sees them as trade barriers and wants the list of priority pesticides to be relaxed. With the Bush administration aggressively dismantling its own regulatory systems, this harmonization concession amounts to Canada importing U.S. deregulation. Will this be the norm or the exception?

SEE:


The Truth About the Farm Crisis

Alberta State Capitalism


Fish Contamination


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Monday, August 13, 2007

North American Union (SPP) Protests In Alberta


The Three Amigos are in Montreal this coming week-end to discuss their secret corporate pact to create a single EU style market place on the North American Continent.

Teach Ins are planned across Canada including in Alberta. Home of Petro Powers That Be. Organizers are to be congratulated for focusing on making these protests Teach Ins rather than the usual street protests that follow the G8, WTO, etc.

Since most folks have no clue as to the nature of these binding yet secret corporatist-state agreements, the point is to inform them.

We did a Teach In in Edmonton during the APEC Energy Conference. Since few people knew anything about APEC or this corporatist state model for global governance.

The annual APEC meeting was held in Vancouver which resulted in the first RCMP Attack on protesters, which was to become national and international state security policy in dealing with anti-globalization protests.

August 19

Edmonton, Alberta
Protesting the SPP in Edmonton! Help preserve Canada’s sovereignty, join the protest.
Host: Protest The S.P.P.
Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm GMT
Where: Legislative Assembly of Alberta Street: 10800 - 97 Ave. Edmonton, AB

Calgary, Alberta

Protesting the North American Union
Host: Lindsay Ross and other concerned citizens!.
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 3 p.m. GMT
Where: Calgary City Hall, 800 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary, AB, then marching to the U.S. Consulate at 615 Macleod Trail for more speeches

For cross Canada protests see Verbena-19


See:

Free Labour = Free Of Unions

Derek Burney Voice of America

Deep Integration

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Time For A Canadian Steel Workers Union

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?

Cold Gold

Mittal Plays Monopoly


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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Nationalism Will Not Stop North American Union


The drive to further Fortress North America is gaining ground with through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) Also known as the North American Union. It is the natural follow up to NAFTA, driven by the events of 9/11.

Unfortunately the response so far has been that of narrow nationalism and the wailing over the death of sovereignty.

In the U.S. it has been led by nativist populist Lou Dobbs, and in Canada by left nationalist Maude Barlow, making strange bedfellows indeed.
DOBBS: There are rising concerns in Canada about the SPP, the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership which some think is directly the foundation for something called the North American Union. The Bush administration is pretty excited about that, saying the initiative is meant to increase security and prosperity for all of North America. Opponents, however, say the initiative is nothing less than a plan to create a North American Union that would eliminate sovereignty for all three nations.

As Christine Romans now reports, grassroots opposition is rising in Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Ottawa, author and activist Maude Barlow has unrestrained contempt for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. She's concerned about a grab for Canada's natural resources and a watering down of its regulations and benefits by the biggest corporations doing business in North America. And that's just for starters.

MAUDE BARLOW, THE COUNCIL OF CANADIANS: If Canadians and Americans and Mexicans, ordinary people, saw what these guys are talking about, including one trade bloc, one security perimeter, one -- you know, everybody agreeing with George Bush's foreign policy, and don't ask any questions -- you know, lowest common denominator environmental standards, I don't think they would go for it.

ROMANS: Her group, the Council of Canadians, has published a citizens guide called "Integrate This," denouncing the deep integration agenda between the United States, Mexico and Canada. The stated goal established by presidents Bush, Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin is integration by 2010. Harmonizing regulations for a safer, more prosperous North America.

But Barlow recently testified before a parliamentary trade committee that the SPP "... is quite literally about eliminating Canada's ability to determine independent regulatory standards, environmental protections, energy security, foreign, military, immigration and other policies."

Among the Canadians left, a growing fear that big business is drafting government policy behind closed doors.

BRUCE CAMPBELL, CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES: This is a vast initiative. It's an umbrella for a whole bunch of initiatives. There's 20 working groups and initiatives totaling about 300. And very little is known really about the nitty-gritty of these. We have a superficial knowledge, but I think we need -- we need to know more.

ROMANS: He's hoping all three legislative bodies will insist on oversight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: It's just emerging as an issue now before Canada's lawmakers, driven by progressives and Canadian nationalists. In the U.S., the (INAUDIBLE) opposition is dominated by border control advocates. Strange bedfellows, they both agree, but both are wondering why more people aren't raising questions. Canadian immigration opponents promise plenty of noise as the next trilateral meeting of leaders approaches in Canada this time -- Lou.

DOBBS: The new -- the new world order that this president's father talked about with such great enthusiasm seems to be high on the agenda in this administration. It's remarkable to me, the arrogance, the idea of just simply throwing away the nation's sovereignty. But they're trying to do so in many ways.


But like opposition to NAFTA this narrow nationalism fails to address the real nature of this agreement and thus is unable to effectively offer any alternative.

For narrow nationalism has already been defeated by the continental reality of the trading blocs created as a result of the evolution of the WTO.
It was begun in the 1970's with the creation of the Trilateral Commission and has evolved since then into a new global order of capital integration and a new era of inter-capital imperialism.

The New World Order was declared by George Bush I and the result has been almost two decades of transformation of the nation state into the corporatist state. That is where the State is a partner with the private sector, the ultimate P3 is globalization.

The agenda of the corporatist state is to access large amounts of public funds accessible for private investment, such as public pension funds/Social Security.

It is replacing the Fordist Welfare State in the U.S. and the social security state in social democratic countries like Canada and Mexico. It is creating blended economies of trading blocs in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and ultimately at its source; North America. Left out is Africa which remains the cheap goods, labour and raw resource colony of the New World Order, and the place they can invest.

Immigration Bill Advances North American Union
By Cliff Kincaid
Apr 29, 2007

Rep. Edward Royce, a high-ranking conservative California Republican, said over the weekend that a White House-backed amnesty plan for illegal aliens has provisions which undermine the national sovereignty of the U.S. and help facilitate development of a North American Union, much like the European Union that supersedes the sovereignty of 27 European countries.

He vowed to defy the White House and mobilize House Republicans against the bill, backed by what he called the "open borders lobby."



This is a new development in the decadence of the period of State Captialism. Ultimately as corporations replaced governments in providing services, they developed the need for trade agreements that allowed for their access to these services intra and internationally.

The dialectic was that globalization required nation states to promote it, but through a new form of governance, one modeled on corporate agreements rather than on binding national and international models of governance. APEC, the WTO, the GATTS, etc. are all corporate treaties signed by two parties, the State and its corporate allies. They are not international trade agreements solely between governments, and their dispute resolution boards are made up of corporate as well as judicial lawyers.



A group supporting North American integration is preparing to hold its annual "North American Model Parliament" for students from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The North American Forum on Integration, or NAFI, is scheduled to hold "Triumvirate," in Washington, D.C., May 20–25.

NAFI, according to the group's website, is as a non-profit organization based in Montreal, dedicated to "address the issues raised by North American integration as well as identify new ideas and strategies to reinforce the North American region."

The group's support of North American integration is documented by an objective listed to "identify the elements of the North American agenda which would allow the consolidation and reinforcement of the North American region."

A variety of issues pertinent to the formation and operation of a North American Community are debated by the mock parliament, including expanding immigration, stimulating investment in Mexico and revising NAFTA to move in the direction of becoming a regional government.

This year's Triumvirate themes are listed as the creations of a customs union, water management, human trafficking and telecommunications in North America.

Last year's Triumvirate 2006 was held in the Mexican Senate.

Triumvirate 2005, the first NAFI mock North American Parliament, was held in Ottawa, Canada.

As WND reported, Raymond Chretien, the president of the Triumvirate and the former Canadian ambassador to both Mexico and the U.S., was quoted as claiming the exercise was intended to be more than academic.

"The creation of a North American parliament, such as the one being simulated by these young people, should be considered," he told WND.

The recent development of TILMA, a labour, capital, agreement between Alberta and B.C. which allows for NAFTA regulations to be applied in the two provinces as a way of breaking traditional inter provincial barriers is another example of the NAU being put into practice.

The North American Union is the child of the privateers and neo-cons despite the opposition of the traditional right in the U.S. In Canada the right has always admired the U.S. and been contientalist, it is the left who has been nationalistic.

Preserving America’s Freedom

Wood’s actions in Idaho were the first successful and visible manifestations of a groundswell of opposition to the NAU that has materialized in recent months. Led by members of the John Birch Society (of which this magazine is an affiliate), concerned grass-roots activists have succeeded in raising awareness at the local and state level of the dangers presented by the SPP and the move toward further North American integration. As a result of these efforts, resolutions opposing a North American Union have been introduced in 18 states as we go to press. So far, resolutions opposing the SPP and NAU efforts of the federal government have been passed by state legislatures in Idaho and Montana. But it is in Idaho that opposition to the SPP had its first great success.

North American Union

One example is the reaction to evidence that U.S. officials are laying the groundwork for a North American entity, sometimes called a "North American Community" or "North American Union" of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in economic and other spheres. I attended a Washington conference devoted to developing a North American legal system that included literature outlining the creation of a North American Supreme Court. Lou Dobbs of CNN had me on his show recently to talk about it. "It's clear that you're as astounded as I am and as my colleagues are that more people in the media are not focusing on this issue," he said. Indeed, it is a story with dramatic implications for the survival of our nation as a sovereign entity. Yet, Dobbs is the only major media figure to consider the issue newsworthy. Conservative radio host Michael Medved openly ridiculed those who are covering the issue, and Fox News won't touch it.

In the latest developments, Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm, has uncovered federal documents indicating that secretive "working groups" in the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a Bush Administration initiative, are working on a "One Card" concept to facilitate cross-border movement between the three countries. The SPP is being sold to the public as an attempt to help business, but the documents indicate a far-reaching effort to erase national borders and even national identity. Previous documents released by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act reveal a strategy called "evolution by stealth" to undermine the sovereignty of the three countries. That suggests a determined effort to keep this from the American people.

It may be difficult for the rest of the media to continue ignoring the controversy because opposition to the SPP is growing not only in the U.S. but Canada and Mexico. In fact, activists, academics, union officials, politicians and journalists from Canada, Mexico and the United States were in Ottawa from March 31-April 1 to organize opposition to the initiative. Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press reports sources close to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as saying that he is firmly against Canada being part of any North American Union and that Canadian sovereignty is "everything" to him.

Actually what right winger Judi McLeod said in her article was far less flattering of Harper, and more to my point;

"This newspaper had been told by trusted sources that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is against the NAU. But not only is Harper's silence on the NAU deafening, his top ministers attend NAU meetings."

Mar. 31, 2006: At the Summit
of the Americas in Cancun,
Canada (under new Prime
Minister Stephen Harper) along with the
U.S. and Mexico release the Leaders' Joint
Statement. The statement presents six action
points to move toward a North American
Union, aka a North American Community.
These action points include:
1) Establishment of a Trilateral Regulatory
Cooperative Framework,
2) Establishment of the North American
Competitiveness Council (NACC),
3) Provision for North American Emergency
Management,
4) Provision for Avian and Human
Pandemic Influenza Management,
5) Development of North American Energy
Security,
6) Assure Smart, Secure North American
Borders.
The release of the new Fraser Institute study by Preston Manning and Mike Harris shows that the conservative corporatist lobby embraces the North American Union, unlike their social conservative counterparts.

Canada must reduce trade and ownership barriers, integrate economy with U.S., say Manning and Harris

Canada needs to fully open its economy and drop restrictions on foreign ownership in all business sectors including banking, financial services and telecommunications, Preston Manning and Mike Harris say in a new policy paper released today by independent research organizations The Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute.

The two also call for eliminating Canada’s supply boards and agricultural subsidies, establishing a customs union and common external tariff with the United States, and reforming Canada’s approach to foreign aid.

International Trade Liberalization

Freer international trade offers the most effective means of increasing Canadian prosperity and sustaining essential social services. Manning and Harris propose eliminating protectionist measures from supply management to business subsidies, systematic privatization of government export promotion and development programs, elimination of ideologically driven efforts to diversity trade patterns and partners, and fully opening up the domestic market to international competition.

Maximizing the Benefits of Strong Canada-US Relations

Whether Canadians like it or not, Canada's influence in the world depends to a large extent on its ability to gain and exert influence in Washington. Harris and Manning propose a Canada-US 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 border security, and an integrated government procurement regime.

The solution lies not in narrow nationalism but in the labour movement creating a continental opposition to the NAU by focusing on the environment. It is not the Kyoto protocol perse that is the weak link in the Harper Bush push for a North American Union, it is government regulation they oppose. The push is for deregulation, to have national standards meet the lowest common denominator.

Regulations pertaining to food and pesticides, environmental issues by any other name, being subjected to not only NAFTA but the SPP protocols as well.

Better break out the veggie-scrubbers: Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables for hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.

Differences in residue limits, which apply both to domestic and imported food, pose a potential "trade irritant," said Richard Aucoin, chief registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada's pesticide rules.

Canadian regulators and their U.S. counterparts have been working to harmonize pesticide regulations since 1996, as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Now the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a wide-ranging plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.

The SPP's 2006 report identified stricter residue limits as "barriers to trade."

When it comes to the environment, environmental health, green house gas reductions, the three Amigos oppose tougher regulations. It is this that is the weakness in ruling class plans for a Continental union. And the source of real opposition to the SPP. It is not a narrow nationalist response but a global solidarity alternative to corporate globalization.


Asserting that “global warming has transformed the issue of pollution into the ultimate health and safety issue,”

United Steelworkers (USW) president Leo W. Gerard on May 7 told the North American Labor Conference on Climate Crisis that regulating both carbon emissions and trade more stringently are essential for addressing the global climate crisis.


“Labor, environmental and human rights standards are at the core of our vision for making the global economy work for workers,” Gerard told more than 300 delegates. “They should become the new gold standard for how nations trade with each other.”


Gerard characterized the Labor Movement’s vision of addressing global warming as fundamentally at odds with the approach of giving away the right to emit carbon pollution to the world’s giant corporations and letting them make immense profits by trading and acquiring those rights without ever addressing the basic inequalities in our global economy.


“We need to use regulation of global warming and trade to lift two billion people out of poverty around the world,” he said. “To do that, we’ll need to regulate a lot of economic activity — from power plants to fuel efficiency to energy efficiency — and we’ll need to use this regulation as a powerful tool to improve workers’ lives, both here in North America and across the globe. The struggle for sustainability is not just about cleaning up the planet. It’s about engaging in raising standards of living over the long term – creating a world that has the capacity to solve the divisions of wealth and poverty that are the drivers of international conflict.”

To create a real opposition to capitalist contientalism and globalization a new movement of the Cooperative Commonwealth must be built.


An alternative form of stateless socialism based on community self management is the only solution to the crisis of capitalism with its attempts to privatize and commodify the world while avoiding the social and environmental costs of its actions.


Technocracy offered a possible alternative industrial model of contientalism under self management, the IWW and the Socialist Industrial Unionism of DeLeon offered models of self management of Fordist production. Combined they offer a real alternative to the current models of capitalism. See my paper: The Administration of Things: 20th Century North American Economic Models for A Post Capitalist Society, Socialist Industrialization, Syndicalism and Technocracy


While the cooperative commonwealth offers a political economic model of a market without the state.



See:

Deep Integration

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Time For A Canadian Steel Workers Union

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?

Cold Gold

Mittal Plays Monopoly



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