The secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) talks in Montebello, Quebec on August 20 are already getting animosity from organizing protesters. US president George W. Bush, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper are meeting to unify regulatory bodies and security in North America. In fact, two protesters have already been arrested.
Canada-wide actions against the SPP
August 10 – 15
Toronto – Ottawa- Vancouver – Montreal & more!
NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION TO TARGET THE NACC! Stay tuned for more details!
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Click for a schedule and contacts: http://verbena19.wordpress.com/...
Arrested protesters: http://www.canada.com/...
Police detain two summit protesters
charges still unclear
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Sunday, August 12, 2007
Two protesters were arrested in downtown Ottawa yesterday during a demonstration against the upcoming summit of North American leaders at Château Montebello.
Why should DailyKos care about SPP?
- One security perimeter (good look flying anywhere, eg., ex-DOJ attorney Jesselyn Radack who posted on Daily Kos about getting on the no-fly list as vindictive retaliation). Maybe even think about this in terms of not being able to desert the army. Or, if someone wants to visit a Canadian from another country, have to get permission from US to enter the "net".
- One market approval; if approved in Mexico, drug can be sold in US and Canada. Lowers safety to the lowest common denominator.
- Lower wages, protection of workers. Mexican workers can now stream across the US border and take jobs for lower wages, lowering the standards of living for both Americans, Mexicans, and Canadians. Think of the immigration amnesty wage, H1B visas.
- Getting people angry as natural resources taken (SPP adds on to NAFTA: Canada cannot reduce oil exports because NAFTA specifies Canada's quota at 60%, hence, the Canada will be left "starving in the dark" comment by a university professor who testified to Parliament). Once a resource is shipped out, it cannot be turned off ( think of water, oil, public health care, etc.)
- US has the largest GDP and military of the two countries, such a union will not be balanced -- one only needs to look at US actions in the Softwood Lumber case...supposedly covered by NAFTA. This will only get worse with the oil and water disputes.
- Undemocratic, only the executives of the biggest companies are setting the agenda. Look to Walmart in Mexico to see what their agenda is. Or how Yahoo complied with the Chinese law to surrender email in the case of 'dissidents'. Our democracies and regulations are necessary to protect us from these greedy people.
- Unified courts, decreased regulation --- "The Senate Republican policy paper argued that CAFTA "will promote democratic governance." But there is nothing democratic about CAFTA's many pages of grants of vague authority to foreign tribunals on which foreign judges can force us to change our domestic laws to be "no more burdensome than necessary" on foreign trade."
Videos on this issue are at CPAC: http://www.cpac.ca/...
Integrate This!
From March 31 to April 1 Integrate This! brought together activists, academics, workers, politicians and journalists from Canada, Mexico and the United States to Ottawa to discuss issues surrounding the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
Maclean's magazine, mainstream media in Canada, also has a small article on SPP, entitled "Even the best neighbours can get suspicious": http://www.macleans.ca/... . It's a little dismissive in my opinion, because it doesn't have a counter-point to the naive official line from the CCCE, NACC, and of course Lockheed Martin president (the people behind the whole charade). It's almost as silly as the "well we have three different sized jars of baby food in certain countries, four in others, now we only want two continent-wide!" rationalization I read in another online magazine...if that were it, don't you think the legislative branches would have control over this? Would Lockheed Martin really be involved in something as mundane as that?
Actually, some of this agenda (the "security") part has already been applied, such as the Smart Border stuff, which probably helped Maher Arar and others go to Syria to be tortured as Canadian and US officials shared information (as CBC broadcaster Avi Lewis talks about in this interview on Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/... ). The "prosperity" part has been applied in Smart Regulation, whereby Canadian pesticide regulations were lowered. http://www.canada.com/...
Canada raising limits on pesticide residues
Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, May 08
OTTAWA - Think those grapes look suspiciously dusty?
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.
Ah yes...so benign.
Do you feel better now?