ACTION ALERT: Tell Stockwell Day you demand your right to protest the SPP!
In response to the Council of Canadians being blocked from holding a public forum in Papineauville, six kilometres from Montebello, to coincide with the next Security and Prosperity Partnership summit on August 20 and 21, the NDP's international trade critic, Peter Julian, has sent a letter to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day requesting that he ease security around Montebello and allow peaceful protests to take place.
"I am concerned about trying to conceal the real extent of the SPP agenda from Canadians," said Mr. Julian in the letter. "I am greatly concerned about the refusal to allow democratic debate in any community within 25 km of the security zone of the closed-door meeting. Please rescind your government's directive to the Municipality and allow the public forum in Papineauville to proceed as planned."
The Council of Canadians in coalition with other organizations, including the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Common Frontiers-Canada and the Quebec Network on Continental Integration, had planned to hold a public forum on the Security and Prosperity Partnership as close to Montebello as possible, with Maude Barlow and a panel of writers, academics and parliamentarians. That forum will now take place in Ottawa on Sunday August 19, from 4 to 6:30 p.m., due to unreasonable security demands from the RCMP, Sureté de Quebec and possibly the U.S. Army.
We congratulate Mr. Julian and the NDP for sending a letter to Stockwell Day, and we encourage you to write a similar letter demanding that security restrictions around Montebello be relaxed so that we can protest the SPP peacefully.
For more information on the Council of Canadians' campaign against the Security and Prosperity Partnership, along with a wide range of analysis and background materials on this issue, please go to IntegrateThis.ca.
Peter Julian's letter to Stockwell Day:
July 26, 2007
The Honourable Stockwell Day, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Public Safety
House of Commons
Ottawa, Canada K1A 0A6
Dear Minister Day,
I am greatly disturbed by the news that a peaceful, democratic teach-in planned to coincide with the latest summit around the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), to be held August 20-21 in Montebello Quebec, was cancelled because the town council was informed by the federal government that this was an unacceptable use of a civic community centre.
The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometers from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum it had planned on Sunday August 19, 2007.
The teach-in was a peaceful community gathering that would have been held to discus the SPP, a Liberal initiative that has been continued by your government. The SPP is not a signed treaty. The NDP succeeded in obtaining hearings in the International Trade committee to discuss the impact of the SPP on Canada's sovereignty and on the lack of transparency and democratic debate around this process. However, your Conservative Party representatives on the committee shut down those hearings, when testimony started to have a real impact among Canadians.
The organizers of the event in Papineauville were simply trying to have public discussion on an issue on which your government refuses to provide any transparency. It is greatly disturbing to us that your government is essentially, through the pretext of security, refusing that any democratic discussion or debate take place on this issue within 25 km of the summit site.
As you well know Mr. Day, this initiative that you refuse to bring forward to Parliament for democratic debate and Parliamentary oversight involves merging Canada's social, economic, and security policies and institutions with those of the U.S., thus reducing protection in as many as 300 areas, including pesticide use, food safety and air safety, as well as establishing control from Washington over Canadian national resources - including energy. Similar wrong-headed policies lead to the softwood sellout, which has cost Canadians thousands of jobs.
I am concerned about trying to conceal the real extent of the SPP agenda from Canadians. I am greatly concerned about the refusal to allow democratic debate in any community within 25 km of the security zone of the closed door meeting. Please rescind your government's directive to the Municipality and allow the public forum in Papineauville to proceed as planned.
Sincerely,
Peter Julian, MP (Burnaby-New Westminster), NDP Trade Critic
THE DEMAND
Activists are encouraged to send their own version of the above letter to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (Day.S@parl.gc.ca), or send a letter using the form below:
Brent Patterson, Director of Organizing and Campaigns, The Council
of Canadians
Automated letter submission for this action alert is no longer available
