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March 11, 2008 It becomes clearer with every access to information request who is running the Security and Prosperity Partnership in Ottawa, Washington, D.C. and Mexico City. If you think it’s our politicians, think again. According to a Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs memo acquired by the U.S. website WorldNetDaily.Com, at some point during the Montebello leaders summit last August, “lead SPP ministers were tasked with finalizing a report by the end of 2007 on results achieved (including NACC recommendations) and a plan for addressing new initiatives and remaining NACC recommendations.” Forget that we have yet to see this report if it is in fact finished, why the heck are our politicians working under deadlines for action largely in order to appease companies like Lockheed Martin, Campbell’s Soup, Wal-Mart and Bell Canada? This urgency to respond to the recommendations of the companies sitting on the North American Competitiveness Council was also apparent in Canada Border Services Agency documents recently obtained by blogger Joe Kutchta through an access to information request to the department. “The message below from the SPP Secretariat concerns the final recommendations of the NACC and once again we are being asked to respond under very tight deadlines,” says one email, which asks a CBSA employee to comment on six corporate requests affecting border issues. Under the NACC recommendation to “simplify and improve customs processes,” another CBSA employee states, “Would need legislative changes to a variety of Acts and Regulations.” Legislative changes, eh? Wasn’t that what SPP leaders wanted to avoid when they started this whole process? This heightened role for Canada’s corporate class in actually drafting Canadian policy – to the exclusion of all other groups – is again emphasized in a curious sentence in a letter from Canadian Council of Chief Executives President Tom d’Aquino to the Canadian members of the NACC, also obtained by Mr. Kutcha. The letter was to inform Mr. d’Aquino’s SPP CEOs of the agenda for a July 27, 2006 meeting of the Canadian NACC members in Toronto. “We have several objectives before us,” writes d’Aquino. “The first is to effect the ‘handover’ of the principal support role for our Canadian team from the federal Department of Industry to the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.” Whatever does he mean by handover? It sounds almost like Industry Canada, despite now being the lead SPP ministry, has washed its hands of any responsibility in setting SPP priorities – a task fit only for the CCCE, it appears. Mr. d’Aquino, it is worth noting, was the source of the now famous “evolution by stealth” statement from the secret September 2006 North American Forum in Banff Springs, Alberta. Once again, we only know this because of access to information requests filed by the Canadian Labour Congress. |
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