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SPP WATCH
As well as regular SPP updates, the site is full of reports, interviews and multimedia presentations critical of what's often called the "deep integration" of North America. News updates will be posted here regularly and archived into the seven categories on the left. The site is updated regularly so visit often, or sign up for regular updates above. Photo: Council delivers 10,000 Stop the SPP petitions during the August 2007 Montebello Leaders' Summit.
--- Prentice tries to reconcile “security” and “prosperity” at Council of the Americas annual meeting May 9, 2008 On May 7, Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who is also the minister responsible for pipelines, was in Washington to address the 38th Council of the Americas Annual Meeting. This is the group that acts as the U.S. co-secretariat, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). (more...) Questions about military cooperation pact with U.S. still unanswered May 8, 2008 Since the story broke this February that the Canadian Forces had signed a troop-sharing agreement with the U.S. army for cross-border disasters and other incidents, Canadians have been asking questions of the government but getting little information in response. (more...) U.S., industry and NACC push to change Canada’s copyright laws continue May 8, 2008 Industry Minister Jim Prentice will table a new copyright law at the end of the month that is expected to ape what critics call overly restrictive U.S. intellectual property policy. While the rule changes have been in the pipes since the Paul Martin Liberal days, the industry push to have them enacted has only strengthened with the Security and Prosperity Partnership. (more...) May 8, 2008 The Natural Resources Defense Council sent a letter to U.S. Senators this week urging them to oppose amendments to the 2008 National Defense Authorization Bill that would repeal a major environmental initiative to ban the purchase of dirty fuel from sources like Alberta’s tar sands. (more...) The SPP keeps U.S. tanks full – an op-ed by the Council of Canadian May 7, 2008 The following op-ed by Brent Patterson, director of campaigns and organizing with the Council of Canadians, appeared in today’s Windsor Star: (more...) May 6, 2008 A key initiative within the Security and Prosperity Partnership calls for the, "Identification and appropriate adoption of best practices in maintaining the safety, efficacy and quality of pharmaceutical products." (more...) “Plan Mexico” counter-productive and militaristic, says new report tying it to the SPP May 6, 2008 While Canada has its own bad security deals with the United States – joint no-fly lists, common biometric ID cards, cooperation with a draconian detention and deportation system for migrants – U.S. Congress is about to authorize a doozy with Mexico that has critics sounding alarm bells. (more...) Dead birds and water shortages in boomtown Alberta May 2, 2008 By now the whole world knows about the 500 ducks that died after landing in one of Syncrude’s toxic tailing ponds in Northern Alberta. The tragedy occurred just after the province had put aside $25 million in public relations cash to convince the White House that tar sands crude was environmentally friendly. (more...) NAFTA’s legacy? Census data shows widening income gap despite promises of continental integration May 2, 2008 Last week, at the close of the fourth SPP summit in New Orleans, Prime Minister Harper issued a joint statement with Presidents Bush and Calderon that reaffirmed their commitment to the NAFTA trading model despite fresh criticism of free trade in all three countries. (more...) Nothing new from the Disaster Summit but dangerous SPP initiatives live on April 29, 2008 The media and business consensus following last week’s Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in New Orleans is that the trilateral meeting didn’t produce anything significant. While this is partly correct – no new initiatives were announced – the ones we’re stuck with are bad enough. And while we learned a few new things about the SPP’s progress since Montebello, very few of the details ended up in the news. (more...) Harper out of batteries on energy issues April 24, 2008 At the end of this week’s Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in New Orleans, Prime Minister Harper said that, "Canada really is confident that the next President will also understand the importance of NAFTA, and the importance of the commercial relationship between the United States and Canada.” (more...) U.S. states may seek Great Lakes water April 24, 2008 As reported by Michael Oliveira of the Canadian Press yesterday, “Parched U.S. states could start ‘water wars’ in the years ahead and fight for access to Great Lakes resources as they become more desperate to meet growing needs, Canadian and American experts said Wednesday at a water conference.” (more...) "Don't leave us!" begs NACC, "Don't worry," respond Bush, Harper and Calderon April 22, 2008 Oh what a depressing summit this was for the North American Competitiveness Council. Like last August, the all-corporate advisory body to the SPP has just tabled a "report to leaders" outlining its hopes and dreams for continental integration in 2008. Unlike last year, there's nothing new in this one beyond a sense of desperation that, for all the CEOs have achieved in public policy setting, the SPP's days are numbered. (more...) Joint statement by Three Amigos speaks for itself April 22, 2008 Highlights from the 'Joint Statement by President Bush, President Calderon, Prime Minister Harper'. (more...) Tour of New Orleans shows widespread government neglect April 21, 2008 Standing on old concrete foundations buried in overgrowth, it was hard to believe the expanses of green dotted with unused houses used to be a thriving community. But that was before Hurricane Katrina hit in the summer of 2005. Reconstruction in the Lower Ninth Ward has been slow to non-existent. (more...) CNN Coverage of the SPP Summit in New Orleans, featuring Maude Barlow April 21, 2008, in New Orleans (more...) Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, talks with CTV NewsNetApril 21, 2008, in New Orleans (more...) People’s Summit off to a dramatic and energetic start April 21, 2008 As barricades went up in parts of New Orleans' business district yesterday to protect the SPP meeting from scrutiny, two very different meetings were taking place close by. (more...) "High priests" of deep integration working on new post-SPP agreement with government April 21, 2008 We saw it coming but now it looks conclusive: Canada's deep integration nuts are working on a post-SPP agreement that will strike Mexico out of the equation. (more...) Amnesty International slams SPP secrecy in letter to Bush, Calderon and Harper April 21, 2008 Amnesty International has sent Prime Minister Harper and his U.S. and Mexican counterparts a letter condemning the secrecy behind the SPP and demanding that it be brought to each country's respective legislatures “to facilitate meaningful public debate.” (more...) The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), Round Four April 16, 2008 As the NAFTA leaders and their big business counterparts gather in New Orleans a few days from now for the fourth North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit, it is worth reflecting on its role in North American integration. (more...) CEP files official complaint against “agents provocateurs” in Montebello April 16, 2008 Dave Coles, the CEP president who unmasked a police officer posing as a rock-wielding protestor at Montebello last August, has filed an official complaint with the Police Ethics Commissioner about the use of agents provocateurs by the Sureté de Québéc. (more...) Is the tar sands’ water supply protected by NAFTA? April 16, 2008 Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, is warning Albertans that the government “could be forced to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to foreign-owned oilsands companies under NAFTA if a drought forced the province to ration water,” according to an article in the Edmonton Journal. (more...) NACC member Chevron moves in on Mexico’s public oil and gas sector April 10, 2008 Chevron Corp, a member of the North American Competitiveness Council, has “submitted proposals to tap oil and natural-gas reserves in Mexico amid declining output from the second-biggest crude-producing nation in the Western Hemisphere,” according to Bloomberg this week. (more...)
April 10, 2008 Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff met with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in Ottawa this week to discuss progress on the Security and Prosperity Partnership. (more...)
April 9, 2008 The group No One Is Illegal has issued an action alert asking citizens to contact their MPs (particularly Liberal MPs) to urge them to vote no to a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). (more...)
April 9, 2008 This month, President Bush will host the leaders of Canada and Mexico to advance the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a project Lou Dobbs has predicted will "end the United States as we know it." (more...)
April 8, 2008 Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier met with his counterparts, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, in Washington, D.C. today “to prepare the work for a leaders meeting that will take place in New Orleans,” according to a statement. (more...)
April 8, 2008 Prime Minister Harper’s stubborn refusal to save Omar Khadr from the injustice of a Guantanamo Bay show trial became even harder to grasp today as we learned that Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has agreed the process is unlawful. (more...)
April 7, 2008 There appears to be an elite consensus forming around a C.D. Howe Institute proposal to ditch the trilateral SPP model for a more meaningful bilateral trade agreement with the United States. (more...)
April 4, 2008 With three weeks to go until the Security and Prosperity Partnership leaders summit in New Orleans, the usual suspects have launched a barrage of policy papers to try and sway the public agenda towards even deeper economic and security integration than has been proposed to date. Meanwhile, International Trade Minister David Emerson has gathered the provinces to develop a consensus on Canada’s NAFTA position should the United States force a renegotiation after the November presidential election. (more...)
March 28, 2008 Prompted by an interview with the Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice, about the workings of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, Hélène Buzzetti published an article last week in Le Devoir (March 22-23) entitled, “Adieux aux promesses de Montbello” (‘Kiss Montebello promises good-bye’). (more...)
March 27, 2008 The extent of Canadian government complicity in torture, partly exposed during the Maher Arar Commission over the past two years, is becoming even more apparent with the U.S. show trial of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr. (more...)
March 20, 2008 “The federal Conservatives are moving to give the Immigration Minister more power to control the number and type of people allowed into the country – and the speed with which they are welcomed here,” wrote the Globe and Mail on March 15. (more...)
March 20, 2008 The Department of Public Safety is reporting today that a joint RCMP-Homeland Security pilot project, which put U.S. security agents on Canadian maritime patrols and vice versa, will be made permanent. (more...)
March 20, 2008 According to an NDP press release last week, elected representatives in all three NAFTA countries “have agreed to file simultaneous legislative motions to stop further implementation of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) process, imposed undemocratically on our three nations, and to open up the process that has taken place behind closed doors to instead have a transparent review and scrutiny within their respective legislatures.” (more...) March 18, 2008 In an effort to demonstrate that the best defence is a good offence, a new Fraser Institute report by Alex Moens and Michael Cust, argues that the Canadian government must “expand and speed up the SPP goals,” and make a priority of “rebranding the SPP talks… as well as explaining the specific objective of the talks to the public” at the next summit in New Orleans this April or risk the trilateral partnership losing much of its momentum. (more...)
March 18, 2008 More evidence today that the business-friendly SPP (like NAFTA, upon which it is built) poses an increasing risk to global as well as continental public interest policy. (more...)
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