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SPP resources

SPP Summit - New Orleans
April 21-22, 2008

SPP Summit - Montebello
August 19-21, 2007

Teach-in
March 31 to April 1, 2007

 

Security & civil liberties

Prentice tries to reconcile “security” and “prosperity” at Council of the Americas annual meeting

May 9, 2008
Posted by Brent Patterson and Stuart Trew

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...)

“Plan Mexico” counter-productive and militaristic, says new report tying it to the SPP

May 6, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)

Nothing new from the Disaster Summit but dangerous SPP initiatives live on

April 29, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)

Amnesty International slams SPP secrecy in letter to Bush, Calderon and Harper

April 21, 2008
Posted by Pierre-Yves Serinet

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...)

North American ID card in the works through SPP

April 10, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


Liberals must vote no to Harper’s immigration reforms

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...)


North American foreign ministers meet in Washington for pre-SPP talks

April 8, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


Khadr’s U.S. trial unlawful, admits Bernier, but Harper won’t bring him home

April 8, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


Feds infringed Khadr’s Charter rights with Guantanamo interrogation, say lawyers

March 27, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


Joint RCMP-Homeland Security “Shiprider” pilot project to be made permanent

March 20, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


Partnership not dead by far, says Fraser Institute, which calls on Canada to “expand and speed up the SPP”

March 18, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

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...)


U.S. terrorist watch-list nears 1 million names; Bush blows “known terrorists” to bits in Somalia

March 3, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

The U.S. terrorist watch list has grown by 400,000 names since this past June, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and reported on blogs across America, February 28. (more...)


Harper’s foreign policy gift to Bush: Canada-Colombia free-trade pact would emulate the SPP in Latin America, says new CLC report

March 3, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

Forget about Ian Brodie’s alleged phone call to the media regarding U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barrack Obama’s stance on NAFTA. How’s this for Canadian meddling in the upcoming U.S. elections? (more...)


Harper budget claims $29-million for SPP spending but figure likely much higher

February 28, 2008
Posted by Brent Patterson

There is not a lot of detail available as to how the Harper government will spend $29 million on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, but that’s what it says it will spend in the 2008 Conservative budget, which was tabled this week in the House of Commons. (more...)


Opposition parties unite on return of Khadr; Canadian Bar Association calls for closure of Guantanamo Bay prison

February 26, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

Yesterday, the president of the Canadian Bar Association joined bar leaders across the world in calling for the closure of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a CBC report. (more...)


SPP Ministerial meeting set for February 27 and 28 in Los Cabos, Mexico

February 21, 2008
Posted by Rick Arnold

An article in La Jornada reports that the next Security and Prosperity Partnership ministerial meeting will take place February 27 and 28 in Los Cabos, Mexico. This is a pre-New Orleans meeting of SPP ministers from Mexico, Canada and the United States to set an agenda for the next full summit, taking place April 21 and 22. (more...)


RCMP addicted to spying on anything that moves

February 14, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

As if we needed another reminder that the RCMP is ill-equipped to handle national security investigations, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart released the results of an audit yesterday that slammed the police force’s exempt databases, which are bursting with information on the unlikeliest of people. (more...)


Senate renews security certificate by clearing Bill C-3

February 13, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

Late yesterday, the Senate cleared Bill C-3, an act to re-legislate the security certificate process, which was found to be unconstitutional a year ago by the Supreme Court. (more...)


SPP becomes the model for air traveller surveillance

February 7, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

At the March 2007 Integrate This teach-in, Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, predicted that just as NAFTA served as a model for all future free-trade agreements, the Security and Prosperity Partnership would set a dangerous precedent for international security policies. (more...)


Liberals, Conservatives ignore Charter; cooperate on Bill C-3

February 5, 2008
Posted by Brent Patterson

As reported in this morning's Globe and Mail, "The Conservatives and the Liberals joined forces last night in favour of new legislation on security certificates for terrorism suspects just before a Supreme Court deadline invalidates the old system later this month. (more...)


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