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Canada, Mexico and U.S. governments continue SPP transportation talks in Meech Lake

June 12, 2008
Posted by Stuart Trew

Transport ministers from Canada, the United States and Mexico met in Ottawa and Meech Lake this week “to explore future enhancements to North America's transportation system and shared perspectives on the challenges of infrastructure renewal,” according to a Transport Canada press release on Tuesday.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting, which received almost no coverage in the media, “included discussions on strategies to optimize capacity and encourage innovative financing; address the ever-increasing volumes of freight handled by our ports; and address the integral role of ongoing border facilitation efforts to maximizing supply chain efficiencies.”

One emphasis of the meeting, a follow-up from last year’s gathering in Tucson, Arizona, was “trade facilitation,” including work already carried out in all three countries to “develop our gateways and trade corridors, better allowing us to maximize the opportunities associated with global supply chains.”

Among the “next steps” listed in the press release were:

• The harmonization of vehicle safety regulations, including a pilot project on “electronic stability control” that will serve as the basis for future cooperation.
• The establishment of “intelligent transportation systems technology” at priority border stops.
• An agreement to “convene a trilateral multimodal regulatory cooperation meeting in the coming months to discuss the United States Department of Transportation's recent pre-notification innovations and other potential collaborative strategies” and to also work towards the harmonization of rail safety regulations.
• To “continue to share research, information, and lessons learned on Public Private Partnerships and other innovative infrastructure finance and development approaches so as to enable, facilitate, and encourage the use of private capital.”

This is more proof that a continental transportation and trade corridor plan is part of the integration agenda, which is designed to expand and fortify current unjust and environmentally harmful global trading patterns that most sane observers point out we should be radically changing. More trucks moving more goods faster across borders means more greenhouse gas emissions and more conspicuous consumption at a time when we need to be curbing both.