OTTAWA, ONTARIO - The Canadian Council of Chief Executives' blueprint calling for the creation of a joint Canada-U.S. border, a common approach to immigration, trade and defence and a customs' union with the U.S. is nothing less than a cheap exploitation of the tragedy of September 11, 2001 to further the business group's agenda, says the Council of Canadians.

The blueprint, released yesterday evening in Toronto, proposes a standardisation of defence, security, immigration, trade and economic policies and abandoning Canadian control of its energy resources under the guise of a "resource security pact".

"The CCCE is exploiting the fears of Canadians to lure them into the fallacy that everything will be much better if we were fully integrated into the United States political and economic sphere," says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the 100,000-members Council of Canadians. "How this will be so is never explained. Here's a bunch of assumptions that the CCCE is passing as facts. There is no way that the deep integration proposed by the CCCE would be anything less than blind acceptance of American policies for Canada.

"This is not about reinventing the border. This is a blatant attempt to exploit the World Trade Centre tragedy to further the business agenda of the CCCE. The CEOs are playing the terrorism card to further assimilate Canada into the U.S., at no benefit to most Canadians.

"It would be ludicrous to believe that common policies in the defence, security, trade and immigration areas would even have a Canadian flavour with a neighbour that happens to be the only remaining superpower on the planet. Simply put, the CCCE's proposal amounts to pressuring the federal government into abandoning its sovereignty."

Murray Dobbin, a former Board member of the Council of Canadians and author of "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen", recently penned a position paper titled "Ziplocking North America: Can Canada Survive Continental Integration" which forecast such a push from Canada's business elite.

"The CCCE would have us believe that it is motivated by security reasons. What they see in the fall-out of the tragedy of the World Trade Centre is an opportunity to push further down the road of deep integration with the United States," says Dobbin. "NAFTA is no longer enough to please the business elite. In their twisted world, setting aside Canadian policies to develop North American policies with a neighbouring country 10 times our size is essential to protect Canada from a loss of sovereignty."

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