The Council replies: Letters to the editor
No sign security deal is 'smart'

By Stuart Trew
Peterborough Examiner
November 7, 2007
Re "No need to fear SPP deal" (Column, Nov. 5)

Alexander Moens of the Fraser Institute thinks that the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between Canada, Mexico and the United States is "smart" for several reasons.

One is because its 300 initiatives aimed at further integrating the three economies do not require congressional or parliamentary approval. In other words, the SPP is "smart" because it avoids a democratic debate about the usefulness of the SPP. Wonderful.

A second reason why the SPP is "smart," according to Moens, is that it avoids European Union-style political structures, "while gradually moving towards harmonization in regulations and a single market for goods and services. " Translation: Canada gets stuck in an economic union with the world's only superpower without any political control over the nation's future. Brilliant.

But the most astonishing reason why the SPP is "smart," in Moens' mind, is that it would give the private sector more say in how the market is regulated, and therefore, "The role of government can then be reduced to supervising market-based regulations, and focusing on threats and high-risk border traffic."

In other words, Canada as custodian of a new corporate order. I doubt you'd find many Canadians who would call that a "smart" idea.

Stuart Trew, Researcher, The Council of Canadians

Visit the IntegrateThis.ca website for more information about the SPP.