The Council replies: Letters to the editor
Is the SPP dead?

By Stuart Trew
The Globe and Mail
October 19, 2007

An abridged version of the following letter ran in the October 19 issue of the Globe and Mail, a week after columnist John Ibbitson's strange column claiming that the SPP was dead. Oddly enough, the day before Ibbitson's column, the Globe ran a story about how Health Canada was harmonizing recommended vitamin doses with the United States, despite evidence that we should be consuming five to ten times as much vitamin D as U.S. health authorities currently suggest.

Is the SPP dead?

If it were true, as John Ibbitson claims (Say goodbye to North America's special partnership - Oct. 10), that the Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead, the Council of Canadians would be the first to celebrate. Unfortunately, trilateral work on common security measures (like “no-fly” lists) and common regulatory policies (like higher pesticide limits on fruits and vegetables) continues, quietly, in over 20 governmental SPP working groups. In fact, on Tuesday, this paper reported that despite claims from the Canadian Cancer Society and Canadian Paediatric Society that we should be consuming five to ten times as much vitamin D as Health Canada recommends, the department will keep plugging the lower U.S. dosage. Common North American food safety standards are a priority of the SPP’s “food and agriculture regulatory systems working group,” although that never made it into the story. If only Ibbitson had realized earlier that the point of the SPP was to avoid public scrutiny, and that scrutinizing government policy is a journalist’s responsibility, we might all be celebrating right now.

Stuart Trew, Researcher, The Council of Canadians

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