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Way Too Close for Comfort: Canada-U.S. military and security integration endangers all Canadiansby Stuart Trew
Since Barlow’s book Too Close for Comfort hit the stands in 2005, bureaucrats, business leaders and other faceless “stakeholders” have been furiously implementing security initiatives within the scope of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), while our government paints the new policies as “made in Canada.” Not only is Canadian independence at stake, but increasingly so are our human rights and civil liberties. Cosy relationship In September 2006, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) released its 2006-07 report on plans and priorities, repeating over and over again that “greater collaboration with the United States” was strategic priority number one. The plan is contentious, to say the least. It includes:
The military component of this new cosy relationship with America is outlined in an October 2006 report commissioned by the Council of Canadians called Marching Orders: How Canada abandoned peacekeeping – and why the UN needs us now more than ever. Author Steven Staples explains how the transformation of Canada’s military began under the previous Liberal government but has sped up under the Conservatives. Military and government officials are working hard to convince Canadians that there is no longer a need for peacekeepers today, and that Canada is best served, in the words of our current ambassador to the U.S. Michael Wilson, as “an active contributor and partner in the war on terror, particularly with our activities in Afghanistan.” More proof of this military move toward total Canada-U.S. alignment surfaced in a December 4, 2006 National Post article on Canada’s Defence Capability Plan for the next 20 years. The plan states “that the United States will remain our principal defence and security partner,” even if “no large-scale conventional military threat to Canada currently exits.” And there’s the rub. Despite a lack of any major threat, according to the Post, our government plans on spending billions on new heavy military machinery in order to remain a key player in the U.S.-led “war on terror.” Secret meetings The DFAIT report on plans and priorities clearly shows that Canada is making significant changes to its foreign and military policy in order to secure its trading relationship with the United States. As previously reported in Canadian Perspectives, this is exactly the kind of trade-off the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) has been plugging for the past four years, despite clear public opposition. Even DFAIT acknowledges this. Based on a University of Ottawa study from October 2005, the report says, “83 per cent [of Canadians] said the Canadian government should pursue an independent foreign policy, even if this leads to problems with the United States.” But that doesn’t mean they’re going to listen. In fact, secrecy is of the utmost importance to the federal government. From September 12 to 14, at Alberta’s Banff Springs Hotel, Canadian, U.S. and Mexican bureaucrats, military personnel and politicians attended a secret meeting to discuss the logistics of integration, outside of the media spotlight. Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor was invited, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld sent a staff member, and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day actually attended, but his office told journalists he was under no obligation to divulge what he discussed because it was a “private meeting.” No matter how offensive that statement, it was later contradicted by U.S. Consul General John Nay, who referred to the North American Forum as a “sister organization” and “parallel structure to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” Day was again caught dodging public and media scrutiny this November by CBC correspondent Henry Champ, who reported that Canada and the United States had “agreed to a memorandum of understanding to allow the electronic exchange of ballistics information between the two countries and the assignment of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) official to Toronto.” Champ wrote that “It was a surprise to learn of this news from the U.S. Department of Justice and not our own government. An even bigger surprise to be told by Day’s office that they had chosen not to inform the Canadian media.” They know who you are This fall, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon announced the impending establishment of a “made-in-Canada” no-fly list similar to the one already functioning in the U.S. And yet we know from the 2006 SPP “Report to Leaders” that “compatible [North American] advance passenger information systems” and “compatible criteria for the posting of lookouts of suspected terrorists and criminals” are priorities of the tri-national security integration agenda to be completed by June 2007. However “made in Canada” our list may be for the moment, it will ultimately be merged with the U.S. no-fly list. The U.S. has come under fire recently, when it was revealed that the list included peace activists, pre-schoolers and U.S. senator Ted Kennedy. More disturbing were revelations in the final Arar Commission report that the Canadian Border Security Agency is already collecting data on all Canadian travellers through a National Risk Assessment Centre (NRAC). Information about travelers is fed into a computer that determines the risk level. The same system has been “grading” U.S. travellers for the past three years, according to recent reports of U.S. Homeland Security techniques. “Canada and the United States use the same risk-analysis system,” wrote Justice Dennis O’Connor in his report. And, “pursuant to a 2005 memorandum of understanding, NRAC automatically shares with the U.S. National Targeting Center [Advance Passenger Information] for air passengers arriving in or transiting through Canada for whom terrorism or serious crime-related lookouts have been issued.” Leave your rights at home The Security and Prosperity Partnership is pushing Canada even closer to the United States at a time when the U.S. is looking dangerously like a modern police state. The U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006 strips all non-U.S. citizens, including Canadians, of their constitutional right to a fair trial. It grants the U.S. president the authority to detain non-citizens indefinitely, without charge, and “to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions” as they relate to torture. Worse, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Act “allows detainees to be sentenced to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses [and] grants officials in the Bush Administration a retroactive ‘get out of jail free’ card for war crimes.” Are these the kinds of policies Canadians want their own government to adopt? Certainly not. Unfortunately, security integration through the SPP gives us no choice but to adopt them. Despite the clear dangers to Canadians of closer security and military ties with the United States, our government is forging ahead with its deep integration agenda, without public or parliamentary scrutiny. What are actually tri-national security initiatives are being sold at home as “made-in-Canada” solutions to terrorism. Unless we challenge this agenda now, Canada will get swept up into the emerging U.S. security state, all for the sake of a trade agenda being pushed by a handful of Canada’s richest CEOs. Not only are Canada’s independent foreign and defence policies at risk, so are the civil liberties and human rights we fought very hard to establish. For more information about the military integration with the U.S., visit www.canadians.org/peace. Stuart Trew is a Communications Administrator for The Council of Canadians.
Read more about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) on our website. Email inquiries@canadians.org or call us at 1-800-387-7177, for more information. Printer-friendly version: |
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updated
March 7, 2007
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If, as Maude Barlow said, Canada
and the U.S. were “too close for
comfort” under Liberal leadership,
what are we to make of deep
integration under a Conservative
government? Perhaps not surprisingly,
the pace has gone into hyperdrive.
Stephen Harper has always been clear
that he considers improving Canada-U.S. relations his main job and, that
when it comes to military and security
spending, no dollar figure is too large
if it will somehow keep the U.S. border
open to Canadian goods. 
