Deep integration graphically revealed in pesticide issue

May 9, 2007

A CanWest story yesterday (it appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, The Regina Leader-Post, The Windsor Star, The Edmonton Journal, The Victoria Times-Colonist, The Calgary Herald, the Vancouver Sun and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix) reveals that Canada is in the process of lowering its thresholds for toxic chemical residues on fruits and vegetable - “harmonizing” our standards with those of the US. Why? Because our often higher standards are a “trade irritant.” (Canada boosts pesticide limit, Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service, Tuesday, May 08, 2007)

This story reveals what I and others have been saying for over a year, that the deep integration process is moving ahead rapidly, behind closed door - which essentially means that the country is being transformed as you read this email. No bigger threat to our future, short of global environmental catastrophe, can be imagined. Deep integration literally means the end of Canada as a sovereign, democratic country. We need to take every opportunity to fight this insidious program - now formally ensconced in a trilateral agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). (Read more about the SPP and keep up to date on the issue).

As we have always said about DI, harmonization actually means a race to the bottom because it is driven by corporations not by civil society.

Write a short letter attacking the government’s plans re: pesticide residues, using the issue to expose the deep integration process and the SPP.

FRAMING: Frame the issue as a corporate attack on Canadian sovereignty and democracy. The process of protecting Canadians’ health is now in the hands of the corporations advising the government on the SPP and no longer determined by democratic governance or by those agencies created by government to protect us.

Copy your letters to all MPs (click here for addresses).

Some possible points to make...

• If you live in a city where the issue has not been covered, raise the issue and ask why your local paper did not cover it and demand that it does....

• start off you letter talking about the pesticide issue (use some quotes from David Boyd in Canada boosts pesticide limit, Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service, Tuesday, May 08, 2007), a highly respected environmental lawyer from BC and make the point that the health of Canadian should always prevail over corporate interests

• point of the undemocratic nature of the SPP - that it has never been authorized by legislation, that there has never been a serious debate about in Parliament, that there have never been any kind of public hearings to get Canadian views on integrating our country into the US

• this is a corporate initiative - it started out as the Security and prosperity Initiative sponsored by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and is now advised by another corporate group drawing 30 CEOs from the membership of the CCCE - called the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) (Read NACC backgrounder).

• no civil society group has had any input into this process - no environmentalists, no public health advocates, no one representing the cultural sector. What’s good for business is good for us all...

• you can also refer to the recent meetings held by yet another corporate and government sponsored group called the North American Future 2025 Project which held meetings in Calgary to talk about energy and about the bulk export of water (Gulp! Canada's water on the table in talks with parched U.S., Mexico To draft 'blueprint' on economic integration, Kelly Patterson, CanWest News Service, Friday, April 13, 2007)

• highlight the obsessive secrecy surrounding the SPP and the groups supporting it and pose the question - what have they got to hide? If you do not refer to the above meeting you can refer to one held in Banff in September which got literally no coverage by the main media. It was attended by Stockwell Day, General Hillier, Defence Minister O’Connor and from the US - former Sec of State George Shultz and then Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld.. Day refuses to even acknowledge the meeting took place.

• you could also refer to Canada’s aggressive war-making military stance of the past few years as another example of deep integration - of Canada simply following the lead of the US on a whole range of policies.

• alert people to the third SPP leaders summit (1st was in Texas, the second, last year, in Cancun) to take place in August this year
  

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