{news} Joint Can.-US Greens activites opposing the SPP

[Green Party-CT]

From: Julia Willebrand <julia.willebrand at verizon.net>
Subject: [usgp-dx] JOINT CANADIAN-US GREEN PARTY ACTIVITIES OPPOSING
 THE SPP Part I
To: usgp-dx <natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org>
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Dear All,
A long report in two parts.
Justine McCabe
Julia Willebrand
Co-Chairs, International Committee
Green Party of the US



======================================================================== 
==========================
REPORT TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE,
  GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES ON
JOINT CANADIAN-US GREEN PARTY ACTIVITIES OPPOSING THE SPP
OTTAWA, CANADA
AUGUST 19-20, 2007

With the endorsement of USGP leadership, IC co-chairs Julia  
Willebrand and Justine McCabe traveled with CT Green John Battista to  
Ottawa to learn more about the Canadian/Mexican/U.S. ?Security and  
Prosperity Partnership? (SPP) and participate in joint US-Canadian  
Green Party activities in opposition to the SPP, August 19-20, 2007.

What is the SPP?

The Council of Canadians, Canada?s largest citizens? organization  
provides a good summary of the ?Security and Prosperity Partnership  
of North America? in their anti-SPP campaign, ?Integrate this!?   
http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/backgrounders/guide/ABCs.html :

?In March 2005, as a result of intense lobbying from North America?s  
richest corporations, the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United  
States met in Waco, Texas to shake hands on the Security and  
Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP was a pledge  
to speed up the corporate goal of continental economic integration by  
linking it to U.S. government security demands.

In a post-9/11 world where, for the Bush administration, ?security  
trumps trade,? the Canadian and Mexican governments have agreed to  
fully integrate their security apparatuses with the U.S. and fully  
participate in its ?war on terror? in return for vague assurances of  
continued market access for their largest corporations. But the SPP  
goes much further than this. Plans for regulatory convergence, energy  
sector integration and a potential common external tariff will make  
independent Canadian policies on agriculture, the environment and  
energy impossible.

Since March 2005, without public input and with little public  
awareness, all three North American governments have been moving  
quickly toward establishing a continental resource pact, a North  
American security perimeter, and common agricultural and other  
health, safety and environmental policies. Working groups comprised  
of government officials and corporate leaders are quietly putting  
this ?partnership? into action, and to date only industry  
?stakeholders? have been consulted, often in private, closed-door  
meetings. Not even our elected Members of Parliament have been kept  
in the loop.?

(see: SPP timeline: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/staticpages/index.php/ 
20060830133702539; and GPC FAQ
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/spp_FAQ; http://www.greenparty.ca/ 
en/policy/documents/deeper_look_spp )

US/Canadian Green Collaboration

During contacts in NYC in 2007 between IC co-chair Julia Willebrand  
and Canadian Green Party (GPC) leader Elaine May and GPC shadow  
cabinet critic for International Trade Dr. Janet Eaton, Julia and  
other NY Greens were introduced to the SPP about which there had been  
virtually no coverage in the US media.  Dr. Eaton accepted our  
invitation to the 2007 USGP annual meeting in Reading, PA where she  
participated in an IC-sponsored Energy Forum with other international  
Green guests, presenting on the energy implications of the SPP  
particularly for Canada. http://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/documents/ 
deeper_look_spp/dr_janet_eaton
After Dr. Eaton?s presentation, we discussed ways to collaborate with  
Canadian Greens on this matter of mutual concern.  In August, we  
accepted the invitation of Canadian Greens to participate in civil  
society activities and a Green Counter Summit in Ottawa organized in  
response to the August 20-21 SPP Summit by Presidents Bush, Calderon  
and Prime Minister Harper in nearby Montebello, Quebec.   In  
anticipation of that, USGP Steering and National Committees approved  
an IC proposal endorsing: our participation in the Counter Summit; a  
call to our government to stop further implementation of the SPP  
until there is a democratic mandate from the citizenry via public  
hearings and Congressional debate and vote; and our intention to  
begin educating Americans about the SPP in alliance with labor,  
environmental and peace and justice groups.  Our two parties issued a  
joint press release announcing our collaboration http://www.gp.org/ 
press/pr_2007_08_15.shtml.  Mexican Greens did not respond to  
contacts by Julia about their position on the SPP.

?Stop the SPP? Rally/March on Parliament Hill,
Ottawa, August 19, 2007:

Julia, John and Justine participated with Canadian Greens and other  
members of civil society in a ?Stop the SPP? march/rally? on the  
steps of Canada?s Parliament building, and public forum at the  
University of Ottawa, which were organized by The Council of  
Canadians http://www.canadians.org/about/index.html. An estimated  
2000-3000 Canadians were present at the rally.  Speakers included  
First Nations representatives, Maude Barlow, Chairperson of The  
Council of Canadians, and Gustavo Iruegas, Secretary of Foreign  
Affairs of the Legitimate Government of Mexico (shadow government of  
presidential candidate Lopez Obrador for whom there was enormous  
support as the rightful winner).

Justine gave several interviews during the rally (CBC radio interview  
with Kurt Steele, video interview with Iranian TV/internet station  
IRIB, Canadian newsblog with Peter Dudley  
www.canadiannewsblog.blogspot.com, and CKLN Toronto FM radio (88.1  
FM) with Benedicta Madawo www.ckln.fm for her programs "Rude  
Awakening" and "RadioActive Feminism") Also, the GPC and GPUS were  
mentioned in an August 20 editorial ? Bring SPP before Parliament? in  
The Hill Times  (a government weekly like U.S. Roll Call)

? The Canadian and American Green parties have also allied against  
the partnership, saying that the arrangement threatens to create   
?super corridors? for oil, gas and water pipelines, damaging  
biodiversity and increasing fossil fuel consumption.  The also warn  
of the erosion of food safety standards, integration on military and  
security, and broader security surveillance.?
http://www.hilltimes.com/members/login.php?fail=2&destination=/html/ 
index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/august/20/editorial/

The tenor of the rally was somewhat different from that of  
contemporary U.S. demonstrations in DC in terms of less police  
presence, accessibility to the Parliament building (speakers were on  
its steps), and even the 2 police snipers on its roof seemed out of  
place in the mostly friendly atmosphere. Organizers passed out three- 
inch no-SPP buttons and kerchiefs printed in both French and English.  
Still, Canada?s population (33 million) is much smaller than that of  
the U.S. and there was a blockade around Montebello (45 miles from  
Ottawa) where the SPP tripartite summit was held, keeping  
demonstrators far away from Bush, Calderon and Harper.

Some Themes at the Rally:

?Anti-U.S. sentiment was prominent in remarks of rally speakers,  
expressed by affirmations of Canadian sovereignty and its different  
national principles (i.e., ?We are not the U.S.?): protection of the  
environment and sustainability; respect for First Nations and pride  
in Canada?s diversity; commitment to the public role in promoting  
social/economic justice as exemplified by pride in their single  
payer, publicly-funded health care system.

In that regard, the Canadian health system was seen as under constant  
attack by U.S. investors and their Canadian allies http:// 
www.canadians.org/publications/CP/2007/summer/healthcare.html  who  
seek a private ?U.S. style? health care system, including the new  
president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Brian Day owner of  
a private, for-profit surgery clinic in British Columbia (B.C.) where  
there are at least 70 for-profit clinics.  B.C. Premier Gordon  
Campbell and provincial health minister George Abbott are pushing  
this ?American? model including using taxpayers money to subsidize  
them. (http://www.profitisnotthecure.ca/documents/CMA/ 
BC_privatization_07.pdf; http://profitisnotthecure.ca/documents/CMA/ 
fs_pintc_07.pdf )

Opposition was also expressed to the already lowered Canadian food,  
drug and environmental standards, reduced to comply with the lower  
standards of the U.S.; to Canadian participation in Afghanistan and  
SPP plans to place the Canadian military under U.S. control, and to  
the already integrated security at the border.

Thus, in addition to the articulated dangers of the SPP itself, the  
strong Canadian opposition to it also drew on long-standing fear/ 
resentment of U.S. domination, challenging activists to further  
define Canadian national ethos and identity in opposition.  (However,  
consistent with that Canadian identity, speakers often made the  
distinction between being anti-US government but not against its  
people, and there were frequent appeals of solidarity with ?all the  
people of the Americas.?)

Hearing how members of such a developed and in many ways more  
advanced society like Canada feel dominated by the U.S. was a  
valuable and sobering experience.  If Canadians feel this way, what  
must people in developing countries feel about U.S. domination?

?Threats under SPP to export Canadian bulk water via pipelines south,  
particularly to the U.S.  Most of this water is in the north of  
Canada, requiring massive engineering projects to deliver water south  
causing serious ecological disruption and damage.  Throughout the SPP  
counter summit (rally and forum), water was repeatedly defined as a  
human right (consistent with the 2002 interpretation of the  
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by its  
supervisory body, the UN Committee on Economic, social and Cultural  
Rights) rather than as a ?good,?  ?service,? or ?investment?  
described under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

[Background]
Despite denials by PM Harper and Tom d'Aquino, head of the CCCE,  
leaked documents like the ?North American Future 2025 Project,?  
written under the auspices of the U.S. Center for Strategic and  
International Studies (CSIS) in collaboration with the Conference  
Board of Canada and Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas  
(CIDE), suggest otherwise.   http://www.canadians.org/water/documents/ 
NA_Future_2025_backgrounder.pdf
According to a report on this document by The Council on Canadians  
(?Backgrounder: North American Future 2025 Project? http:// 
www.canadians.org/water/documents/NA_Future_2025.pdf
CSIS claims that Canada has a virtually unlimited fresh water supply  
(?20 percent of the earth?s fresh water?), ?simply isn?t true. . . .  
Canada has just seven percent of the world?s available freshwater  
supplies. . . .  There is no spare water in the Great Lakes and most  
of the rivers coveted by the US flow north.  Using them to supply the  
United States would require monumental feats of engineering that  
would inevitably lead to ecological devastation by reversing the  
natural flow of water.?

A main way that SPP threatens Canada?s water, health care system and  
energy resources is by pushing for privatization via NAFTA (Chapter
 11).

Re: water and oil/gas

According to The Council on Canadians http://www.canadians.org/water/ 
documents/NA_Future_2025_backgrounder.pdf :

?Under NAFTA, water is described as a ?good.? Since under the free  
trade deal, ?no party may adopt or maintain any prohibition or  
restriction on the exportation or sale for export of any good  
destined for the territory of another party,? once Canada starts  
exporting fresh water to the U.S., we would not be able to turn off  
the tap.    Furthermore, NAFTA?s ?National Treatment? provision would  
give U.S. water companies equal rights to Canada?s water as Canadian  
companies. This would create a situation much like what has happened  
to Canada?s oil and gas sector, which is over 50 percent U.S. owned  
and where 70 percent of Canada?s oil heads south.?  (See also GPC Dr.  
Janet Eaton, PhD. PowerPoint with images and photos.)  "Threats to  
Our Water: NAFTA, SPP, Super-Corridors, Atlantica" )

Under the proportional sharing clause of NAFTA, Canada cannot reduce  
its energy exports to the U.S. even if Canadians are in need.  
Ironically, Canada now imports 40-60 percent of the energy it  
consumes and has no national energy policy. (See Gordon Laxer,  
?Easterners could freeze in the dark? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ 
servlet/story/RTGAM.20070528.wcoenergy28/BNStory/specialComment/

RE: Tar sands

Most of the world?s oil exists in the difficult-to-extract form of  
tar sands. Tar sands, also called oil sands, consist of clay, sand,  
water, and bitumen, a heavy black viscous oil, mined using strip  
mining or open pit techniques and processed to extract the oil-rich  
bitumen, which is then refined into oil. The largest tar sands  
deposits are found in Canada (Alberta) and Venezuela, each having  
about one-third of the world's total tar sands resources.  (Most of  
the rest is in the Middle East; in the US, they are concentrated in  
Eastern Utah on public lands.).  Fifty-percent of Alberta tar sands  
are owned by US companies, like ExonMobil.
  Mining and processing tar sends are harmful to the environment,  
including human communities.  Impacts will worsen under the SPP,  
which seeks a five-fold increase in demand, requiring new,  
environmentally destructive pipelines:

?Tar sands production is destroying the environment at an alarming  
rate. Alberta is poised to become one of the world?s main sources of  
greenhouse gas emissions. Tar sands development destroys vast tracts  
of land, clears forests, and consumes 26 per cent of Alberta?s  
groundwater. It takes between three and five barrels of water to  
extract just one barrel of oil. The resulting toxic wastewater cannot  
be put back into circulation, so it sits in 50-square-kilometre pools  
visible from space. Supporting the U.S. energy industry means Canada  
cannot introduce tough measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.  
Energy integration and an effective Canadian environmental strategy  
that would meet our Kyoto targets are mutually exclusive priorities.  
Either we continue to integrate our energy policy with the U.S. for  
their interests alone?as the SPP demands?or we get serious about  
greenhouse gases by creating a real "made in Canada" renewable energy  
plan. We cannot have them both. ?
  http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/backgrounders/guide/ 
energy.html ;
 http://www.canadians.org/media/council/2006/18-Nov-06.html

Re: Health care system

Until now, health care has been exempted from NAFTA as long as it is  
a fully public system.  However, once even part becomes privatized,  
the system becomes open to competition from U.S. as well as Canadian  
companies, including being eligible for government subsidies.   
According to ?Profit is not Cure?:

?Health Care in Canada is still suffering from massive federal cuts  
to provincial transfers in the 1990s which resulted in increased wait  
times and a shortage of doctors and nurses across Canada.  Provincial  
governments, starved of federal funding are turning to the private  
sector for solutions even if all the evidence proves that this will  
be more expensive, drain the public system of resources and lead to  
longer wait times.?  http://www.canadians.org/DI/issues/guide/ 
healthcare.html:

Despite the fact that the system is an excellent one, beloved by  
Canadians (polls consistently show that when asked if they would like  
a U.S.-style system, over 90 percent prefer Canada?s system),  
conservative forces have succeeded in draining it of needed funding.   
For example, Dr. Gary Walls, writing back in 1996, described what  
happened in Canada from the 1960?s when Canada?s health plan was  
enacted (?The Single Payer Model? in Coalition Report, November 15,  
1996, National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and  
Consumers, Inc.)

?In the 1960?s, corporations paid 50% of Canada?s total federal tax  
revenues while individual citizens paid the other 50%.  Today,  
individual Canadian citizens pay 92% of all tax revenues and  
corporations ay only 8%!  The reasons for this are complex, but . . .  
the corporate sector has strong armed its way out of paying its share  
of taxes, and this is placing great financial strains on Canada?s SP  
plan.  Then, after causing the funding problem in the first place,  
the corporate sector is stepping forward to warn people that the  
national health plan is in danger of becoming insolvent, and that the  
only way to save it is by giving it over to the for-profit private  
sector.?

Maude Barlow describes the dangers the SPP represents to Canada?s  
single payer public health system (?How Canada-U.S. integration is  
leading to the privatization of the Canadian health care system? from  
Too Close for Comfort: Canada?s Future within Fortress North America  
http://www.canadians.org/about/Maude_Barlow/Too_Close_for_Comfort/ 
excerpt.html ):

?Canada?s social programs are not directly named by the Task Force on  
the Future of North America or the Canadian Council of Chief  
Executives (CCCE) in their campaign to create a North American common  
market. But there is no question that deeper economic, security and  
foreign policy integration with the United States would put  
tremendous pressure on Canada to harmonize its social security system  
with the American model and open it up to competition from big  
American service corporations. . . . . Even without the [Canadian]  
Supreme Court ruling [2005: found that the Quebec provincial ban on  
private health insurance was unconstitutional], it is arguable that  
these companies have a right under NAFTA to compete in Canada because  
the health system is being privatized so quickly. Fully one-third of  
all Canadian health care spending is now private, as services are de- 
listed and doctors opt out of medicare. There are now at least 240  
health care corporations, many of them American, operating in Canada.  
There are also 140 private health insurance companies operating here;  
the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association says that at least  
37 of them are American. There are also 663 private home care  
agencies, and private companies now control at least 10 per cent of  
the MRI market.   In light of the rapid privatization of Canada?s  
health care system, the Supreme Court ruling in the Chaoulli case is  
a dangerous development. It opens the door to the Americanization of  
Canada?s cherished health care system.?

In fact, the aforementioned CSIS ?North American Future 2025? project  
is interested in homogenizing health care systems across the  
continent.  For examples, under ?The Future of North American  
Competitiveness, Trade and Market Integrations, this document states:

?As an overall component of competitiveness, North America needs to  
continue to strive toward increased trade and market  
integration. . . . . [which] will help promote economic  
competitiveness by decreasing costs of transactions and increasing  
the opportunities for trade.  The North American Future 2025 project  
will examine increased trade and market integration from the  
perspective of the economy as a whole and on a sectoral basis  
including key sectors such as the steel, automotive, manufacture and  
health industries [emphasis added].?

And later under? Intellectual Property Rights and Regulatory Regimes?:

?The North American Future 2025 project will also examine the North  
American Regulatory regime and will look to see how it can be further  
harmonized in order to drive down transaction costs, increase  
efficiency, and promote trade between Canada, The United States, and  
Mexico.  By promoting unified North American regulatory standards in  
key sectors?such as customs, transportation, health (medicines and  
medical devices) [emphasis added], and food and agriculture (food  
safety and biotechnology, for example)?North American will improve  
the efficient flow of resources while ensuring high standards for the  
safety and security of the population.?

When applied to health care, this glowing picture of efficiency that  
SPP ?deep integration? seeks through privatization is a bad joke in  
light of U.S. experience of private, for-profit managed health care:  
since the Clinton administration, the number of uninsured (most of  
whom are employed) has grown to about 17%, while the per capita cost  
is more than double that of Canada?s publicly-funded system that  
provides universal coverage.  http://www.chsrf.ca/mythbusters/pdf/ 
myth13_e.pdf; http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php)

?Virtually everyone?speakers and demonstrators alike?opposed the anti- 
democratic and secretive nature of the SPP summits and lack of public  
consultation in its development, which were dramatized by rally  
participants depositing  ?ballots? voting for/against the SPP in  
ersatz voting boxes as we marched around the Parliament Hill area.   
(See ?Behind Close Doors: What they?re not telling us about the  
Security and Prosperity Partnership http://www.canadians.org/ 
integratethis/backgrounders/guide/index.html ) Rally speakers and  
participants noted that while the public had been left out, big  
business continued to have the main input and access to the Bush,  
Calderon, Harper governments through the 30-member North American  
Competitiveness Council (NACC), the official tri-national working  
group of the SPP.

[Background]

Officially created at the second SPP summit in Cancun in 2006, the  
NACC is composed of 30 CEO?S from NA?s largest companies, including:  
ExonMobil, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Tyco, FedEx, Merck, Lockheed  
Martin, Chevron, New York Life, General Electric and Wal-Mart. The  
basis of the SPP is the 2003 ?Security and Prosperity Initiative?  
created by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE). All 10 of  
Canada?s CEO representatives to the NACC are CCCE members. The NACC,  
?marrying policy issues with business priorities,? and sets SPP?s  
priorities aimed at ensuring North American ?deep integration  
(defined by the Council on Canadians as ?the dismantling of the  
border between Canada and the United States. . . . the harmonization  
of policies and regulations that govern the foods we eat, the items  
we buy, and how we live. It calls for the formation of a new North  
America that effectively erases the border between Canada and the  
United States in the interest of trade north of the border and  
security concerns south of the border.)  The NACC?s topical working  
groups--energy, trade, security, etc.--draft new government  
regulations by which the SPP is quietly being be implemented.

Apparently the first major public response to the SPP in Canada  
occurred in a teach-in, ?Integrate This! Challenging the Security and  
Prosperity Partnership of North America,? held in Ottawa March 31 to  
April 1, 2007, sponsored by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian  
Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Labour Congress.  
Representatives from the four major political parties were invited,  
though neither members of the Conservative nor Liberal party  
attended. (Greens and New Democratic Party did, along with Mexican  
Jose Antonio Almazan, Deputy with the Partido de la Revoluci?n  
Democr?tica, PRD)  In fact, speaking at that event, GPC leader  
Elizabeth May affirmed the sense of Canadian identity being under  
attack when, according to the Council on Canadians final report, May  
?referred to the SPP as an ?attack on our core identity and on our  
sovereignty by stealth.? For May, the SPP represents a ?fork in the  
road for Canadian society ? whether we are going to pursue  
traditional Canadian values internationally, or whether we are going  
to become part of Fortress North America, a large gated community  
where U.S. security forces will guard the perimeter and all Canadians  
will be allowed to move about freely, provided we?re willing to have  
our irises scanned ???

Following that, and two years of pushing for parliamentary hearings  
by opposition trade critic of the New Democratic Party, MP Peter  
Julian, two Canadian anti-SPP experts were invited to testify before  
the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on International  
Trade (CIIT), (?Canada-U.S. Trade and Investment issues and the  
SPP?): May 1, 2007, Maude Barlow, Chairperson of the Council of  
Canadians (See http://www.canadians.org/DI/documents/ 
trade_committee_presentation_May107.pdf ),  and on May 10 by Director  
of the Parkland Institute, University of Alberta, Professor Gordon  
Laxer whose testimony http://www.canadians.org/DI/documents/ 
Trade_Gordon_Laxer_1007.pdf. evoked an ?undemocratic? response from  
Conservative MP and Chair of the Committee, Leon Benoit.  In response  
to Laxer?s statement that the SPP priority of NA ?energy security?  
would commit Canada to ensuring American energy supplies even though  
Canada itself has no national plan or reserves to protect its own  
supplies, Benoit, ordered Laxer to stop his testimony, saying it was  
irrelevant, though opposition committee members voted to overrule  
Benoit, at which point Benoit stormed out accompanied by three of the  
four Conservative Committee members. The Liberal Party Vice chair  
continued the hearing. (See: ?Tory chair storms out of SPP hearing?  
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html? 
id=c6291848-5f41-4b72-831a-2e889cd6bb9e )

Julia Willebrand, NY
NWC Delegate
212 877-5088






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