SPP – The Merger of North America

Published as well in University of Waterloo Paper The Imprint
September 25th, 2008

SPP – The Merger of North America

With the final ratification of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) occurring at some point in 2010 at a yet to be named elitist stronghold somewhere in Canada, the three countries of North America will, for all intensive purposes, be merged into a union with a corporate oligarchy at the helm of power.

This union will have been achieved through the co-operation of successive liberal and conservative governments in Canada, the bush administration (and all possible successors) in America, and the leadership of Fox and Calderon in Mexico.

The most immediate critique of the SPP is that backroom deals between neoliberal actors and neo-con parties have never led to the SPP being discussed openly on the floors of the legislative assemblies of any North American country. As few as 0.00000014% of the population (that is around 60 people of an estimated 440,000,000 total population) are negotiating and securing agreements which will affect every aspect of our lives. Why do our elected representatives not discuss or vote on the SPP in the legislature?

The true driver of the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) which is made up of executives from 30 transnational corporations, 10 representatives from each country. People who have the job (and through the stock markets, the legal responsibility) of making as much money as possible in as little amount of time as possible. To succeed in their jobs, this group makes policy recommendations to the leaders of the North American countries at yearly meetings.

This pure capitalist trilateral agreement aims to harmonize regulatory, security (spying powers, repressive police responses), transportation (NAFTA super highway, airport and dock security), border (smart border initiative, bio-metric identification cards), energy (energy security for America using Canadian resources), environmental (anti-Kyoto – market based environmentalism), economic (an advanced neoliberal agenda), social (end of social security as we recognize it with taxpayers bailing out failing investment firms and funding massive golden parachute agreements for fired CEOs, and the increasingly poor treatment of First Nations), and health (making it nearly impossible for natural health product promotion through bills c-51- and c-52 while catering to big pharma) policies to ensure the uninterrupted flow of goods and capital across the borders while restricting the movement of citizens.

This harmonization of policies will see the most invasive and profit oriented policies adopted while the more progressive ones - policies that are geared towards social and environmental protection – are dumped in a race to the bottom.

The quest for the lowest common denominator has already yielded results. One example is that the allowable levels of pesticides on food coming into Canada from the US and Mexico was recently raised to match the policies of our continental partners. As a result, more life damaging poisons end up on our foods and in our bodies, while also accumulating in earth’s life-supporting systems.

Another example is that our government signed a deal with the Americans that will allow armed forces of America to enter Canada if asked. It works the other way as well, but with the American’s recent move to deploy the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team in America under the control of Northern Command for domestic operations, I don’t think they’ll be asking us for help any time soon. We can expect to see American troops in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics.

A third policy shift we have already seen is one that is disgracing Canada around the world. The energy security portion of the SPP aims to increase development of the tar sands of Northern Alberta by a factor of five within a few years. The tar sands is already the single largest point source emitter of greenhouse gases in the world and is producing toxic sludge which is seeping into the Athabasca river where it is decimating wildlife populations and contributing to a cancer explosion in downstream First Nations communities. In addition tar sands operations are already using more water per day than the city of Calgary and the Athabasca River is now barely reaching the Peace-Athabasca delta.

The SPP aims to broaden the divide between the capitalist upper class elite and all the poor and middle classes of North America (capitalist or not). This will happen by the implementation and harmonization of pro-blind-profit policies at the loss of environmental sanity and social consciousness. With the upcoming collapse of the American economy, recently highlighted by a 700 billion dollar buyout of wall street money gambling firms, and the shockwaves it will create worldwide, we should be moving away from obviously unsustainable American policies and reject the SPP, NAFTA, TILMA, FTAA, WTO, IMF, World Bank and all other trade agreements and policies that place profits over environmental and social well-being. These anti-democratic treaty process must be stopped.