Union leaders trying to stop instigators from incurring a riot
YouTube video: |
Why Canadians should worry about the new SPP trade pact
'We are quite right to ask, to demand to
know, exactly what is going on here.'
By
Larry Brown
National Secretary-Treasurer
National Union of Public and General Employees
Ottawa (22 August 2007) - What’s all the fuss about this ‘SPP’ – the
Security and Prosperity Partnership between Canada, the US, and
Mexico?
After all, government officials from the three countries downplay the
whole concept, and no less a figure than Tom d’Aquino, of the Canadian
Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), has said the issues discussed at
the SPP are "quite important but frankly quite boring. They're not
terribly exciting."
Prime Minister Harper made the talks at Montebello sound pretty
innocuous: "In Montebello, we will discuss, among other things, the
competitiveness of our businesses, energy and the environment, the
efficiency of our borders and our preparedness for emergencies and
disasters," he said in outlining the list of topics to be discussed.
Granted, at first blush that all sounds as dull as Mr. d’Aquino would
have us believe it is.
On the other hand, President Bush has a different list of topics on
the agenda: "enhancing global competitiveness, safety of food and
products, sustainable energy and the environment, smart and secure
borders, as well as energy management." (Food safety and energy
management must be among the “other things” that Mr. Harper
mentioned.)
So why the protests? Why the high level of anxiety among people in all
three countries about the SPP?
Here’s a few reasons.
First, the official descriptions
of the SPP are a bit more comprehensive than our esteemed leaders are
now acknowledging.
When U.S. President George W. Bush, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin
and former Mexican President Vicente Fox met in Waco, Texas, in 2005
and agreed to pursue a wide range of goals under the Security and
Prosperity Partnership (SPP), they promoted it as being designed to
streamline everything from food and drug safety standards to counter
terrorism measures.
Prime Minister Harper met with the same two presidents in Mexico a
year ago. They issued a statement celebrating the SPP as, “a
framework for us to advance collaboration in areas as diverse as
security, transportation, the environment and public health.”
Somehow, collaborating with Mr. Bush on either the environment or
health care doesn’t seem like the world’s best idea. Anyone who thinks
we should collaborate with the U.S. on health care, for example,
should run, not walk, to see the movie SiCKO.
The SPP website describes the partnership’s proposals as “ambitious
security and prosperity programs to keep our borders closed to
terrorism yet open to trade.... The SPP builds upon, but is separate
from, our longstanding trade and economic relationships.”
The three governments have established SPP Prosperity Working Groups.
The working groups established cover the following wide list of
services:
● Energy
● Environment
● E-Commerce & Information
Communications Technologies
● Financial Services
● Food and Agriculture
● Transportation
● Health
These are some pretty important issues, one would think.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership seeks to harmonize untold
aspects of our continental life. It is difficult to fully analyze the
proposal because so much of it is being discussed solely in private.
We do know that the SPP is designed to streamline everything from food
and drug safety standards to counter terrorism measures.
Boring? Not even close.
Secondly, the SPP is a classic
case of government by and for big business. When the SPP was
announced, the three governments also announced the creation of the
North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) “to fully incorporate
the private sector into the SPP process.”
In reality, the NACC represents big business from the three countries.
It is a group of 30 CEOs from each of the three North American
countries, representing some of the biggest corporations in the world.
Most of the Canadian representatives are members of D'Aquino's CCCE
group of senior business leaders.
The SPP website says: “Increasing private sector engagement in the SPP
by adding high-level business input will assist governments in
enhancing North America’s competitive position and engage the private
sector as partners in finding solutions.”
The website adds that these "consultations occur at many levels."
However, everyone else can submit their ideas to the website – where
they will no doubt receive due consideration, as long as they stick to
the prescribed topics of “ways to cut red tape and eliminate
unnecessary barriers to trade in the areas covered by the working
groups” – while the NACC meets regularly with the three top North
American political leaders and with senior government officials to
advise them directly on the SPP.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives couldn’t ask for more.
Thirdly, the SPP is designed to
misinform the public. On February 7, 2007, the Ottawa Citizen
reported that: “Canadian, U.S. and Mexican politicians discussed using
‘stealth’ to overcome public resistance to the integration of the
three countries when they held a confidential meeting last year." The
quotation was contained in documents released under U.S. Freedom of
Information laws.
In September 2006, a forum in Banff was attended by an interesting mix
of defence department and senior government officials, including
ministers, and business leaders. Media were excluded, even though
federal cabinet minister Stockwell Day gave a speech. He refused to
reveal the contents of his talk. One assumes that he received his
public salary on that day, but his thoughts were available only to big
business leaders and defence officials.
Former Finance Minister John Manley was among those at the meeting and
he saw no problem with public officials meeting privately. The
Citizen quoted Manley as saying the forum was “not part of a
nefarious plan to yield sovereignty to the U.S.... It was just some
informed private citizens and government officials having a
conversation.”
Lockheed Martin executive Ron Covais, also present at the forum, told
Maclean’s magazine, in reference to the SPP talks, “We’ve
decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative
changes, because we won’t get anywhere.” The main avenue for changes
would be through executive agencies, bureaucrats and regulations, he
said, adding: “The guidance from the ministers was, ‘Tell us what we
need to do and we’ll make it happen.’”
Fourthly, the SPP is a disturbing
mixture of government officials, big business, and the defence
departments and defence industries. The initiative may be a secret to
most Canadians, but not to the select few, and what an interesting
crew they are!
Consider who attended the secret Banff meeting.
Stockwell Day, Federal Minister of Public Safety
General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff
Gordon O’Connor, then Minister of Defence
Perrin Beatty, President, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Thomas d’Aquino, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Roger Gibbins, Canada West Foundation
Richard L. George, Suncor Energy Inc.
Peter Harder, Deputy Minister, Foreign Affairs
Fred Green, Canadian Pacific Railway
James Kinnear, Pengrowth Corporation
Sharon Murphy, Chevron Canada
From the United States:
Donald Rumsfeld, Former U.S. Defense Secretary
Rick Covais, President, Lockheed Martin
Admiral Tim Keating, U.S. Navy, Northern Command
James Schlesinger, former Secretary of Energy and Defense
Dan Fisk, Senior Director, National Security
Maj. Gen. Mark Volcheff, Director, Plans, Policy and Strategy, NORAD
Clay Sell, Deputy Secretary of Energy
From Mexico:
Geronimo Gutierrez, Deputy Foreign Minister
Vinicio Suro, Pemex, Mexican National Oil Co.
Eduardo Medina-Mora, Secretary of Public Security
What should be made
of such exclusive and private meetings by this select group of
stakeholders? Perhaps the old adage that “the business of government
is business” needs to be updated to “the business of government is
business, especially the defence industry.”
We are quite right to ask, to demand to know, exactly what is going on
here when we have these things happening: governments are being
directed by the biggest corporations in the three countries; there are
secret meetings between our government leaders, the defence industry,
and the corporate sector; and there is stealth planning to avoid
public scrutiny.
The only thing surprising here is that more Canadians aren’t demanding
that the whole process be opened up to public scrutiny. But then
that’s the whole point of keeping the process secret, isn’t it? NUPGE
Larry Brown is National Secretary Treasurer of the 340,000-member
National Union of Public and General Employees, one of the largest
unions in Canada.
_______________________________________________
Police accused of using agents provocateurs in Montebello
'They
were there to deliberately cause trouble.' - Dave Coles, CEP president
Ottawa (23 Aug. 2007) - Did the police plant agents provocateurs among
protestors at this week's Montebello summit to make demonstrators look
bad and deflect criticism away from the Harper government's
controversial trade policies? A lot of people think so.
Trade was the major issue at the two-day summit attended by Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George Bush and Mexican
President Felipe Calderon. Specifically, the three leaders talked
about the North
American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers
Union of Canada (CEP), is convinced the police planted agents to stir
up
trouble on behalf of the government and he has a damning
video to
support his suspicions.
For his part, Harper smirked at Montebello when asked about the
protesters, dismissing them as "sad."
Dirty work for Harper?
The video, now being viewed around the world on
You
Tube, shows three
masked 'protesters' - one with a rock in hand - apparently ready to
clash with riot police.
None of the men look like demonstrators and, when
confronted by Coles, they refused to remove their masks. Moreover, the
three were wearing
boots identical to those of the police officers they were supposedly
challenging - in this case the Surete du Quebec.
Conveniently, as tensions rose between the men and other protestors, uniformed police intervened to 'arrest'
them and whisk them safely away. The men were not arrested and no
explanation was given of who they were or where they went.
"I accused them of being police, and every time I yelled at them that
they were police, you could tell by their facial expressions that they
were really troubled," Coles told CTV Newsnet Wednesday.
The Quebec force denied using secret agents and so did the RCMP but
few who were there, or who have seen the
video, believe them.
Coles said the men were "not young kids" and he is sure what
their role was. "They were there to deliberately cause trouble, to
give the police a chance to try and get rid of these young kids that
were exercising their right to protest peacefully," he said.
He is demanding an investigation of the incident by Harper's office
in Ottawa and the office of Quebec Premier Jean Charest in Quebec
City.
"We have proof that the three individuals who were 'arrested' after
being exposed as 'agents provocateurs' were, in fact, members of the
Quebec police force," he said in a statement.
Footnote:
On Aug. 23, the Surete du Quebec, the provincial police force, finally
admitted it had 'undercover' officers at Montebello. However, the force
said in a statement the infiltrators did not "act as instigators or
commit criminal acts." Yet the issue of who approved their shady
presence remains an open question, especially given that it was Stephen
Harper's summit and he has had a penchant from his first days as prime
minister of enforcing his personal stamp on virtually everything
related to his government. Does anyone seriously believe the Quebec
force was acting on its own - with the knowledge and cooperation and
approval of federal authorities?
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of
Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our
mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a
stronger Canada by ensuring that our common wealth is used for the
common good. NUPGE
__________________________________________________
Is this what we are headed towards in the US , Canada and Mexico ? Is this the first step in the North American Union ? The government has a Myth Vs. Fact about this topic . Question everything , communicate , gain knowledge , bring the power back to the working class . Or just forget about what is being discussed here and go back to American Idol .
Fraternally,
Joe
"Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed citizens to change the world. Indeed, it has never been done otherwise." - Margaret Mead
