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SPP is built around secrecy
and US military command - law expert
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Harper
Index
Tuesday Aug 21, 2007
The agreement's title is classic framing: "Security
and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP) conjures up comfortable
images. Michael Byers says the agreement under discussion this
week by Canadian, US and Mexican leaders Harper, Bush and Calderon
should more properly be framed as a secret agreement to give sweeping
military, immigration and border control of all three countries
over to the US. On Sunday, Byers, the Canada Research Chair in
Global Politics and International Law at the University of British
Columbia told a standing-room-only forum in Ottawa about the politics
and persuasion connected with the agreement under discussion behind
the barricades this week at Montebello, Quebec.
I want to begin by welcoming the civil servants who been sent
to keep track of what's going on here. Like you, we love our
country, unlike the people who are gathering in Montebello this
week, we have nothing to hide.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership did not begin as a phenomenon
after September 11, 2001. It was part of a trend that predates
that time. But the proponents of North American integration seized
upon 9/11 as an opportunity to advance their cause. And some of
those proponents in Canada were very overt about their aspirations
in the weeks and months after the terrorist atrocities in New
York City and Washington, DC.
(Article continues below)
David O'Brien, the CEO of Canadian Pacific and now Chairman
of the Board of Royal Bank of Canada argued Canada would have
to adopt US-style immigration policies to keep the border open.
He said that we have to make North Americans secure from the outside.
'We're going to lose increasingly our sovereignty but
it's necessarily so.' Mr. O'Brien is an influential
man. Within months, the Canadian government had signed the Safe
Third Country agreement with the United States whereby Canadian
refugee policy was essentially assimilated into the refugee policy
of the United States. The rights of human beings to asylum when
they're being persecuted for their religious or political
opinions or ethnic identities is one of the most fundamental rights
of all.
Then there was Nancy Hughes Anthony, the President of the Canadian
Chambers of Commerce who said that we're not going to get
anywhere with our American friends unless we can show we have
good strong anti- terrorist legislation and we intend to enforce
it. The result was the 2001 Anti- terrorism Act, which, of course
was modelled on the [US] Patriot Act.
And then there was Patrick E. Daniels, the President of Enbridge,
the big energy company based in Calgary, who complained that Canada
pushed its sovereignty 'a little too far.' He said it
would be realistic for Canada to either get onside with US foreign
policy or 'accept some change in our relationship.'
I was asked to speak about one aspect of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership, namely security, or more specifically, the military.
In the immediate aftermath of September 2001, plans were devised
within the American and Canadian governments to put the entire
Canadian Forces under the umbrella of the US Northern Command.
To put all our soldiers, sailors and pilots and all their equipment
under the operational control of the United States, in a much-
expanded version of the North American Aerospace Defence Command
(NORAD). Fortunately some sunshine was let in upon that thinking
before it could be taken too far. Some serious credit needs to
be given here to a former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy,
who took advantage of being out of Cabinet to let the rest of
us know what his former colleagues were up to.
So those who wanted to pursue the efforts of further integration
of the Canadian and US military decided to take their efforts
underground in arrangements that bear striking similarity to the
SPP. And the SPP is part of a larger process. The Bi-National
Planning Group was the military sister or brother of the SPP.
Essentially it was a transborder committee of unelected bureaucrats,
military officers and consultants who were given task of studying
and then reporting on the options for improving the efficacy of
the North American defensive system. The goal was simply to allow
us to respond faster and better to the various kinds of threats
that might arise.
The military officers worked away quietly in Colorado Springs,
Colorado, headquarters of NORAD, as well as the US space command....
Canadian military leaders quite liked playing with the big boys
and using the best military equipment in the world...
The proponents of closer military integration could not believe
their luck when Stephen Harper was elected. And very shortly after
Mr. Harper came to power, they released their final report...
which sets out four different options for the closer integration
of the Canadian and US military. Most of the report is concerned
with public relations, noting that Canadians are particularly
attached to sovereignty.
Imagine how you might actually explain that closer military
cooperation enhances sovereignty because giving up sovereignty
is an exercise in sovereignty! You actually affirm your sovereignty
by giving some of it away..
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was
full integration, the option that had been floated internally
in 2002, the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like
an expanded NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control
would ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last
year, the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance
including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed
at the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New
Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website
of the Bi- National Planning Group, some smart people, including
possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not
yet ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make
the public case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces
because Mr. Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately
desired. And so it was shuffled away once again, it disappeared
off the website, and the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down,
and who knows what they're talking about in Montebello.
But something did happen, and I'm talking about Afghanistan....
We are seeing the implementation in theatre of precisely
the kind of planning that was going into the Bi-National Planning
Group. We are seeing the Canadian Forces being given more and
more equipment. We're even buying new tanks. We're seeing
the integration of attitudes and rules of engagement with respect
to issues like the treatment of detainees. Why did we not adopt
the Western European approach to detainee transfer rights, following
models that were provided to us by the British, the Dutch and
the Danish? Because Washington wanted to do it another way. And
why should we volunteer for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan,
a forward-leaning, war- fighting search and kill mission supported
by US airstrikes and working in tandem with a US-led and -commanded
mission that is not part of the NATO command?
Why have 67 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan? Why did Private
Simon Longtin die today? The simple explanation, and it's
only a partial explanation, is that there are people who want
to transform the Canadian Forces into a miniature version of the
US Marine Corps and want Canada to only choose missions that involve
fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States; that want
us to acquire equipment that integrates seamlessly with the US
military, including in the relatively near future new F35 fighters.
The same people who will tell you that peace-keeping is dead,
that we really don't need new search-and-rescue aircraft in
the second largest country on Earth, and who will tell you that
those who stand up for the rights of detainees are expressing
disrespect and a lack of support for the brave young Canadian
men and women who serve this country in whatever mission they're
given because they love this country just as much as you and I.
The integration of the Canadian and US military is not officially
part of the SPP, but the SPP and the integration of the Canadian
and US military are part of a larger project, and we need to address
that larger project, and understand that what we're up against
here does not involve the existence of an independent Canada.
But as we saw with the Bi-National Planning Group, a little bit
of sunshine can chase these plans away. When I look at this room
I see a whole lot of sunshine.
Related individuals, organizations and significant
events
Deep
integration - TILMA and SPP to bring in rules to let corporations
challenge our laws
Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
Security / Secrecy, American control
Sovereignty / American control, smokescreen
Links and sources
Bi-National
Planning Group
Continental
Integration of Military Command Structures: A Threat to Canada's
Sovereignty, by Michel Chossudovsky
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