Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to you here today.
The Council of Canadians is Canada's largest public advocacy organization. We have been working on the security and prosperity partnership since before it was signed into effect in Waco in March 2005, in fact since it was a twinkle in Tom d'Aquino's eye.
The security and prosperity partnership is not, as its proponents claim, about eliminating the tyranny of small differences among the three NAFTA countries. It is quite literally, we believe, about eliminating Canada's ability to determine independent regulatory standards; environmental protections; energy security; and foreign, military, immigration, and other policies.
We could speak on any of these, but I've chosen to speak briefly on only three.
The first is the failure of the democratic process. A major concern of our organization and of many Canadians—and we think it should be of yours—is that the SPP process has been done without any parliamentary debate or public input. To date, the only stakeholders involved or consulted in the SPP process have been representatives of big business. Apparently when it comes to the future of North America, the public doesn't count, nor do elected officials, who, according to SPP documents, are only to be briefed after decisions are made.
In a move that cements the primacy of big business in this process, the North American Competitiveness Council was created at the second of the meetings of the heads of state. In their own words, the NACC was created to “engage substantively and pragmatically on trade and security issues without undue deference to political sensitivities”.
Ron Covais of Lockheed Martin, one of the major companies of the NACC, told Maclean's magazine last fall, “we've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes...because we won't get anywhere”.
This came home to us last month when we met with senior officials of the U.S. embassy, at their request, to talk about what our concerns were. At that time the officials told us clearly that there was no appetite, and I quote, “for another bruising NAFTA battle”, and that that was the reason the SPP was not going before the legislatures of the three countries. I don't think there is any greater proof of the appalling lack of democracy that has characterized the SPP process than that we should learn from the U.S. embassy why the SPP is being withheld from Parliament.
On the other hand, representatives of big business, who are driving this process, remain fully involved. All of Canada's representatives on NACC are members of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, led by Tom d'Aquino, who also co-chaired the original Task Force on the Future of North America that helped launch the SPP back in 2004 and 2005. That task force's recommendations, among many others, called for a North American resource strategy and was tabled only weeks before the SPP was signed in Waco, Texas.
The second concern we have is around our water. While the NACC and our current government vehemently insist there are no discussions on Canadian bulk water exports currently under way, minutes from that original task force meeting clearly showed they were talking about it. These minutes got leaked to us at the Council of Canadians. They said the three governments, and I quote, “were likely to meet with stiff resistance“ on Canadian water and Mexican oil and were therefore best considered “long term goals”. The task force members agreed that “contentious or intractable issues will simply require more time to ripen politically.” And since then there have been a number of other statements made from American think tanks about Canada's water.
Documents obtained by the Council of Canadians several weeks ago describe a closed-door meeting of government officials and business representatives from the three countries that took place last Friday in Calgary where, clearly, bulk water exports were to be discussed. Under the title “North American Future 2025 Project”, the U.S. Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in collaboration with the Conference Board of Canada and a Mexican research institute, CIDE, were sponsoring a series of seven closed-door round-table meetings, and this is their mandate: “... to strengthen the capacity of Canadian, U.S., and Mexican administration officials and that of their respective legislatures, to analyze, comprehend, and anticipate North American integration...”.
One of the round tables, the one that was held on Friday, talked about “creative solutions beyond the current transboundary water arrangements”--which we are presuming means the Canada-U.S. Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909--and “water consumption, water transfers, and artificial diversions of fresh water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water”. It's very clear that what they're talking about is that Canadian water would now be North American water, just the way Canadian oil and gas are North American now.
These meetings, which have been funded in part by the U.S. government and the private sector--and this was also confirmed to us by the U.S. embassy--are about drafting policy, not making recommendations. According to the leaked documents, all three governments have agreed that there would be a “tremendous benefit to the current decision-makers” if a round table on border issues could serve “as the underpinnings to develop a blueprint for future border infrastructure and logistics systems as it relates to labor mobility, energy, the environment”--by which they mean water--“security, and competitiveness”. This report is to be reviewed twice by the governments, and then it will be resubmitted in English, French, and Spanish with the aim of “maximizing the policy impact”.
Very briefly, we are also very concerned about the resource pact on energy. We are now sending well over 60% of our oil and gas to the United States, up from 25% before we signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, in which we signed a proportional sharing agreement. The problem with the North American resource strategy proposed by the SPP is that it leaves Canadians victims of an official policy that renders Canada not only unwilling but also unable to provide for the energy needs of its country and its citizens now and in the future. It programs the Canadian government to fail in any effort to meet the international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as Parliament's obligations to its citizens to ensure that our natural resources are managed in the public interest.
The push under the SPP and NAFTA to serve the corporate, as opposed to the public, interest explains as much as anyone needs to have it explained our current government's failure and refusal to develop a national environmental policy that would serve both Canada and its citizens.
I'll leave you with four recommendations we are calling for. We believe we have broad support for them across the country.
We're asking that the Government of Canada cease all talks leading toward deeper integration between Canada and the United States until there has been meaningful public consultation on the issue.
We want full disclosure of a complete listing of the security and prosperity partnership working groups and the minutes of their meetings.
We call on the government to disband the North American Competitiveness Council. Corporations such as Manulife Financial, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Lockheed Martin should not have a say in shaping the economic policy between Canada and the United States and Canada's economic, social, and environmental policy here.
Finally, we're saying bring the security and prosperity partnership to the House of Commons for a full debate and a vote. The current government has promised that “significant international treaties will be submitted to votes in Parliament”. We submit that the security and prosperity partnership of North America goes further than NAFTA and is going to have a more profound influence on Canada, and that we have the right to a debate and a full democratic process in our House of Commons.
Thank you very much.