-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: August 21, 2007 9:46:46 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Elite Re-Configuration of North America (NOT "Comical"!)
The Elite Re-Configuration of North America
By Carl Teichrib
http://www.augustreview.com/issues/regionalization/
conquering_canada:_the_elite_re-
configuration_of_north_america_2007071671/
Disbelief was the first emotion. Not because I didn’t comprehend
the message, but because of the brazen nature of the broadcast.
After the evening news was over, I immediately placed phone calls
to friends in the United States. Was it on your evening news? Did
you see it?
The response was the same regardless of which state I called. No,
there’s nothing about this story here. Are you sure it exists?
While America appeared to have a news blackout in early 2005,
flashed coast-to-coast across Canada was a report of monumental
significance: a story that will impact every citizen of Mexico, the
United States, and Canada.
The piece that caught my breath was the proclamation of an
unveiling. The New York-based Council on Foreign Relations would be
releasing a study on integrating the continent, a move that would
take us well beyond NAFTA. For the observant, it was clear that all
three nations would have to re-configure their priorities.
Released in early 2005, the CFR document titled Building A North
American Community would eventually trigger a ground swell of
criticism in the United States. Over the next two years, a variety
of watchdog and citizen organizations would voice concerns that
continental harmonization would be an affront to national
Sovereignty, with a dozen or so states introducing bills of
opposition. Adding fuel to this fire was the realization that other
integration programs have been underway with little public
knowledge or debate.
One such initiative, which coincided with the emergence of the CFR
report, is the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Known by its
acronym as SPP, this federally generated tri-national pact surfaced
during the March 2005 meeting between the leaders of the three
NAFTA nations: Vicente Fox, George Bush, and Paul Martin.
Meant to tighten economic and security ties, SPP pushes the removal
of barriers to energy and resource flows, and welcomes the creation
of institutions to facilitate North American integration.
Furthermore, SPP consultation meetings and its spin-off body, the
North American Competitiveness Council, are comprised of major
representatives from federal agencies and key multinational
corporate players. It’s a merger of sorts, not just amongst
nations, but also between federal authorities and multinational
corporations – all bonding to achieve the quest of regional
harmonization.
Another case in point is NASCO, a trilateral coalition made up of
provincial/state and local governments, along with major businesses
such as Lockheed Martin. The goal of NASCO is mammoth: it envisions
a superhighway running from Winnipeg, Manitoba through to Kansas
City, San Antonio, and on to Guadalajara and Manzanillo, Mexico,
eating up an incredible amount of concrete, steel, and capital.
Unlike other roads, this corridor, if realized, would be a
comprehensive energy and commerce jugular vein propelling tri-
national interdependence in transportation, trade, and strategic
resources. According to two papers released by NASCO, this entire
system will be monitored by a sweeping architecture of high-tech
sensors and tracking systems, all channelled into US Homeland
Security.
This is not a small idea, but one with grand scope and reach.
Moreover, integration initiatives, be they found in the political
or business realm, haven’t occurred in a vacuum. Continental
unification is not an overnight phenomenon.
Economic ideas supporting a common North American home have been
circulating for years. In 1991, the Dallas Federal Reserve issued a
working paper examining the potential for a single North American
currency. Later in the 1990’s, Canada’s central bank released a
string of documents on the pros and cons of economic and monetary
harmonization. And in 1999, Canada’s Fraser Institute published a
report openly proposing a single tri-national currency as a
counterbalance to Europe’s euro. This new North American dollar, it
was suggested, should be called the “amero.”
So it wasn’t a surprise that by the year 2000 at least one US
Treasury official, Assistant Secretary for International Affairs,
Edwin M. Truman, candidly suggested a “dramatic decline in the
number of independent currencies in the world.” This comment, made
before the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, was directly aimed at
North America’s financial structure.
Later that fall, the Atlanta Federal Reserve published an article
in its Economic Review debating what final form a tri-national
currency would take. This issue not only stated “that a single
currency for NAFTA countries is possible,” but also that “the idea
of a single currency for NAFTA is on the table.”
After all, in July 2000, Mexican President Vicente Fox proposed a
North American common market, incorporating a customs union, the
free flow of goods and labour, and a continental monetary policy.
Additionally, the newly inaugurated US President, George Bush, had
earlier pledged to foster hemispheric integration while attending
the Quebec Summit of the Americas.
Indeed, creating a North American economic space appeared to be a
serious topic in federal circles until late summer, 2001. Only days
before the 9/11 terror attacks, Fox and Bush met in Washington to
discuss Mexico’s role as a US and continental partner, with migrant
labour issues at the forefront. September 11, obviously, changed
Washington’s focus to more distant shores.
Ironically, as 9/11 shifted the eyes of the US executive branch
towards the Middle East, corporate elites embraced North American
integration as a lesson learned. Keep in mind that our tri-national
trade is staggering, with Canada and the US alone constituting the
largest bi-national economic relationship on the planet. To give a
sense of this relationship: just the yearly trade passing through
one US/Canadian border crossing, the Windsor/Detroit station, is
more then the total annual US trade with Japan.
September 11 threw this essential commerce into chaos. As
approximately 50 million dollars (US) per hour went missing due
solely to the Canadian/US border closures after the attack, and
with subsequent bottlenecks and slowdowns reverberating long
afterwards, financial and business executives looked to continental
harmonization as a way of avoiding similar loss scenarios.
In America, the US Chamber of Commerce jumped on the bandwagon,
becoming an important supporter of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership. This backing was evident when Thomas Donohue, the
President and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, made these
comments while speaking at a luncheon in Washington DC on June 16,
2006, “…for CEOs, North America is already a single market, and
business decisions are no longer made with a Mexico strategy – or a
Canada strategy – but, rather, with a North American strategy…I
think it’s pretty clear by now that it no longer makes sense to
talk about US competitiveness and Mexican competitiveness – or, for
that matter, about the competitiveness of Canada. We are all in
this together – we, as North Americans.”
Canadian business elites hold to a similar view. The Canadian
Council of Chief Executives, Canada’s foremost club of top CEOs,
launched the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative in
January 2003. While downplaying the European model of unification,
the CCCE did propose North American identification cards and the
streamlining of cross-border financial regulations, including
opening Canada’s ownership restrictions and granting US companies
access to acquiring even more businesses and resources north of the
border. The CCCE also advised that Mexico, the US, and Canada
establish new commissions that could coordinate integration, and
that North American defence be tackled in a way that demonstrates a
continental reality.
Being sensitive to potential criticism that the CCCE is selling-out
their country, the organization released a Q&A styled paper
explaining that their ideas did not represent a merger, but merely
a new partnership. Sovereignty, the document implied, wasn’t in
jeopardy.
However, in a report presented to the CCCE by a partnering Canadian
foreign policy institute, admittance was made that any time a
country agrees to be bound by an international treaty, it
automatically involves “the surrender of some degree of national
sovereignty in exchange for larger purposes.”
The Canadian/US Free Trade Agreement of the late 1980s amply
demonstrated this fact. Writing for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in
June, 2007, political commentators Bill Loewen and David Orchard
reminded Canadians about the economic surrender that accompanied
Free Trade treaty obligations. “More than 12,000 Canadian companies
have been taken over since the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade
Agreement. Since January 2006, foreign takeovers of some $156
billion have been consummated…There only are a handful of widely
held Canadian companies now listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange –
surely an abnormal situation for a sovereign nation.”
Sovereignty is not insignificant. For the millions of citizens who
place their trust in appointed political leaders, it is expected
that the requirements and interests of their particular country
will be upheld and safeguarded. Nevertheless, what the general
public assumes and what international financial players deem
important are not always the same. And when national elites work to
permanently change the direction of a nation, the public’s
knowledge, input, and debate should be more than expected. In a
democracy, anything less smacks of coercion.
Integration, as a Canadian, is especially troubling. Our place in
North America as the energy breadbasket is a strategic position.
Recognized for its outstanding resource base, Canada supplies
America with almost 100% of its electricity imports and pipelined
natural gas, and more petroleum then any other nation on earth –
including Saudi Arabia. Energy is not just another box-store
consumer item like so many trinkets floating in the global
marketplace; it’s the lifeblood of a country.
Currently the energy flowing into and out of the US via Canada is
remarkably efficient under the free market system. Could this be
made better? Certainly. Does this imply nationalization? Not at
all: the last thing working free markets need is more controls
imposed by bloated bureaucracies, including a possible North
American management regime.
What Canada does need, however, is to develop a comprehensive
energy strategy of its own, including the creation of an east-west
grid instead of the current, almost exclusive north-south energy
transfer system. Such a strategy would help Canadian’s solidify and
safeguard their energy requirements, while putting necessary
exports into their proper context. Conversely, widely opening
Canada’s resources for sell-off into foreign hands, as the CCCE
suggests, increases our vulnerability to international market
shocks and ensures dependence on outside entities. In the end our
sovereignty suffers.
But energy isn’t the only area up for grabs in this continental re-
alignment. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, one
of the most influential policy groups in Washington, has quietly
launched a program titled the North American Future 2025 Project.
Working in cooperation with the Conference Board of Canada, CSIS
envisions the tri-national integration of agriculture, health
services, transportation, and telecommunications. Banking and the
financial world are fingered too, a move that surprises no one, as
is Canadian fresh water access – a sore point for many north of the
border.
Canada holds approximately 20% of the world’s fresh water, and this
supply has been at the epicentre of a simmering bi-national
struggle between US interests and Canadians. In fact, this tug-of-
war goes back to the 1960s and the industrial giant Ralph M.
Parsons Company (now the Parsons Corporation), which proposed the
North American Water and Power Alliance and the diversion of
Canadian river systems to the south. Now, over forty years later,
CSIS is advocating that the US and Mexico gain access to this
supply, with suggestions of “water transfers” and the “artificial
diversion of fresh water.”
Obviously, as a country with some of the most to lose or gain in
tri-national trade, one would think that Canadian voters would be
seriously debating the pros and cons of a North American merger.
But nothing of the sort has been evident.
This despite the fact that in early 2002, Robert Pastor – a
consultant to the US National Security Council and Vice Chair of
the CFR task force on North American integration – gave testimony
to the Canadian House of Commons, proposing a North American
Parliamentary Group, a North American Development Fund, a North
American customs union, and the implementation of a single monetary
unit for the continent. Pastor also encouraged the Canadian
government to help its citizens think as “North Americans,” with
the implication that nationalism must be replaced by a broader
mindset.
Robert Pastor also gave a similar presentation to the Toronto
meeting of the Trilateral Commission (TC) in the fall of 2002.
After all, the Trilateral Commission was pursuing regionalism as a
stepping-stone to globalization ten years before, and has an
historical link into the European Union (see Vladimir Bukovsky’s
speech transcript posted at The August Review). Other Trilateral
connections exist, including crossovers between the TC, the CFR
Task Force, and CSIS.
One example is Wendy Dobson, a CFR Task Force member who along with
Pastor discussed the North American union at the Toronto Trilateral
meeting. Other Trilateral/CFR Task Force members include Allan
Gotlieb, Carlos Heredia, Luis Rubio, and Carla A. Hills. Not only
is Hills a member of the CFR North American group and the
Trilateral Commission, she’s also the co-chair of the CSIS Advisory
Board. Incidentally, one of the co-founders of the Trilateral
Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is a Counsellor at CSIS, which has
been publishing the North American Integration Monitor since 2002.
If all of this seems like a cozy little club, that’s because it is
a cozy little club. In fact, the CFR report Building A North
American Community suggests the establishment of “private bodies
that would meet regularly or annually to buttress North American
relationships, along the lines of the Bilderberg…conferences.”
The Bilderberg conferences are renowned for their private, elite
settings. So too, North American unification events are
intentionally locked behind secured doors, such as the closed North
American Forum at Banff, Alberta in 2006, and the multiple CSIS
roundtables that started in Washington DC and ended on April 27,
2007 in Calgary, Alberta. By the way, in the fall of 2007, CSIS
will be distributing their final North American Future 2025 report
to all three governments in a bid to advance integration.
Through all of this, Canadian politicians have been strangely
silent, with the exception of the National Democratic Party.
Ironically, while the NDP opposes a North American Union, it’s a
staunch supporter of global governance as espoused by the Socialist
International, the largest body of socialist leaders on the planet,
and one that the NDP holds a full membership in.
But what does the average citizen think? Besides the fact that most
are wholly unaware, a CFR poll shows Canadians support deeper
integration. However, as someone living on the Canadian prairies,
I’ve been conducting my own poll of sorts: I’ve been asking friends
and neighbours where they stand on this issue. Granted, this may
not be the most scientific method, but it did elicit interesting
responses.
One friend who’s a grain buyer sees a US-Canadian amalgamation as
inevitable, and remarked that we’re owned by American-led
multinationals already. Farmers had mixed opinions, but the
majority believed they would simply be pawns in a game of high
finances and government dictates; views that are not groundless.
Another friend looks forward to a union, hoping Canadian socialism
dies in the process, but is equally fearful that the outcome will
be something worse. Others have been horrified by the thought of a
blended continent, and had hoped that the present Canadian
Conservative government wouldn’t be bent so easily by big dollar
politics.
No matter whom I discussed this with, pro or con, all seemed leery.
Few believed that a merger would deliver on the altruistic promises
of “Security and Prosperity,” especially without shredding national
independence. Little institutional trust exists, at least in the
rural areas of the Great Plains.
Ironically, I’m a “NAFTA product.” My great-grandparents on both
sides immigrated and emigrated back-and-forth between all three
counties, and for some of my kin this was done multiple times,
switching nations as they bought and sold land and farms. But
bureaucracy was minimal then, and governments and communities
welcomed anyone willing to work and add to the progress of society.
Now bureaucracy is strangling, with governments overburdened by
hefty entitlement programs, massive debt loads, and a bewildering
maze of regulations.
A different breed, however, stalks today’s North American
landscape. As it stands, continental unification is being driven by
trilateral elites tightly bound to the world of banking and
multinational corporations, and by government leaders who typically
flirt between a life of public administration and privileged
financial and corporate boardrooms. It’s a landscape of intertwined
big power and money interests.
This raises some serious questions. Will another layer of
management, this time at a regional level, fix our institutional
deficiencies? Or will it add more bureaucracy and less
accountability? And who stands to win or lose in this game of
integration; the trilateral movers of North America, the
sovereignty of each individual nation, or the common citizen
blissfully unaware of the coming continental shift?
Let me guess where you’re placing your amero-dollar bets.
Carl Teichrib is a Senior Fellow with The August Review
[www.augustreview.com], and Chief Editor of Forcing Change
[www.forcingchange.org].
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