Deep integration revisited

Hey, remember the Task Force on the Future of North America, brought to you by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives back in 2005? Sure ya do. Co-chaired by blue dog liberal John Manley who also co-authored the resulting book:

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

OK, so they are a wee bit behind their 2010 deep integration schedule here.  And way way behind the Fraser Institute who in 1999 published a paper in favor of a continental monetary integration date - also for 2010.

The Case for the Amero: The Institutions of a North American Monetary Union

"On the day the North American Monetary Union is created--perhaps on January 1, 2010--Canada, the United States, and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the amero. ...  At the same time, the national central banks of the three countries will be replaced by the North American Central Bank. The board of governors of the North American Central Bank will consist of members from the United States, Canada, and Mexico chosen by their respective governments in numbers that reflect their economic importance and population." 

The Fraser Institute article credits Reform Party MPs Jason Kenney, Rob Anders, and Rahim Jaffer for "spearheading a debate in parliament over the issue of monetary union for North America" in 1999.

CFR, minus the help of John Manley and the CCCE this time, is apparently still in 'community-building' mode with the release of a new paper, North America : Time for a New Focus:

"The Council on Foreign Relations has convened an Independent Task Force on North America, co-chaired by David H. Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (and head of leveage-buyout corp KKR Global), and Robert B. Zoellick, former president of the World Bank (and Chair at Goldman Sachs).

The Task Force will provide a comprehensive analysis of North American integration in areas including trade, security, migration, energy, and infrastructure, and will generate policy recommendations designed to enhance U.S. and regional competitiveness and well-being."

“Now is the moment for the United States to break free from old foreign policy biases to recognize that a stronger, more dynamic, resilient continental base will increase U.S. power globally.”

Not really new or news though, is it? :
US bid to "shore up" Harper from the day he was elected in 2006

In his 2011 re-election campaign, Harper put out a CPC ad giving it a jobs jobs jobs edge : 

"so we commit to expanding our management of the border to the concept of a North American perimeter" :

The same month as Harper's 2011 speech, WikiLeaks released one of US Ambassador Paul Cellucci's 2005 cables from the US Embassy in Ottawa.  In it he suggests that "Canadian policy makers" support a "security perimeter" via an "incremental and pragmatic package of tasks" emphasizing "security and prosperity" (SPP!) to pave the way for a future North American "single market and/or single currency."  

He also notes that due to its benefits for "law-enforcement and data-gathering", "our governments may always want to keep some kind of land border in place". Excerpted :

"An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers. Our research leads us to conclude that such a package should tackle both "security" and "prosperity" goals. This fits the recommendations of Canadian economists who have assessed the options for continental integration. While in principle many of them support more ambitious integration goals, like a customs union/single market and/or single currency, most believe the incremental approach is most appropriate at this time...

Canadian economists in business, academia and government have given extensive thought to the possible options for further North American integration.

Paradoxically, the security and law enforcement aspects of the envisioned initiative could hold as much - or more - potential for broad economic benefits than the economic dimension.

ORDER VS. PERIMETER: Even with zero tariffs, our land borders have strong commercial effects. Some of these effects are positive (such as law enforcement and data gathering), so our governments may always want to keep some kind of land border in place."

Nine years later, the only real difference is that this is starting to sound normal to us.

Update : From Thwap in comments : Diane Francis, Editor-at-Large at the National Post, has a new book : 
MERGER OF THE CENTURY   WHY CANADA AND AMERICA SHOULD BECOME ONE COUNTRY

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News from Homelandia

There was a bit of a stink in the media a few days ago after US Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein tabled this map "produced by the NSA" purporting to show "the disruption of potential terrorist events at home and abroad" due to its vacuuming up of phone call logs.

At issue is the designation "Homeland" which includes Canada, Mexico, Central America, Cuba and Greenland. 
Commenters were quick to point out that the NSA was in fact using a pretty standard map of the seven continents here, but I notice that Europe, Africa, and Asia got to keep their continental designations while the NSA stuck the descriptor "Homeland" on North America. 

"Homelands" was the way the US described the 2008 Canada-US deal to allow each other's militaries to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency :
"USNorthCom : Defending Our Homelands"

USNORTHCOM’s AOR [area of responsibility] includes air, land and sea approaches and encompasses the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and the surrounding water out to approximately 500 nautical miles.

Meanwhile, in Beyond the Border : A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness news, a Next-Generation pilot project would permit teams of cross-designated officers to operate on both sides of the border, but there's a glitch...
The Star, July 30 :

"The United States wants its police officers to be exempt from Canadian law if they agree to take part in a highly touted cross-border policing initiative, an internal RCMP memo says.

The debate over whose laws would apply to U.S. officers working in Canada raises important questions of sovereignty and police accountability, says the briefing note prepared for RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson. "

... a highly censored memo, btw, that's from October 2012 and only came to light under an Access to Information request.

Back in 2004, the FBI announced in an internal audit that it was giving :

agents in its Buffalo field office clearance to conduct "routine investigations" up to 50 miles into Canadian territory. 

and that 30% of those agents didn't get approval from Canada first. 

In 2006, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day proudly added that hey sometimes its even more than 50 miles and it's all legal.

Canadian officials say they have made no protest to the U.S. government about FBI agents operating without permission on Canadian soil.

Anyone still unclear how we got from FBI agents operating freelance in Canada as far back as 2004 to being asked to give FBI agents accredited as police officers in Canada immunity from Canadian law in 2012?
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Bonus : On May 16 this year Harper gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, that US bastion of Manifest Destiny, and took a follow-up question from former US Ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin. Giffin said he wasn't suggesting outright "political or currency integration", but given it's been 10 years since NAFTA,
"Is there a chance at doing a bigger deal going forward?
Harper runs through the Beyond the Border achievements and blames the US for further lack of progress :

"Could they lead to something systemically more integrated? Look, I think on our side, they could. I think on our side, they could.  [...snip...]
I think the real barrier to making some of these arrangements broader and more systemic in terms of the integration are actually on this side of the border."

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United Future World Currency

Well here it is - the proposed "united future world currency" unveiled by Russian President Medvedev today and handed out to the other G-8 leaders.

The test coin "means they’re getting ready," Medvedev said. "I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are."

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China and Russia have been calling for a supranational currency, a mix of regional reserve currencies controlled by the IMF and delinked from sovereign nations, as part of the drive to address the global financial crisis and replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

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When asked about it in March, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told the Council on Foreign Relations : "We are quite open to that" - causing a drop in the dollar requiring him to follow up with : "I think the dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency" - after which "the dollar subsequently recovered much of its losses".

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I guess my dream of a global currency based on reducing carbon emissions didn't make the cut again this year. On the upside, Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck should be going apeshit tomorrow.

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The SPP is dead - Long live the SPP

Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" (now available in book form and co-authored by John Manley) and author of the book "Toward a North American Community" says the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead.

It was killed, he tells us, by the timid incremental approach of its policy makers who tried to fly the SPP below the radar of public opinion, thereby arousing their deepest suspicions.
Right wing fears of Mexican immigrants and a North American Union combined with left wing fears of unfair labour practices to create 'a perfect storm' of public alarm that scuttled its chances of success.

So that's it then - it's been nailed to its perch pining for the fjords since last April. It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile.
THIS IS AN EX-SPP!!

Well ok then.

In other totally unrelated news just this week :

1) the U.S. is leaning on Mexico to privatize its state-owned oil consortium PEMEX

2) Saskatchewan has followed BC in introducing the Enhanced Driver's Licences demanded by Homeland Security for admission to the U.S.

3) U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan is calling for greater energy integration and enhanced energy supply routes between the U.S. and Canada, praising the benefits of "benefits of market-based free trade agreements" to "enhance energy security throughout North America".

4)Avi Lewis and Linda Carlsen on Democracy Now discuss "re-armouring NAFTA" : Plan Mexico, the $400 million regional cooperation security initiative that introduces a greater US military presence into Mexico under the guise of lending aid for the war on drugs.

5) The U.S. Navy has reactivated gunboat patrols off the coasts of Latin America to "send a strong signal to all Navies operating in the region".

You see we don't care what you call it : SPP, deep integration, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny. We don't care. Really. Call it whatever you like.

The 4th North American Forum - it's a small world

All you really need to know about the fourth annual North American Forum currently being held in Washington DC is that the phrases "North America" and "our continent" and particularly "our energy resources" outnumber any references to the individual countries involved by about ten to one.

According to its website, the North American Forum is "a community of Canadian, Mexican and American thought leaders, whose purpose is to advance a shared vision of North America."
It is chaired by former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, and former Mexican Secretary of Finance Pedro Aspe, who is listed along with ConservaLiberal John Manley as the author of the book "Building a North American Community", the published report of the 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America.
You remember it : one N.A. resource pact for oil, gas, and fresh water; one passport; one foreign policy; one set of environmental, health, and safety standards; one immigration policy; one security perimeter; a suggested feasibility study on one currency union; and the introduction of a North American brand.

Anyway, before we get to excerpts from the speeches of this year's "thought leaders", here's an 'it's a small small one-perimeter North American world' note :
In his opening preamble, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte addresses a remark to US Secretary of State George Shultz :

"And I do remember vividly that when I was the Deputy National Security Advisor at the very end of the Reagan Administration, we went down together, I accompanied you, Mr. Secretary, to the inauguration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari as President, not knowing at the time that I would, soon thereafter, become Ambassador and have the opportunity to work so closely with Carla Hills and others, Pedro Aspe, Andres Rosenthal, on the construction of the North American Free Trade Agreement."

But Hills, Aspe, and Rosenthal didn't just work together on NAFTA; they were also contributing members of the Task Force on the Future of North America report, aka "Building a North American Community". Carla A. Hills was also Vice Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations at the time, and it was CFR and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives who commissioned the Task Force.
At the end of his speech, Negroponte takes questions from the floor : one comes from Carla Hills, another from Rosenthal.

Ok, on to the "thought leaders"!

US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates :
"We cannot achieve resilience or reach our full potential without security. This is tremendously important, given the kind of threats the North American continent faces at the dawn of the 21st century."
Gates praised Canada for its steadfast contribution to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and the new Canada-U.S. Civil Assistance Plan which will enable Canada and U.S. militaries to support the armed forces of the other country during a civil emergency.
"The role of Afghanistan in the 9/11 attacks reminds us that this is no hypothetical scenario. We fight there now and in other distant lands to prevent another attack here at home."

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte :
"The North American community has made our peoples richer, our countries safer, and our region more competitive. There is much left to do to ease our citizens’ anxieties, but we must make clear that in a world that rewards integration and openness, the surest path to greater prosperity, security, and sovereignty is the North American partnership."

U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman :
"North America is critical to determining the path forward for global energy development, delivery and consumption.
In many ways, our collective success in shaping that future in a productive way will depend on our ability to come together and expand our regional cooperation in order to encourage the sustained investment in all energy resources - and in our energy infrastructure - that must occur on our shared continent.
We will become more reliant on safe and emissions-free nuclear power.
That is why President Bush has put such a priority on working with our partners in North America to establish reliable, productive, and cooperative mechanisms to improve our continent's energy security.
Experts from each of our three nations continue to work on a projection of North American supply and demand for oil and gas, electricity, and coal, as well as continental import and exports.
Just last week we hosted with the State Department this year's U.S.-Canada Energy Consultative Meetings at which our two nations discussed strengthened cooperation in areas including oil sands, natural gas pipelines, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power.
Let me just mention that, in regard to nuclear power, it is estimated that Canada has about 10 percent of the world's uranium reserves. Access to this vital supply will be indispensable to meeting increased demand for nuclear fuel on this continent.
We also will continue to work with Canada on developing and building our shared energy infrastructure - and let me say here that the United States government remains strongly committed to expediting the siting, permitting and construction of the pipelines that will help North America take advantage of our own natural resources."


Gosh that "North American brand" idea does seem to be coming along nicely.
Pathetic really, isn't it? Not two new ideas to rub together since their Task Force.

One last note : Remember all those newspaper articles a short while back from professional Canada slagger Michael Hart? I had forgotten until I looked up the names of the members of the Task Force that he was one of them. The book is available online here.