North American Leaders' Summit 2009 - an insider's view

With the next North American Leaders' Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico less than a month away, Canadian media have begun reporting snippets from a new report by Hudson Institute expert on Canada-US relations Christopher Sands : Toward a New Frontier : Improving the U.S.-Canadian Border.

And why should we be listening to him? Because he's an insider.

Sands is advisor to the U.S. Section of the North American Competitiveness Council, the corporate wing of the SPP, and a lecturer on North American integration for both the US State Dept. and the Dept. of Homeland Security. His Negotiating North America : The Security and Prosperity Partnership is perhaps the closest thing we have to a semi-official manual on the SPP.

In light of his latest policy recommendations for the Summit :

• rebranding a revived SPP,
• allowing environmental, labor and human rights groups equivalent NACC status to that so far only extended to corporations,
• increasing transparency of reporting
• decentralizing border security away from Washinton to the individual states, and
• implementing a common security perimeter

it's worth looking at some of his other recent assessments of Canada-US relations :

"Homeland security is the gatekeeper with its finger on the jugular affecting your ability to move back and forth across the border, the market access upon which the Canadian economy depends."

"In exchange for continued visa-free access to the United States, American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians. Not only about (routine) individuals but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge."

Here Sands recounts a conversation with the assistant secretary of policy at the Department of Homeland Security :

"Canadians have "had a better deal than anybody else in terms of access to the United States and for that they've paid nothing." Now "we want to give you less access, but we want you to pay more and, by the way, we're standardizing this (with other visa-free countries) so you're not special anymore."

Canada's Peace, Order and Unreliable Government : [on Canada's minority governments]

"This does not mean that Canadians or their interests will be maltreated, punished, or maliciously ignored by Washington. U.S. policymakers will pity Ottawa, indulge it when possible, and ignore it only when necessary."

Afghanistan, Feb 2009 :

"Since the November U.S. election, Canadian editorialists have talked about the impressive Canadian contribution as a calling card with the new administration in Washington, sure to gain a hearing and possibly even concessions for Canadian interests.

The valuation of the Canadian contribution, however, is usually exaggerated.

The United States maintained 35,000 troops in Afghanistan until recently, when an additional 30,000 were deployed to join this force. Canada's 2500 are just 3 percent of the total Western force. ... In contrast, both India and even China have suggested they might offer ground troops to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban. That does not devalue or diminish the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan; but it may help to explain why President Obama is unlikely to lobby the Harper government to rescind its announcement of a 2011 withdrawal.

Canada is an oddity among US allies. Most countries have come to terms with their relative smallness when compared to the United States, and though they work to make respectable contributions to US-led security efforts and campaigns, they are realistic about what they can do. Canadians, flush with memories of outsized past contributions to international security, particularly during two world wars, expect to be treated as a junior great power. "

Good to know.

The Leaders Summit is less than a month away - Aug 8-11 - and the Canadian government has yet to make any public announcement about it at all, let alone what will be on the agenda this time round.

Council of Canadians are demanding that Canadians not be left out of the process yet again : Demand a say in North America's future.

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Good luck with that.

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The Manning Centre for Building Democracy

Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and Rona Ambrose with "the first graduates of the Manning Centre's Executive Program in Political Management at the Future Leaders Series Dinner held at the historic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on April 18th, 2007"

... one of whom appears to be doing up his fly.

I didn't even know about this rightwing think tank till I saw The Cylinder's post this morning with a link to Sooey for a G&M article from 2005 :

"Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and a small group of friends have raised an initial $10-million from wealthy Albertans to launch a new non-political institution designed to promote conservative ideas in Canada...The aim of those supporting the Manning centre is to have conservative political forces win two of every three elections by changing the way Canadians view public issues, instead of losing two out of three, or three out of four, as conservative parties have done throughout Canadian history."

Ok so who'd ya get?


Preston Manning - founder of Reform and Alliance parties, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute
Gwyn Morgan - EnCana Corp
Rick Anderson - ASCI-Anderson Strategic Consulting Inc and chairman of Hill & Knowlton Canada
Tom Long - chair of Ont Premier Mike Harris’ campaigns, co-chair of the founding convention of the Canadian Alliance Party
Tasha Kheiriddin - CBC Newsworld producer, Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, VP of the Montreal Economic Institute, member Fraser Institute
Nigel S. Wright - Managing Director of Onex Corporation aerospace and defence group

Patrons - Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Bernard Lord

Fellowships - Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor, seen here being recognized by Preston Manning "for outstanding contributions to conservative online communications"

Advisors - Andrew Coyne, Tom Long, Hon. Tony Clement, Michael Walker - founder of the Fraser Institute, Michel Kelly-Gagnon - president of the Montreal Economic Institute.



Small world, huh?

There's a "Student Leadership Seminar" coming up...
Ottawa, Nov. 21 & 22

"Calling all students: Learn the effective practices for campus activism, and how to plan for political participation
The intention is to ensure each participant develops the social and intellectual skills to realize their respective goals, and be an asset to Canada’s democratic-conservative tradition.
You will hear from some of our country's most respected politicians, campaigners, strategists, journalists, and activists."

Presenters : Monte Solberg, Michael Coren, Tasha Kheiriddin, and Blogging Tories Stephen Taylor and Aaron Lee Wudrick.

Alrighty then.

A page of members' contacts and their specific areas of expertise is provided for media requiring experts to interview, thus going some distance toward answering the question of why the experts interviewed by the media are so often conservative.

They also support an online journal, C2C, featuring the writing of many of those mentioned above plus David Frum, Tom Flanagan, Kenneth P. Green of the American Enterprise Institute, Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute, and a not altogether surprising number of familiar newspaper editors and columnists from across Canada.

Do stop by the photo gallery to see Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien, Joseph Ben Ami, Dave Quist of the Institute of Marriage and Family, and, of course, Steve.

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Yes, where are all the "good Canadians"?

Christopher Sands, "an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations" for the Hudson Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the North American Competitiveness Council brought his deep integration big stick up to Ottawa on Friday.

"In exchange for continued visa-free access to the United States, American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians.
Not only about (routine) individuals but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge."

You mean people like Maher Arar?

"People in Canada have turned the man into some sort of national hero, but if you expect the next administration to join you in sending him laurels, I think you're going to be mistaken. Even Barack Obama ... is not going to go near that with a 10-foot pole."

Arar "will not have his name removed from the U.S. no-fly list "in my lifetime," he added.

Sands recounts a conversation with Stewart Baker, assistant secretary of policy at the Department of Homeland Security :

Canadians have "had a better deal than anybody else in terms of access to the United States and for that they've paid nothing."
Now "we want to give you less access, but we want you to pay more and, by the way, we're standardizing this (with other visa-free countries) so you're not special anymore."

According to Sands :

"Homeland security is the gatekeeper with its finger on the jugular affecting your ability to move back and forth across the border, the market access upon which the Canadian economy depends."

Dr Dawg's Shorter Sands : "Nice country you've got there--be a shame if anything happened to it."

It's just too bad we mostly missed the boat on Iraq, isn't it?
Back in January 2007, Sands introduced Sockwell Day to the Hudson Institute thusly :

"I was struck back in 2003 after doing a briefing with some people in the Administration. It had been a rough year. We were getting ready to go to Iraq.
Canada-US relations were somewhat strained by that. At the end of the riefing which had been a little bit grim -- about how Canada and the US could work together better in this war on terror that we were facing, the person I was briefing paused and said to me, 'Chris, where are all the good Canadians?'

When he said that it broke a little bit of my heart, because I'm an American but I love the Canadians. I think what he meant by that was 'Where are the Canadians of World War I and World War II, that people understood to be... even when Europeans didn't, those allies we had come to count on.'

Well, I have good news. Our speaker today is one of the good Canadians..."

Good Canadian Sockwell Day, our new Minister of International Trade.
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