Homeland perimeter security blanket

Up until it was taken down a couple of days ago, this was the front page for the 2011 Ottawa Conference on Defence and Security bunfest.

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It was hosted by the Conference of Defence Associations, CDA Institute, described on their website as "a non-partisan, independent, and non-profit organization" ... aka a military lobby group primarily funded by the Department of National Defence.

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I found it kind of touching - the way the logos of all the corporate defence contractors are laid out so boldly right under the word "AGENDA" like that.

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Some highlights from the first panel group, moderated by CDA/CDFAI deep integrationist Colin Robertson, on loan from DFAIT to direct the Canada-US Project, to which the new SPP Harper Obama perimeter security blanket bears a singular resemblance.

Everyone was very bumfed up about the Harper Obama plan for armouring NAFTA :

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Michael Wilson, former Canadian ambassador to the US and Nafta negotiator : "The definition of national security includes energy and the economy."

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James Blanchard, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and Nafta negotiator :

"We hear the phrase ‘security trumps trade’ but the fact is energy security is part of security. To suggest they are separate and apart is a lot of baloney.
I don’t think the average person understands how closely we co-operate already on information and technology in the military or people would not be throwing around the word sovereignty so loosely."

Lt.-Gen. Frank Grass, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, on expanding NORAD to include land and sea:

"We’ve brought NORAD and NorthCom together - the Canadian and US staff below command level are fully integrated. The civil assistance program is already operational. Ready to help RCMP during the Olympics, we prepositioned forces south of the border – another example of the great cooperation we have with CanCom."

A question from the floor from retired diplomat John Noble : "BMD ... ballistic missile defence ...Is the door still open?"
Michael Wilson : "We should have joined the US in BMD. I hope discussions can be reopened."

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Yesterday Janet Napolitano addressed the US Senate Committee "Department of Homeland Security Oversight" :

Canada Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews and DHS announced a first of its kind plan to establish a comprehensive cross-border approach to critical infrastructure resilience, focused on sharing information and assessing and managing joint risks.

Moreover, last month, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper signed a landmark "Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness" that sets forth how our two countries will manage our shared homeland and economic security in the 21st century."

Our shared homeland and economic security?

A bit later on she mentions protecting "shared assets and key resources".

It's all about sharing evidently. Lots and lots of sharing.

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This deep integration stuff has always been pitched to Canada as : After 9/11, we have to go security for the Americans so they'll continue to buy our stuff. Security vs. trade.

But there is no balancing of opposites going on here really, is there? There's just the one deal - markets and resources wrapped up in a big old homeland perimeter security blanket. With logos.

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The Military-Industrial-Media-Government Complex

In a 2007 article entitled "The Conference of Defence Associations gets $100,000 a year from the Department of Defence", CDA executive director Alain Pellerin told Maclean's John Geddes :

"We also have to write a number of op-eds to the press."
Asked if there is any aspect of Tory defence policy the CDA opposes, he couldn't think of one.

Six days ago the Ottawa Citizen ran an article "End the Inquisition" by Paul Chapin which rather hysterically equated the Afghan committee's hearings on the detainee issue with Senator Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt. The Citizen did note in Chapin's bio that he is director of the above-mentioned Conference of Defence Associations, but rather unhelpfully failed to mention he was also the author of the very detainee agreement he was defending.

Yesterday Harper Bizarro had a very good post up detailing missing bio info in a Globe and Mail David Bercuson editorial, Liberals, lay down your arms. In it Bercuson advised Iggy to clamp down on Lib defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh and Lib foreign affairs critic Bob Rae re their determination to get to the bottom of the Afghan-detainee issue. As noted by Harper Bizarro, the G&M omitted to mention that Bercuson is director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary and director of programs at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute(CDFAI), and therefore has funding ties to the very Department of Defence he is defending. h/t Pogge

Also worth noting is that the comment editor at the Globe and Mail who runs these pieces joined the Advisory Council of CDFAI in 2006.


At 13 university centres across Canada, the Department of National Defence funds defence 'studies' through its Security and Defence Forum. This is from Embassy Mag in 2007 :

"According to the Department of National Defence, over 600 people, including 183 faculty members, are employed in these centres across Canada. In 2005-2006, scholars from these centres churned out 600 publications, including articles, books, and chapters. In this same period, the centres received funding worth $1,255,000. As of October 2006, DND approved a 25 per cent increase in funding. In the next five years, the funding will shoot up to $1,650,000, a 32 per cent increase."

Steve Staples, Rideau Institute, Feb 2007 :

"It's not about scholarly journals, peer reviewed articles that they have written -it's really about appearing in the mainstream media. What you tend to get as a general trend, is a steady stream of hawkish opinion from academics that are all linked together through Department of National Defence funding."

Not all this hawkish think tank funding is DND of course. CDFAI donors for instance also include Enbridge, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin.

Something to think about given that media Rolodex seems to fall open so easily to the same DND and corporate funded analysts over and over again.

As Pogge says, "What we have here is taxpayer dollars being laundered through the defence budget and used to pay academics to lobby us ."

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Obama win a 'danger' to Canada, Cellucci says

in the Canwest headline (bold - mine) :

"A Barack Obama presidency would present a "danger" to Canada because he could renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, imperiling the future economic integration of the continent, former U.S. ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci said yesterday."

Such remarks pass into the public record of our two big media conglomerates, CTV/G&M and AsperNation, without comment.

Cellucci was up in Canada to address the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute conference : "What Does it Mean to Be Good Neighbours?" See yesterday's post

Push-polling deep integration for General Dynamics

A mere four days after foisting John Ibbitson's paeon to deep integration on us, the Globe and Mail is at it again, this time reporting on a poll which purports to show that "Canadians want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to work more closely with a new U.S. administration" and "Canadians expect their government to work closely with the U.S. on international problems".
According to this poll, 62% of Canadians would even "adopt American regulatory standards if it would ease restrictions at the border".

As Ibbitson also proclaimed, the reason why this will all be ok is : "Canadians are excited about the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency". Obama, a fine orator whose speeches move me to tears but whose voting record is thus far still somewhere to the right of Stephen Harper's, is apparently the new deep integration selling point to Canadians.

The G&M refers to the institute which commissioned the poll, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, merely as a "Calgary-based institute".
Rather more useful would have been the information that CDFAI is a lobby group funded by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and "defence contractor" General Dynamics, beneficiary of millions of dollars in arms contracts due to Canadian participation in the U.S War on Terra.

The article also quotes "Colin Robertson, senior fellow with the institute", but fails to mention "he was a member of the team that negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States", information freely available on his CDFAI bio, or that currently Mr. Robertson has been seconded by DFAIT to Carleton University to direct the Canada-US Project, along with fellow continentalist Derek Burney :

Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement under a New Administration
Purpose: To develop a blueprint for a joint Canada-US agenda focused on bilateral and global prosperity and security issues.

Included among its listed "themes" are :

• Canada-US defense cooperation (Note US spelling of defence)
• The North American energy-environment nexus
• Cross-border regulatory cooperation
• Scope and issue areas for greater bilateral cooperation in the Americas

Unsurprisingly, these are the same issues addressed in the CDFAI poll and happily reported in the G&M as Canadians, despite their "healthy skepticism of the Americans", enthusiastically supporting greater ties.

Thanks, G&M. Can hardly wait for your next one. And as CDFAI is holding a one-day conference in Ottawa today - What Does it Mean to Be Good Neighbours? - including Robert Pastor, Vice Chair of the 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America and author of Toward a North American Community, I expect we'll be hearing more of the same from you again quite soon.