Selling the doubleplusgood TPP to Canadians

When she signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal above a NZ casino two months ago, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freetrade was at pains to reassure us that signing it was not the same as ratifying it, and besides there would be conversations with Canadians about it first. 

"Signing does not equal ratifying. Signing is simply a technical step in the process, allowing the TPP text to be tabled in Parliament for consideration and debate before any final decision is made."

Yesterday in Washington DC, PM Justin Trudeau called for "an increasingly integrated North America" and extolled "the investment opportunities for U.S. business on the billions of dollars of infrastructure projects announced in the Liberal budget."
Here's what he said about the TPP :

“In our conversations with Canadians, with industries which are ongoing, there are a lot of people in favour of it and there are a few who have real concerns and we’re looking at understanding and allaying certain fears ...”   

This March 10 presser from the International Trade Committee explains what JT means by "allaying certain fears" :





Second line : "The committee's primary objective is to assess the extent to which the agreement would be in the best interests of Canadians."

So will there be a whole other trade committee to assess the extent to which the TPP is not in the best interests of Canadians?

Because here's what JT's "few who have real concerns" about the global corporate rights pact are concerned about :

TPP opens floodgates to unregulated temporary foreign workers

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could see hundreds of thousands of additional temporary foreign workers (TFWs) entering Canada without any consideration of their impact on the local labour market leading to worsening unemployment among Canadian workers, labour groups warn.

The Canadian Workers Advocacy Group(CWAG) points out that 230,000 TFWs enter Canada annually under the labour mobility provisions of existing agreements, and the magnitude of the latest trade deal means that the numbers will increase significantly.

This is on top of the 165,000 TFWs who enter the country on average per year with a positive Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIA).

CWAG also expressed concern that unlike other trade deals, the TPP includes developing countries such as Vietnam and Peru, and corporations will use the intra-company transfer provisions of the trade agreement to bring in low-wage workers and displace Canadians.

The minimum wage is 65 cents per hour in Vietnam and $1.27 per hour in Peru."

Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich : The New Truth About Free Trade

"I used to believe in trade agreements ...."

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz : "TPP worst trade deal ever" 

"I think what Canada should do is use its influence to begin a renegotiation of TPP to make it an agreement that advances the interests of Canadian citizens and not just the large corporations."

The Star : Joseph Stiglitz told Freeland that Canada should reject the TPP 

Economist Joseph Stiglitz says he has told his “friend,” International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, that Canada should reject the Trans-Pacific Partnershipbecause it’s a badly flawed trade deal.

The controversial but not-yet-ratified trade agreement could tie the hands of the Trudeau Liberals on two key parts of its agenda — fighting climate change and repairing relations with aboriginal people, the Nobel-winning professor warned Friday.

Stiglitz said he relayed some of his concerns to Freeland personally in January, when the two were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland."

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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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Nigel Wright & Linda Frum in the Republican wayback machine

In a week that has featured ...

1) Nigel Wright let off the hook by the RCMP for bribing sitting legislator Senator Mike Duffy in spite of weeks of PMO discussions involving over a dozen senior party officials re buying Duffy's silence,    and 

2) Senator Linda Frum making the most idiotic and widely-mocked attack on Elections Canada over the Fair Elections Act to date, ie  that it is a conflict of interest for Elections Canada to both administer the vote during elections and encourage people to vote between elections, 

... it is fitting that Jay Watts III should dig up a piece of Canadian history that includes both Frum and Wright, as blogged by Brian Busby in a brilliant pair of blogposts that really should be savoured in their own right.

Seems in 1984, a rightwing Republican foundation confirmed it was funding several start-up campus publications in Canada among its 69 across North America. The Institute of Educational Affairs was set up by Irving Kristol, godfather of the US neoconservative movement, his fellow founding PNACer William Bennett, and William Simon, Reaganite, Richard Nixon's treasury secretary and board director of Halliburton Canada. It bankrolled : 

~ University of Toronto Magazine, founded by Nigel Wright - already working in Muldoon's PMO - and his friend and classmate Tony "Gazebo" Clement, and
~ McGill Magazine and editor Linda Frum, daughter of CBC's Barbara Frum and sister to David "Axis of Evil" Frum
~ Libertas at Queens, run by the son of the CEO at the Bank of Montreal. 
The original Canadian University Press article says 7 other clones of Libertas appeared across Canadian campuses that month, including articles of *unusual access* for campus papers - like an interview with George Bush.

Nigel Wright told the Montreal Gazette at the time that he had "no misgivings about applying for and accepting money from the Republican foundation".

The only advice he could recall receiving from the foundation was a circular "suggesting we publish nothing to do with the John Birch Society."

 Right-wing paper covertly funded from US , also published as Republicans fund Ontario & Quebec right wing newspaper :

"We were happy to have help and advice from the Americans," said Nigel Wright. 

In 1982 the IEA and American Spectator, a prominent conservative newspaper, held a seminar for college students interested in starting or maintaining conservative newspapers. More than 40 students attended to hear speakers such as the Spectator's R. Emett Tyrell Jr lecture on taste and strategy. 

"Don't print Klu Klux Klan literature," Tyrell advised. 

IEA Executive Director Phillip Marcus suggested: "If someone accuses you of being racist or sexist, accuse them back of McCarthy tactics." 

One person contacted who attended that conference but asked not to be identified said: "They told me that when I was ready to go ahead publishing, I shouldn't worry about the money. They said they'd take care of that."

From such smug little acorns are whole governments sprouted, along with their bent senators and chiefs of staff and covert bribes and Republican-style voter suppression bills.
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Ap27 Update : While we don't know whether Linda Frum attended the 1982 RepucliCon newspaper start-up seminar that advised accusing opponents of McCarthy tactics, Jay Watts III discovered her doing exactly that in the Montreal Gazette in 1984.
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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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Skynet : Connecting the dots

So remember how the Cons withdrew their just-tabled internet surveillance bill, the Lawful Access Act, on Feb 14 and replaced it an hour and 15 minutes later with the identical but renamed Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act , a bill which mentions neither children nor predators?

Coincidentally, the US Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 - sponsored by Texas teabaggin' Rep Lamar Smith who also sponsored the Stop Online Piracy Act, another internet spying bill - has 39 co-sponsors and is heading off to the US House of Representatives for debate.

Good thing ours has that one-word difference in the title, the better to provide for Canadian independence and sovereignty.

Theirs :
House Panel Votes to Require ISPs to Keep Customer Records

"The Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act would require ISPs to retain all customer IP addresses [for 12 months, amended down from 18] so that law enforcement agents can use the information to investigate online child pornography. Law enforcement agents would gain access to the IP information with subpoenas they issue, not court-ordered warrants."

Hey, ours does that too!
Michael Geist yesterday :

Toews has not talked about a provision in Bill C-30 that creates a voluntary warrantless system that would allow police to ask for the content of emails or web surfing habits and allow ISPs to comply with the request without fear of liability.

Hey, Section 6 of the theirs does that too! As does SOPA.


So who else is looking to spy on us online?
From the Whitehouse National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy, January 2012 , pages 33-34:

"It is imperative that Canada and the United States work together to expedite the sharing of information from electronic communication service providers; and share information necessary to lay the foundation for intercepting internet and voice communications under their respective laws in a timely manner."

Meanwhile, across the pond, the UK isn't hiding their internet spying bill behind any malarkey about protecting children. Same basic mo though :
UK government to demand access to all phone and internet user data

"The British government is in the process of developing a scheme whereby all phone companies and broadband internet providers will be required to store customer transaction data for a year and hand it over to security services upon request."

Doesn't seem like it much matters who these various government online spying bills are purported to target - pornographers, copyright infringers, drug traffickers, drugbiz mirror sites, terrorists - or who they are supposed to protect - children, Hollywood, the recording industry, drug companies, the public at large. They'll just keep reframing and renaming those suckers until one of them sticks - a law we can't access the inner workings of that entrenches their access to our private info while simultaneously throttling the free flow of shared info out here.


In opposing the US pornography bill, Rep. John Conyers said : 

"This is not protecting children from internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country with a lot of other purposes."

Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren proposed an amendment to rename it the Keep Every Americans' Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act but sadly this did not accrue the required votes. Unlikely such a further name change would succeed here either, even with a one-word title change.
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Combined Defence Plan - So we're a "homeland" now?

Last night DefMin Peter Airshow MacKay announced a pending "Combined Defence Plan" between Canada and the US to "further integrate cross-border military co-operation" :

"This agreement provides a framework for the combined defence of Canada and the U.S. during peace, contingencies, and war," MacKay told the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, comprising senior military officers, government officials and diplomats from both nations. 

"The plan describes the authorities and means by which the two governments would approve homeland military operations in the event of a mutually agreed threat, and how our two militaries would collaborate and share information."

So we're a homeland now? With homeland military operations?

 Canada and the U.S. also will extend the Civil Assistance Plan, which allows for the deployment of troops and equipment from one country to the other in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack

In his speech, MacKay called for increased military involvement implementing the Beyond the Border strategy, saying the Canadian Forces and its American counterparts should be supporting civilian agencies monitoring the cross-border security.

Huh. So the increasing integration of Canadian and US economies under Steve and Barry's Beyond the Border deal requires military backup?
Gosh this is sounding more like Security and Prosperity Partnership leftovers reheated and served up again all the time.

Back in March 2008 when Dick Cheney and then Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day both happened to be in Israel, Doris announced from Tel Aviv a new Canada-Israel Declaration of Intent to cooperate on mutually agreed threats like border security, a Canada-Israel border pact. The deal had been leaked months before, when both Israel's Ministry of Public Security and the Israeli press referred to it as "cooperation on homeland security".

"Homeland security" is still not a phrase we normally associate with a sovereign Canada.

Meanwhile the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has recommended the "Department of National Defence/Canadian Forces consider re-establishing a military presence on the campuses of educational institutions."
The executive director of the DND-funded Conference of Defence Associations, Alain "we have to write a number of op-eds to the press" Pellerin , says he believes the time is right to reinstate the Canadian Officers Training Corps program at universities :

"I think the military is very popular in the public eye," Pellerin said. "I think the universities wouldn't want to be out of step and say we don't want the COTC program."

You know, the one we haven't had since 1968.
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Beyond the Border War on Drugs

Seven months after Steve and Barry signed off on Beyond the Border last year, agreeing to improve cross-border investigations and share more info on Canadian travelers with Homeland Security, US AG Eric Holder explained to the Northern Border Summit that while Canada and the US already had an "excellent relationship" on  "cooperation in criminal investigations and prosecutions", " certain sentencing laws – and information sharing policies and practices – should be updated." 


Uh-oh, I wrote at the time, here comes Operation Doobie - the source of Steve's hardon for "spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers dollars on prison building, in order to impose a mandatory minimum term of six months in jail for anyone who grows more than six pot plants" - and this in a country that overwhelmingly supports decriminalization if not outright legalization.


Well, it would appear Operation Doobie has now entered the building.

There are a number of curious things about the Whitehouse National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy, January 2012, which I'll get to in a minute, but basically it calls for more info sharing from ISPs :

  "It is imperative that Canada and the United States work together to expedite the sharing of information from electronic communication service providers; and share information necessary to lay the foundation for intercepting internet and voice communications under their respective laws in a timely manner." (Pages 33-34)

Plus greater integration of Canada and US law enforcement agencies in Border Enforcement Security Task forces (BESTs) and the 15 Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBETs), including FBI, ICE, CBP, USCG, CBSA, RCMP, DEA, OPP, etc etc. Mention is made of the coordinating duties of the DEA and FBI offices located in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Toronto.

And more tech. Lots and lots more tech : thermal cameras, license plate readers, unmanned aerial vehicles, mobile and remote video surveillance systems.

Naturally this is reported in the US media as being about keeping Canadian marijuana out of the US, however small potatoes we might be compared to the US Mexico border :

"Agents seized about 9,470 pounds of marijuana along the northern border in fiscal 2011, according to Customs and Border Protection statistics, less than 1 percent of the roughly 2.4 million pounds seized along the southwestern border."

Ok, now for those curious bits ...

It really is all about pot.

"Marijuana is the most widely abused illicit drug in the United States and Canada. 

Marijuana and Ecstasy remain the most significant Canadian drug threats to the United States. While still responsible for significant social harm and public health and safety consequences at the individual and community levels, methamphetamine (meth) and heroin pose much lesser threats to each country, as evidenced by case reporting and limited northbound and southbound seizures." 

See now I would have thought meth and smack were a greater threat than pot but apparently that's just me.

However if I was trying to justify expanding internet spying or spending billions to further integrate Canadian law enforcement under DEA and Homeland Security, then I guess I'd pick a viable target like potheads over the junkies in the DTES.

In the report, various Canadian ethnic groups are held responsible for grows and labs - Vietnamese, Italian, Irish, Indian, eastern European, plus the Hell's Angels and FN border reservations - but then the report elsewhere undercuts its own message by noting that the prevalence of reported drug use - cannabis, cocaine or crack, speed, Ecstasy, hallucinogens (excluding salvia) or heroin - is down slightly in the US and down a whopping 14.5% in Canada from 2004 to 2009.

Aside from its considerable preoccupation with pot, the report states that "Canadian-produced meth currently poses a limited threat to the United States" and "the vast majority of cocaine that crosses the U .S .–Canada border is northbound into Canada". 

Plus ""Vietnamese Transnational Crime Organizations, in some cases with ties to Canada, have moved their indoor marijuana grow activities to the United States in an effort to decrease transportation costs and limit the risk of seizure associated with smuggling marijuana across the Northern border."

So ... drug use down, meth no biggie, cocaine flows north, and pot grows moving stateside. 

So what, aside from the danger posed by people staring raptly at their hands while eating a shitload of cookie sandwiches, has any of this got to do with integrating the border again?

Back to the National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy :

"During the November 9-10, 2010 Cross Border Crime Forum Ministerial, the four co-chairs, the Attorneys General for the United States and Canada, the Minister for Public Safety and the Secretary of DHS ... officials underscored the importance of a shared vision for border security and highlighted progress made by the United States and Canada over the past year to safeguard the critical resources, infrastructure, and citizens of both nations, focusing on streamlining information sharing and enforcement efforts and enhancing the ability of both countries to identify and respond to a wide range of threats."

Safeguard the critical resources of both nations? Are we still talking about pot here?
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Monday night update : Via Greenvie at Bread & Roses, a great piece comparing SOPA to the war on drugs :
Stonekettle Kitchen : SOPA, PIPA, Good Intentions and the Road to Hell
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North American Security Perimeter Law and Order

A week ago US Attorney General Eric Holder told the Northern Border Summit :

"[T]here are areas in which the U.S. and Canada can enhance cooperation in criminal investigations and prosecutions. And I believe we must consider how extradition, and mutual legal assistance processes could be streamlined to avoid delays; and whether certain sentencing laws – and information sharing policies and practices – should be updated."

He also announced a joint DOJ, DHS, Public Safety Canada and Justice Canada pilot project they hope to launch next year.

Yesterday, despite a continuing 20 year decline in crime in Canada, Dumb-on-Crime Minister Rob Nicholson - flanked by Jason Kenney, cops, and crime victims’ advocates - introduced the 9-bill lawnorder omnibus C-10, which is ... wait for it ... primarily focused on tougher sentencing laws. Noting that "This is only the beginning. We’ll introduce other legislation as well," he explained:

"We're not governing on the basis of the latest statistics."

That's ok, Rob, we never thought you were. We already get the part about spending $3-billion on filling new prisons with pot smokers and First Nations and people with mental health problems while simultaneously diverting money from social programs, education, and health care - a Made in America strategy that ultimately resulted in California emptying its prisons in order to afford its pensions, social programs, and education. 

Also yesterday ... a commenter left a link to a "special ceremony" in Toronto in August at which the Canadian and American Bar Associations signed an agreement "committing them to closer cooperation, information exchanges and other joint efforts."
"Our people are really one people," said ABA President Stephen N. Zack at the ceremony.

The American Bar Association Canada Committee focuses on "programs and policy dealing with international and cross-border aspects of issues affecting Canada" including :

"national security, cross-border litigation, privacy, government procurement, product safety regulation, antitrust, trade remedies, insolvency, customs, immigration, economic sanctions and export controls, financing, M&A, public law, and bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements, including NAFTA and the agreements of the World Trade Organization."

Coincidentally, Steve and Barry's February agreement : Beyond the Border: a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness is also very big on joint law enforcement operations and information sharing.
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Homeland security perimeter

Listening in on : Border Security Challenges After 9/11: A Conversation With Three Commissioners of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept 9, 2011

On Sept. 10, 2001, Robert Bonner tells us, he began his job as head of what is now the US Customs and Border Protection. The next day, in reaction to 9/11 events, he raised the border security alert to Level One, resulting in border wait times from Canada increasing from an average of 10 minutes to over 12 hours. It was at this point he realized security considerations would have to be addressed without "effectively shutting down our [US] country's economy ... These two pillars are not mutually exclusive."

Expanded X-ray and radiation technology on the borders and "advance electronic data" and vetting incoming travellers in foreign airports were put in place to expand the security envelope beyond the US borders.

 "And this is an important point," he said. "We were able to do this without congressional mandates."
 
Also at the roundtable was former commissioner Ralph Basham, who described the US/Mexico security fence as the "dumbest idea" he had ever heard of : "We all knew this wasn't the answer".
And current CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin :

"What will become more and more a feature of our homeland security efforts is partnership at a new level with the private sector. We cannot actually accomplish this goal without being in partnership with the private sector, given their involvement in the private supply chain and travel network ....  From day one we brought the private sector into the discussion and rather than designing and then mandating an approach to security, we actually co-created it in the case of the express carriers.....

In this way we will overcome the dichotomy within this decade and we have always realized it as a dichotomy - those of us inside CBP have realized it but I think we need to make this much more a staple knowledge on the part of the American people - which is that trade and security are not mutually exclusive. Not only are they not mutually exclusive, let alone antithetical to one another, but we at CBP increasingly believe that they are the same process, that in fact we cannot increase our security profile unless we expedite the 99.5% of trade and travel that is legitimate." 

And if 'we' don't, added Basham, the terrorists will have won.
 
"Without congressional mandate" and dependence on the private sector from day one should remind you of the SPP : Security and Prosperity Partnership, whose various proponents advised on its deathbed that it could only be resuscitated in increments.
 
Steve of course continued to deny for months that any such new combined security perimeter border action plan even existed, while simultaneously consulting on it with lobby groups and the private sector since last fall.

Interesting that all three CBP commissioners repeatedly emphasized the importance of keeping the borders nice and thin for their supply lines, isn't it?
I thought that was supposed to be our worry, not theirs - something the Americans just don't get - and thus the reason why we have to give them whatever they want so trucks will keep running back and forth between Windsor and Detroit.
 
So much for the "prosperity" part - on to "security" :
 
Yesterday ...
Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Northern Border Summit 
 
... 9/11 ...  unprecedented threats... yada yada
"Because of the promising new “Beyond our Border” initiative that President Obama and Prime Minister Harper proposed earlier this year, our law enforcement efforts have never been more closely aligned ...
The creation of “NextGen” teams of cross-designated officers would allow us to more effectively identify, assess, and interdict persons and organizations involved in transnational crime ..."
Ok, here we go, italics mine :

"Despite the excellent relationship we’ve established, I believe that there are areas in which the U.S. and Canada can enhance cooperation in criminal investigations and prosecutions. And I believe we must consider how extradition, and mutual legal assistance processes could be streamlined to avoid delays; and whether certain sentencing laws – and information sharing policies and practices – should be updated.
As Canada’s national government considers various anti-crime policies and approaches, we will continue working to implement a comprehensive anti-crime framework that respects the sovereignty of both our nations."

Certain sentencing laws?
Well we knew about the push for information sharing but "sentencing laws" ? For what crimes?
Is this why Steve has been pushing for "spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers dollars on prison building, in order to impose a mandatory minimum term of six months in jail for anyone who grows more than six marijuana plants" ?

Holder winds it up :

"Since December, senior representatives from DOJ, DHS, Public Safety Canada and Justice Canada have been meeting regularly ... and progress has been made in developing a pilot project that we hope to launch next year."

Operation Spliff? Operation Doobie?

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Most Canadians totally cool with Canada-US security perimeter deal

according to this G&M headline yesterday : Nearly half of Canadians oppose greater integration with U.S. law enforcement.

The headline refers to the Harper government release yesterday of its summary of the government website public consultation process about Steve and Barry's deep integration deal known as Beyond the Border: a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness.

"Nearly half of Canadians oppose " ?
So turning that headline around : more than half of Canadians approve of security integration with the US?
How many actual Canadians are we talking about here, G&M?

500 according to the gov report. More than 1,000 Canadians submitted their thoughts to the government website set up to "consult with Canadians" on how much sovereignty and privacy they are willing to trade off for greater access to US markets.
Also included were representatives from the provinces; business groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, think tanks, unions, academics, First Nations, and corporations like Imperial Tobacco and Bombardier.

Other media coverage :
Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty told the Toronto Star today in : Upcoming Harper-Obama talks last, best hope to slow post-9/11 border chokehold :

"We have to ask ourselves: What is the reason for the government presence along the 49th parallel at this stage in the 21st century?"

Corporate Television Vehicle confined their coverage on "consultations with Canadians" to an interview with Foreign Affairs Min John Baird in Cross-border policing concerns some Canadians: report. 
Baird explained why we need this deal : "Jobs, jobs, jobs."
When the news anchor asked what other issues besides jobs came up, Baird replied : "Jobs, jobs, jobs."
Also : "Jobs."

Toronto Sun : Calls for a freer border

Ok, so you get the idea on media coverage.
So what's it say about deeper security integration in the actual report?

What Canadians told us: A Summary on Consultations on Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness

The bulk of submissions on information sharing came from the National Airlines Council of Canada, the tourism associations of the United States and Canada, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and the Air Transport Association of Canada. They recommended that Canada and the United States align their advanced passenger-screening programs and also recommended that this process include the sharing of passenger data. The Customs and Immigration Union, whose members work at Canada's borders, as well as inland, recommended that joint Canada-United States information databases be made available to border personnel and be used to support enhanced screening at Canada's points of entry.

In support of expediting border crossing times, it was suggested that advanced passenger-screening programs be expanded to common carriers on land such as buses and trains. The Air Transport Association of Canada proposed merging Canada's Passenger Protect Program with the United States' Secure Flight program into a single North American “no-fly” list as a way to standardize the application of such lists within the North American perimeter.

In which case Maher Arar will certainly never fly from Vancouver to Kamloops again.

Submissions from individuals who supported information sharing ... A small number of those making submissions indicated a belief that Canada's immigration and refugee practices were lax and therefore a threat to national security, and proposed the integration of these policies with those of the United States.

Biometrics are methods of identifying people based on physical traits, such as fingerprint analysis; facial recognition; DNA, palm print or hand geometry analysis; and retina or iris recognition. While there was not a significant amount of input relating to biometrics, those organizations that did comment on this topic supported using biometrics.

The Customs and Immigration Union called for the deployment of an enhanced lookout system with face recognition biometric technology. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, a national association of business leaders, called for Canada and the United States to work to accelerate international efforts toward the adoption of common global standards for biometric data. In their joint submission, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada and the U.S. Travel Association called for the collection of biometric data for travellers from key emerging markets such as Brazil, India, China, Russia and Mexico.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Customs and Immigration Union ... called for the expansion of existing intelligence sharing and law enforcement partnerships. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives also suggested that joint law enforcement programs be introduced on land with a similar mandate.

Deepening Canada-United States Collaboration on Cyber-Security Matters
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives recognized the current success of collaboration efforts with the United States on these issues and called for a binational cyberspace defence strategy developed in collaboration with the private sector and end-users in both countries. They noted that such initiatives should include information technology suppliers and end users, all of whom share responsibility for preventing, responding to and recovering from physical and cyber disruptions of critical infrastructure.

That's a whole lot of Canadian Council of Chief Executives, isn't it? 
As CCCE President John Manley put it in December :

"The real question will be what do we get at the border in exchange for greater co-ordination on security."

Fuck all so far, John, no matter how much sovereignty and privacy we give up.


Final note to Globe &Mail headline writers. From the report :

"Moving forward, it is important to keep in mind that the results of the consultation described in this report are a reflection solely of the views of those who provided input. This report is not a reflection of the views of all Canadians and is not intended to be representative of all views on these issues."

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WikiLeaks : US bid to "shore up" Harper from the day he was elected

An embassy cable written by US Ambassador David Wilkins the day the Cons were first elected in 2006 suggests Harper would be useful in advancing the US agenda for Canada and that giving him " a success story" like the softwood lumber deal would "shore up" his ability to stay in office without appearing to "sell out to the Americans".
It's pretty well a quid pro quo blueprint for every Canada-US initiative Harper has dutifully followed ever since.
Excerpted :

The election of a new government, after thirteen years of Liberal rule, presents opportunities for advancing U.S. interests in such areas as law enforcement and continental security, and in developing Canada as a more useful partner in the Hemisphere and around the globe.
Significantly, the socially liberal core values of the opposition are more in line with most Canadians than the minority Conservatives, weakening their mandate even further. Given a relatively weak mandate and tenuous hold on power, Harper will move deliberately but cautiously to get a few successes under his belt before doing anything even remotely bold.

Relations with the U.S. will be tricky for Harper, who along with many members of his caucus has an ideological and cultural affinity for America. But as he has done already with many of his core social and fiscal values, he will simply have to sideline this affinity in order to not be painted as "selling out to the Americans" to a skeptical Canadian public. I know Harper will be warm and cordial in his dealings with the U.S., but he also has to demonstrate that he has the ability to advance Canada's interests with Washington, and he may feel compelled to step back from gestures that could be construed as a close embrace.

That said, I see a real opportunity for us to advance our agenda with the new government. I recommend early on that we look for an opportunity to give Harper a bilateral success story by resolving an irritant such as the Devil's Lake filter system or entering into good faith negotiations to reach a solution on softwood lumber. Early success on a bilateral issue will bolster Harper and allow him to take a more pro-American position publicly without as much political risk.

Another area where the new government will seek engagement will undoubtedly be border security. Finding a few high-profile SPP-type deliverables to improve cross border movement of goods and services would help our image here as well as shore up Harper's credentials. Laying this groundwork would then open the way for progress on cross-border law enforcement initiatives of interest to us, such as enhanced information-sharing, joint maritime operations, and more robust counter-narcotics efforts.

Enhanced info sharing on Canadians, the shiprider program, the imported war on drugs.

On other issues, Harper is committed to increasing spending on the armed forces and will do so, making the Canadian Armed Forces a more capable and deployable force; we have little to contribute to this debate and should stay out of it. He has also suggested that the missile defense decision could be re-examined.

With regards to our transformational agenda, there will be numerous opportunities for engagement. However, I suggest quietly working such cooperation with the new government through official, non-public channels, and that we focus on a handful of priority areas -- keeping Canada in the game in Afghanistan as the mission turns more difficult and possibly more bloody; continuing to work together to keep the pressure on Iran; increasing support to the new government in Haiti, possibly even taking on more of a leadership role there.

And right about now I'm guessing you're remembering some of Harper's more bizarre outbursts on Iran, his caginess about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and Canada's new "leadership role in Haiti" where DFAIT is buying up property to house an infusion of Canadian officials.
Back to Wilkins' cable :

"We're going to be recommending senior level visits and consultations on foreign policy issues to help bring Harper and his new, generally inexperienced team into the fold as more useful partners.

I look forward to helping connect the dots with the new government so we can effectively advance our agenda."

Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, enhanced information sharing, war on drugs, joint maritime operations, security perimeter ... There's also a section on Canada "engaging more actively in other hemispheric trouble spots such as Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba."

Has Canada done anything independent of this cable under Harper?


David Emerson, who crossed the floor to the Cons to implement the soft wood lumber deal a week after he was elected as a Liberal in Vancouver, is mentioned in a second Wilkins cable just after the deal was signed with USTR Ambassador Susan Schwab eight months later.
Here they are quoted discussing International Traffic in Arms Regulations, a US law which proscribes Canadian dual nationals from some countries from work on the arms deals that comprise 40% of Canadian defense procurement from the US, and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative  :

"It would be better, she continued, if we could look at issues as if there were a common border surrounding Canada and the U.S., rather than as an issue caused by the Canadian-U.S. border. Emerson agreed. He said that policies such as the WHTI are a "running sore" in the bilateral relationship and are inconsistent with policies to integrate the Canadian and U.S. economies to the maximum extent possible."

So, again, Steve, we ask : How's that US security perimeter deal with Barry coming along?
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The North American Security Intelligence Partnership

CBC, via WikiLeaks :

228182
SECRET 2/10/2009
SECRET OTTAWA 000768
Subject : Visas Viper : The "Toronto 18" as candidates for Visas Viper Program

SUMMARY At Embassy Ottawa's monthly Visas Viper meeting on September 09, 2009, a list of 27 indidivudals (sic) who were involved in the so-called "Toronto 18" conspiracy, a plot to engage in terrorist activities in the Toronto metropolitan area, was submitted for consideration. All of these individuals are watchlisted in the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS). Post is submitting their names to be included in the Visas Vipers program.

The Visas Viper program is the entry level into US terrorist watchlists.

Pogge, yesterday : Apparently we need to hold the Arar inquiry all over again

"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's principal intelligence agency, routinely transmits to U.S. authorities the names and personal details of Canadian citizens who are suspected of, but not charged with, what the agency refers to as "terrorist-related activity."

In at least some cases, the people in the cables appear to have been named as potential terrorists solely based on their associations with other suspects, rather than any actions or hard evidence."

Evidently even working as an undercover police informer busting terrorists will get you on that list.
In addition to the Toronto 18, the embassy cables name nine others.
Among those nine names is Mubin Shaikh.

Mubin Shaikh, a Canadian Muslim, was recruited by CSIS in 2004 to infiltrate possible terrorist groups.
Shaikh infiltrated the Toronto 18, secretly taping them and setting up the RCMP sting resulting in their arrest.
He testified against them at their trial as the Crown's star witness. Without him there would have been no trial, no convictions.
And now he's in the US terrorist database.
I'm sure other Canadian Muslims will be really keen to help CSIS out now.

So did CSIS put their own mole on that list? Or do they just have no autonomy at all over their own data.

“Clearly it’s a mistake,” Mr. Shaikh said in an interview. He argued that most people who are on watch lists belong on the lists, and that he has “compete confidence” in Canada’s ability to safeguard intelligence sources.

Good for you. I don't.

Yesterday CSIS gave a damage-control response to breaking news of their continued handing over of Canadian names and personal details to US watchlists :

 " ... any decision to hand over names is the result of a detailed process, in which an individual's threat level is assessed by a committee of Canadian security officials, including a senior executive at CSIS.

Lawyers from the Department of Justice also participate, and often a representative of the RCMP.

As part of the process, someone plays the part of devil's advocate, challenging the information gathered on the individual being considered.

Even then, said the official, the decision to hand over a name to the Americans is subject to written ministerial directives and internal CSIS policies.

None of which explains how Mubin Shaikh got on there.

But as Evan Dyer pointed out during RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli's grilling about Arar four and a half years ago, all that rigorous bureaucratic bullshit doesn't mean fuck all if US security forces are already physically present in the room when "persons of interest" are being discussed at INSET meetings.
INSET, the Canadian Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams, are the Canadian counter-terrorist forces comprised of CSIS, the RCMP, Border Services, and other security groups. They handled both the Arar and Toronto 18 cases.

As Pogge put it : "Our "principal intelligence agency" doesn't work for us; it works for American intelligence agencies."

"We don't want another Arar," said the security official. But at the same time, he said, CSIS is acutely aware that if it did not pass on information about someone it suspected, and that person then carried out some sort of spectacular attack in the U.S., the consequences could be cataclysmic for Canada.
U.S. authorities, already suspicious that Canada is "soft on terror," would likely tighten the common border, damaging hundreds of billions of dollars worth of vital commerce.

So we're just haggling about the price of our sovereignty and Charter rights now then.

Or, as most of the WikiLeaks-released Ottawa Embassy cables usually sign off with:

"Visit Canada's North American partnership community at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap /"

Yeah. Thanks. How's our security perimeter coming along?
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Update : WikiLeaks has now released the S E C R E T OTTAWA 000768 cables. Same redactions as CBC.
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Canada Census - The dilemma

Do we fill it in nicely to show our solidarity with StatsCan and their important data-gathering, currently under siege by the Cons, or do we fill it in using really big crayons and attached pictures of cluster bomb victims to protest its having been farmed out once again to war profiteer and surveillance/espionage experts Lockheed Martin?


Back during the 2006 census, some of us worried that Homeland Security would wind up with access to our census data via the US Patriot Act. StatsCan was at great pains to alleviate those fears : LM would not get the actual data because LM were only supplying the software; the actual data would remain with StatsCan.

Lockheed Martin : "We never forget who we're working for".

Well of course not. $35.7B in US government contracts alone out of $42.7B worldwide in 2008 is a whole lot of not forgetting.

ML accounts for one of every 14 dollars doled out by the Pentagon, amounting to a "Lockheed Martin tax" of $260 per taxpaying household in the United States.

Besides there's the US government network to maintain : $12 million on congressional lobbying and campaign contributions in 2009.
NYTimes, secondary source :

"Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed hold the posts of secretary of the Navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex, and director of the national spy satellite agency.

Lockheed Martin is now positioned to profit from every level of the war on terror from targeting to intervention, and from occupation to interrogation."

Including spying on Quakers and anti-war activists and recruiting interrogators for Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan for the Department of Defense.

Of Lockheed Martin's 57 Federal Contractor Misconduct violations listed at the Project on Government Oversight, nearly a third involve court dispositions and fines for "Government Contract Fraud".
Say, how are our F-35s coming along?

Four months after the 2006 census, Lockheed Martin President of the Americas and Co-Chair of the SPP's North American Competitiveness Council Ron Covais explained to Luiza Ch. Savage how the Security and Prosperity Partnership would be implemented - in incremental changes by each country's executive, bureaucrats and other regulators outside government.

"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes because we won't get anywhere."

It may not be entirely rational to fuck with the census form on the grounds that LM profits by it, but sometimes protests are not particularly rational - they are just one of the only means available to us to register our disgust with the creeping militarization inherent in our incremental deep integration with the US.
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My apology to commenters - all comments were lost in Blogger's big fubar today.
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