"We're the Indians now" **

"The Plan to Disappear Canada" in yesterday's Tyee outlines ten recent developments in deep integration that have received media coverage.

As author Murray Dobbin points out : it's good that our media is finally giving it some tentative attention but it's bad that it's taken them so long to notice that The Big Idea is already well underway.

Several people have emailed it to me along with their comments, which mostly run to the "those fucking Americans" variety, and it's this idea that deep integration is someone else's fault that I'd like to address here. Specifically I'd like to hear a lot more about complicity from certain "fucking Canadians".

Mulroney gave us the 1989 Free Trade Agreement, Chretien gave us NAFTA, Paul Martin the Security and Prosperity Partnership, and Harper - Harper's knees are covered in callouses and his lower jaw has gone numb.

In their April 2004 position paper "New Frontiers - North American Security and Prosperity Initiative", the Canadian Council of Chief Executives bragged :

"The Council was the private sector leader in the development and promotion of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement during the 1980s and of the subsequent trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement. North American economic integration is now well advanced and irreversible."

Canadians all.

The 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, also a Canadian initiative, included :

• John Manley, Task Force Canada Chair, former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Finance Minister
• Tom D'Aquino, Chief Exec of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives
• Tom Axworthy*, former Chief of Staff to Trudeau
• Jim Dinning, former Alberta Finance Minister, lost to Stelmach in leadership bid
• Wendy Dobson, Pres. C.D. Howe Institute, Ass Deputy Minister of Finance of Canada
• Pierre-Marc Johnson, former Quebec Premier
• Michael Wilson, former Canada Finance Minister, ex-Minister of International Trade, and Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.

who, along with their US and Mexican counterparts, variously advocated and signed off on :

• a North American brand name, "portraying NA as a club of privileged members"
• a North American security perimeter - "Security issues trump all other issues."
• an educational project to teach "a shared NA identity in schools"
• a North American passport.
• a feasibility study on North American currency union.
• an integrated NA electrical grid
• a NA "resource pact allowing greater trade and investment in non-renewable resources, such as oil, gas, and fresh water"
• the complaint that "Governance has not kept pace with economic realities and is preventing further integration."

(*Tom Axworthy appended a dissenting view, disagreeing with creating one security perimeter and also with moving bulk water exports and cultural protections from national to NA jurisdiction.)

And the Smart Borders and the Smart Regulations harmonization with US regs and the Fire Sale of Canadian companies.

So please, let's admit that Canadian corporations and think tanks and politicians have more than met "those effing Americans" half-way here. However horrified we may be at the idea of hitching our wagon to the stars and stripes of the war-mongering imperialistic plutocracy to the south, let's at least admit it's Canadians who are selling off our wagon.

**Kurt Vonnegut

Steve and Sandra Go to the G8 : Something or other about 2050

Some previous G8 something or others :
At the G8 Gleneagles Summit in 2005, world leaders promised Africa debt relief, drugs for AIDS and double the annual aid within five years.
Just one year later, total aid from G8 countries actually dropped. Canada's aid fell by 9%; the US by 20%.

Another previous G8 promise : to write off the debts of the 18 poorest African countries.
This year's debt in interest alone? A billion and half dollars. Or, more than those countries saved from the debt relief they got in the first place.

If you don't count Bush's nostalgia for the good old days of the arms race in Europe, you can at least say that this year the G8's aren't making any promises they can't keep.

On The Map with Avi Lewis
.
Dana : Harper on the International Stage

LOLsteve

Rob Cottingham says : I can't has laffs at lolcats

So I'm guessing lolsteves are completely out then.

CBC's metaphor-gate

The head of CBC News was grilled by Con MPs on Tuesday about the use of this photo of the Toronto skyline to illustrate a story on the Kyoto Accord.

Calling the darkened stock photo "a complete misrepresentation" that had the effect of "misleading Canadians", the apparently metaphor-challenged Con MP Chris Warkenton complained in a brilliant rhetorical flourish that the photo "was there to support an opinion that was being brought forward with the article that it was published along with."

And here I'll pause for a moment to allow you to enjoy the unintended hilarity produced whenever a Con MP complains about misrepresentation of Kyoto.

CBC editor-in-chief Tony Burman answered that the photo, which was pulled as soon as the mistake was realized, was "misfiled" and "an inadvertent error" and had not been specifically "retouched for use on air".

The Cons, who have recently taken to air-brushing entire people out of their caucus, then promptly squandered whatever dubious moral high ground they might have tried to claim by whining that CBC hadn't given sufficient coverage to their fetus fetish rally on the Hill last month. Wankers.

Note to CBC : Use a bigger brush. Some Cons obviously don't get concepts like 'metaphor' and 'illustration' easily. Next time you run a photo to illustrate a story about Canada's relationship to Kyoto, I would suggest you use something clearer and more to the point. Like this one from Havril :

.

SPP, not just for cows anymore

Robert Pastor : "It's time for Canada to take the lead to propose rule-based institutions that permit cows to roam across borders and people to declare: I am not just a Canadian, a Mexican, or a U.S. citizen; I am also a North American."

Pastor, author of Toward a North American Community, director of the North American Forum on Integration, and tireless cheerleader for "a North American consciousness", is at the University of Ottawa today, plumping for letting the little people in on his pet cow-freeing project :

Mr. Pastor said the SPP summit at Montebello this August "offers an opportunity for the leaders to open the process, to invite in more civil society groups," including academics, environmentalists, unions, the media and state and provincial legislators."

Unlike Ron Covais and his co-conspirators in the North American Competitiveness Council who advocate for "integration by stealth", Pastor says : "What we need is something more bold."

Well, exactly.
Pastor was quite bold himself when he spoke to the Canadian Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade in Feb 2002 on implementation of a common currency :

There are three options for us. Option one is de facto dollarization. That is to say, no government makes a decision, and increasingly Canada and Mexico use the U.S. dollar.

The number two option is de jure dollarization. Three governments all sit down and they decide the dollar makes sense: let's just use a single currency.

The third option is a unified currency. Herbert Grubel has proposed this idea of the amero.

I think it's in the long-term interest of the United States to propose or to discuss a scheme in which all three countries feel there is space for them to define a portion of this larger entity of an amero system, not a dollar system.

Some of the FAIT MPs promptly widdled on the carpet in their gratitude and excitement.
See how much better it is to be open and transparent and let "state and provincial legislators" "feel there is a space for them" in the decision-making?

Actually, the mewling sychophantic behavior of the MPs aside, I heartily advocate Pastor's strategy.

Pastor promotes the SPP as NAFTA-Plus.
NAFTA overrides Canadian law for the benefit of corporations to which it affords the rights and freedoms previously reserved for people. It allows quisling business groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives an increasingly large say in public policy issues while excluding the public. It advocates the deregulation and privatization of hard-won public services like health and education, promotes intellectual property rights of corporations over the needs of consumers, nullifies control over foreign investment, and guts protection for workers, stakeholders, and the environment.

In 1993, Canadians reacted to the wholesale promotion of Mulroney's corporate free trade agenda by throwing him out on his ass and reducing the Cons to two seats in the House.
So let's hope the Cons listen to Pastor today and Canada is provided with the opportunity to hear them defend this NAFTA-Plus in the House. And the sooner the better.

Garth wakes up. Somewhat.

H/T Accidental Deliberations : Transparent

So stick another ribbon on your DND

Panglossian Notes noticed this honking new banner hanging on the South wing of the Defence Department Headquarters building in downtown Ottawa and provides us with a friendlier customized version from Mr. Fish.

I always liked this one too from Crabgrass at This Can't Be Right for its gentle reminder that there's rather more to this agenda than merely Standing On Guerre For Thee.

And just in case you've forgotten where all this crap originally came from : A little American song and dance cue from some friends of Rev at the Woodshed.

Yeah, I know, you'll be singing it all day now.

.

So how 'special' are we?

Harper to tell G8 Canada 'special' on climate change.


Click to enlarge.
The above graphic shows the relationship between wealth and energy consumption, plotting per capita energy consumption (x axis) against per capita income (y axis) for all countries with more than 20 million inhabitants in 2006.
Canada is indeed special. With the highest energy consumption per person in the world, we still fall behind Japan, the US and the UK in our ability to translate that consumption into wealth, while Germany and France require roughly half our energy consumption to maintain the same GDP as us.

The red dot represents the world average, with China and India falling well below it in both energy consumption and income.
I would remind those who prefer whole country stats over the social justice issues exposed in per capita stats that the environment doesn't much care about country names and boundaries.
Just sayin', Steve.

Image courtesy of Frank van Mierlo

Steve and Sandra - Dressed to Kill

Just so we're clear here : Steve, who didn't serve in the military, went off on Dion for not serving in the military and Ignatieff for spending time in academia outside the country, because Dion called for the resignation of an incompetent Con cabinet minister who used to serve in the military.

"It's true I've never served in the armed forces," the PM admitted. "I consider that an experience in my life that I've missed. But I can say, Mr. Speaker, that I've always worked and lived and paid my taxes in my country."

As Tim put it in The Canadian President : It's really a right wing twofer for Harper. He gets to criticize people who have not served in the military (hypocritical prick that he is) and he gets to sneer at an academic. It's all good!

Got it? No? Just think of it as a more childish variation on "I know you are but what am I?"

The Galloping Beaver : Harper the warrior king, channeling Dick Cheney

Canadian Cynic : Too stupid to know they've been towel-snapped

Fixed : Oh, just about everything above. Bah!

Water wars

No, not with the US ; apparently we're still duking this one out with the Cons.

You remember those International Trade Committee hearings last month on Canada's water and energy security under NAFTA and the SPP? The one in which chairperson Leon Benoit stomped out with the three other Con members because he didn't like Prof. Gordon Laxer's testimony on just how vulnerable Canada is?
Yes? Then you'll remember how the rest of the committee continued to do their job.

Today the following motion was brought from that Int Trade Committee to the House of Commons for debate :

"Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted by the Committee on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 your Committee recommends:

Whereas Canada’s water resources must be protected;

Whereas NAFTA covers all services and all goods, except those that are expressly excluded and water is not excluded;

Whereas this situation puts the provincial and federal laws concerning the protection of water including the prohibition of bulk water exports at risk;

Whereas a simple agreement by exchange of letters among the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico specifying that water is not covered by NAFTA must be respected by international tribunals as if it were an integral part of NAFTA;

That the Standing Committee recommend that the government quickly begin talks with its American and Mexican counterparts to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA."

Yes! Thank you Bloc and NDP committee members, and particularly NDP Trade critic Peter Julian who has worked so hard to expose the whole SPP betrayal in parliament.

The Con members on the committee dissented of course.
And I'm sure, given their previous behavior on the committee and the outing of the Con's dirty tricks manual on how to shut down committees on subjects they don't like, you're not exactly reeling with surprise about it.

Down at the bottom :

"Dissenting opinion from the Conservative Party
The Government members of the Standing Committee on International Trade, for reasons previously stated by our members which appear in the evidence, [snip], choose to dissent respectfully from the Ninth Report."

Dissent away, ReformACons! Da motherfuckin motion is in da House!

SATURDAY UPDATE: From the Ottawa Citizen :

"A motion to open NAFTA talks to make sure bulk-water exports are excluded from the deal sparked an acrimonious three-hour debate in the House yesterday, with all three Opposition parties lined up against the Tories.

The Tories say a 1993 letter signed by the three governments specifically says "water in its natural state" is exempt from the provisions of NAFTA.
But water will not be considered to be "in its natural state" once it has been loaded into a pipeline, or onto a tanker, critics fear.

NDP MP Peter Julian says that in 1998, California-based Sun Belt Water Inc. launched a $10.5-billion lawsuit under NAFTA against British Columbia when a provincial ban scuttled its plans to ship water by tanker to the U.S. (The case is still pending.)

"As a foreign investor, all you need to do is apply for a permit.
You'll either get to export water, or you can sue for compensation, which taxpayers will have to pay. Either way, the investor wins, and Canada loses."

Water is protected not only by the 1993 NAFTA letter, but also by a federal-provincial pact and an amendment to the Canada-U.S. Boundary Waters Treaty, which protects the Great Lakes and other shared waters, he [Ted Menzies, Con from the Int Trade committee] argues.

But the Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based advocacy group, says the U.S. never signed that amendment and notes that it doesn't cover water sources that are not shared with the U.S."

The quisling Cons are terrified to ask the fucking question : Under NAFTA, does Canada control her own water, or, as Peter Julian puts it, is it a choice between 1)exporting water or 2)paying compensation to each and every foreign company who applies for a permit to do so.

May 31 Hansard account of debate between all parties in the House..
.

MandaTORY TARgets

This little box appears on the opening page of the Government of Canada Official Web Site (sic) : "Canada is setting mandatory reduction targets for all major industries that produce greenhouse gases."

All of them? Now that can't be right. Why, just today I was reading in The Star how :

"the Harper government's recently announced green plan lets the tar-sands industry off the hook. By using "intensity-based targets" that limit emissions on a per barrel basis, the government applies no caps on expanded production. In the tar sands, where production is expected to quadruple by the year 2015, greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to grow from 27 million metric tonnes today to more than 126 million metric tonnes from this industry alone in less than a decade. Instead of curbing emissions, the Harper plan allows the tar sands to do the opposite."

So what do you get when you click that little " More" link at the bottom of the box ? :
"This functionality is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

That's just the Cons all over, isn't it? - Big front page lies, followed up with an awkwardly worded excuse about how it isn't their fault.

(Cross-posted at The Galloping Beaver)