SPP and Server in the Sky

CP : U.S. security chief says fingerprints not private
"The U.S. homeland security czar says Canadians shouldn't fear plans to expand international sharing of biometric information such as fingerprints.
Michael Chertoff says a person's fingerprints are like footprints.
"They're not particularly private," Chertoff said in an interview Wednesday during a brief visit to Ottawa.
"Your fingerprint's hardly personal data, because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world."

Well that's just crap. Having a glass of wine in a public restaurant is not at all like having your fingerprints fed into a database like Server in the Sky.
You remember Server in the Sky, don't you? It's the FBI's proposed shared database of biometric information - our fingerprints, palm prints, and iris scan data - to be exchanged among the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
The International Information Consortium, as the five founding nations including Canada call themselves, will meet behind closed doors in May in San Francisco to plan their strategy.

CP : "An internal RCMP briefing note on the Server in the Sky project recommends the national police force continue to support the initiative."

As noted back here, one of Server in the Sky's most alarming aspects is that Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, heard of it for the first time in January by reading about it in a UK newspaper.
No Canadian officials had informed her of the project.

Stockwell Day met with Chertoff on Wednesday to discuss SPP initiatives in advance of the Leaders' Summit in New Orleans on April 21.

Integrate This! on the new biometric BC Enhanced Driver's License developed in conjunction with Washington state. Jennifer Stoddart describes it as creating a de facto national ID card in both countries.
IT : "The EDLs require biometric and other personal information on Canadians and Americans to be stored in a common database that is accessible by security agencies in both countries. Because Canada’s Public Safety department is insisting on all provinces developing a similar EDL to B.C.’s, and all of them will be compatible with the REAL ID program in the U.S., the Harper government is essentially working on a de facto North American ID card behind closed doors through the SPP."

SPP : What's good for General Motors ...

Condi Rice, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier gave a statement Tuesday following their mini-SPP meeting to discuss the upcoming North American Leaders’ Summit in New Orleans, but only Le Maximator managed to say nothing badly in both official languages.

From the US Dept. of State website : Maxime Bernier :
"So we discussed what is important for our countries. And as you know, we want to ensure that North America is a secure and economically dynamic region. This is important for us, but this is also important for our citizens."

Why, thank you for noticing, Maxi.

Condi did clear up any worries we might have had that the North American Competitiveness Council has the loudest and only non-gov voice at the SPP talks though :
"This SPP ... is work that bridges all of the important issues: security, trade, prosperity. It also has permitted the leaders to engage the public – the private sector and civil society through the North American Competitiveness Council."

General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart, General Electric, Chevron, Ford, Canfor, Home Depot, Bell, CN, and PowerCorp - they got your back!

Harper's 'Let's not and say we did' Mulroney inquiry

Harper's "hand-picked independent third party" advisor has regretfully noted that his mandate "does not allow him to recommend that a public inquiry not be held" at all into the Mulroney Schreiber scandal, but that doesn't preclude him recommending a very narrow limited one behind closed doors.
Right off the top David Johnston suggested it shouldn't be fully public, and

CP : "Johnston's limited terms of reference do not include the $2.1-million libel settlement Mulroney negotiated with the Canadian government in 1997 while allegedly misrepresenting, under oath, his relationship with Schreiber.
And they would likely keep an inquiry from following the $10 million in "grease money" that German court records suggest was given to Schreiber by Airbus International to bribe Canadian officials in the 1980s."

Chronicle Herald : Also, it "should not examine the business dealings of Brian Mulroney’s friends who profited from an agreement the government signed to build an armoured car factory at Bear Head in Cape Breton."
- the one that was never built.

or the Muldoon's tax records.

Yesterday Con House Leader Peter Van Loan told the Commons - surprise! - the government intends to follow the valued advice of their hand-picked advisor, and Mulroney has graciously said in a statement that he would co-operate with the inquiry "within its mandate" recommended by Johnston.

So what the hell is left for the inquiry to do exactly?

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert : "The conclusions that he [Johnston] came to were very similar to the recommendations that we provided in our minority report, basically acknowledging that there was no wrongdoing, and that if there was going to be a public inquiry, it should be focused on the transition that high public office-holders make to private life."

That is not even fucking close.
What Canadians would like to know is why they paid Mulroney $2.1M in libel fees because he didn't care to talk about $10M in grease money or the $300,000 he has since admitted to personally receiving from Schreiber.
I think they'd also like to know that their government is not so irretrievably broken or crooked that it can't handle an open public inquiry.

Straight from the trojan horse's mouth

Over at the Fraser Institute, in "Saving the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership : The Case for a North American Standards and Regulatory Area" Alexander Moens seeks to dispel the many injustices so unfairly foisted upon the SPP.

First of all it is totally wrong to say the SPP is just about the interests of the 30 CEOs in the NACC :
"Some have called for a broadening of representation in the SPP talks to advocacy groups other than the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). However, it is better that groups such as labor and environmental lobbies work with both government and business to develop best practices, rather than adding even more players to the crowded SPP talks."

See? It's just too crowded already. There simply isn't room for even more players and .....hang on, what's this?

"Given the effectiveness of NACC, the business advisory process could be expanded to add specific sectoral groups working under NACC’s direction...
Privatizing some of the security and customs processes may be another venue to make these functions more cost effective and to accelerate cross-border standardization."

Okay but all that paranoia about erasing the Canada-US border? How do these crazy conspiracy theories get started any way?

"The most important of these reforms is a new or reinvented border.
Unlike many in the European Union, both Canada and the United States want to maintain sovereign borders. At the same time, the traditional "undefended border" is no longer an option. Several studies have pointed out that we need to overcome the traditional border (Canadian Council of Chief Executives, 2004; Goldfarb, 2007)"

Yeah, overcome traditional borders! Um, why?

"Security against modern threats requires a deeper level of cooperation than border controls. At this point, this deeper level can only be achieved between Canada and the United States (not Mexico)."

Concerned that the SPP was misunderstood, the Fraser Institute stepped forward to clarify things. This is what friends do for each other (not Mexico). Thanks, Fraser Institute!

Great moments in journalism

Headline : MacKay won't rule out boycott of Beijing Olympics

Lead : "The Conservative government has not ruled out a boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
The issue has yet to be raised at the federal cabinet table, and until that happens, no decisions can be made, MacKay said Monday outside the House of Commons."

Way, way down the page : "MacKay's director of communications, Dan Dugas, later said the issue would not be discussed at cabinet."


Also file under Great moments in Con accountability

Sunday - the day we typically set aside to discuss exorcisms in Ottawa

Ottawa Citizen : "Ottawa's Catholic archbishop has appointed at least two new exorcists, one each for the English and French communities, replacing the region's last exorcist who retired five years ago."

Five years ago! Holy shit! You must have quite the backlog to deal with then.

"-- in the past 15 years, Ottawa clergy say they have had only one case of demonic possession."

It wasn't by any chance the guy who retired five years ago, was it?
Ok, never mind, but tell us : who is most likely to become possessed by demons?

"In fact, ordinary sinning doesn't seem to interest demons much; they go for people reading horoscopes, playing around with New Age spiritualities, lonely, alienated kids getting into a Goth lifestyle, and especially anyone having a fun night with a Ouija board. Even that yoga class at the community centre might be suspect."

Yoga. Yeah, I can totally see that.
So what would be a typical symptom of possession then?

"esoteric information that the victim could not have otherwise known."

Oh noes ... bloggers!

SPP : Now with 100% more North America!

With the April 21 SPP leaders' summit looming on the still devastated New Orleans horizon, suddenly all the usual deep integration players are "North Americans" looking for the next new and improved incarnation of the SPP.

Why? Well because we ruined the last one.

Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun :

"Canada-U.S. efforts to resolve post-9/11 border problems plaguing North America's economy have fallen victim to conspiracy theories.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership, launched in 2005, is so misunderstood by the public and so discredited by opposition groups it should be relaunched and rebranded.
That's the view of Simon Fraser University political scientist Alexander Moens who has just completed a study of the SPP for the Fraser Institute. Moens asserts "the time has come to rebrand the talks and give them a clear mandate."

In a not very remarkable coincidence, this is also the view of the US right wing think tank Hudson Institute in their study, "Negotiating North America : The SPP" : who note that due to "xenophobes who fear fictitious superhighways" ... "it may ultimately be necessary to re-design and re-launch a new process to take up the work of the SPP under a new acronym."

Happily Moens has come up with one already :

"He's calling for the SPP to be replaced by NASRA, which stands for a North American Standards and Regulations Area. It "would include further economic integration beyond free trade but not political integration."

North American Standards and Regulation Area?

Good god man but that's a lame-ass name.

Would it have killed you to call it the N.A. Standards and Regulation Anschluss?

Moens attended the Network on North American Studies in Canada conference in Vancouver in March, where he chaired a presentation from a book project entitled The North American Experiment.

NNASC, according to their website, is "a new initiative between Canada and the U.S., in partnership with leading universities, government agencies, think tanks and civil society. It is a unique private sector-public sector partnership"

Another presentation at the same conference was "Managing Shared Resources Across North American Borders" chaired by Rick Van Schoik of Arizona State University who is also a director of The North American Center for Transborder Studies. In a recent essay "North America's Forgotten Agenda : Getting Development Back on Track", he lists among his key recommendations : "Implement a North American security perimeter".

Van Shoik will head ASU's participation in the Dept of Homeland Security's new $15M "Center of Excellence for Border Security and Immigration" :

"The establishment of the center by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security follows more than two years of work assembling a team of U.S. universities, Mexican and Canadian institutions government agencies, technology companies and national laboratories."

Did I mention this Vancouver conference was funded in part by Dept of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and that they also participated in Van Shoik's session?

On March 29 NNASC held a panel discussion "Bridging the North American Divide From Economic Integration to Community" in San Francisco, featuring Dan Schwanen from the Center for International Global Innovation. In his essay "North American Integration Post Bush", Schwanen admires the success of the Dec 2001 Smart Borders initiative and proposes a similar "Smart North American Economy" within a "North America that badly needs rethinking".

See what I mean? It's all North America all the time in the tanks.

And finally in Tuesday's Financial Post ,ubiquitous professional Canada slaggers Michael Hart and Bill Dymond from Carleton University quote from their C.D. Howe Institute paper in which they advise dropping the SPP in favour of a whole new agreement :

"What Canada needs is a trade policy that recognizes the increasing importance of global value chains and the critical role of Canada-U.S. integration in gaining full benefit from their exploitation...

The only cost that would arise is political : in Canadians' exaggerated preoccupation with ephemeral concepts of sovereignty and nationhood."

Fuck you, Michael "Canada blew it!" Hart, NAFTA and FTA negotiator, former official at the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Int. Trade, and sometime deep integration teacher at the North American University.
Too bad we had you defending our 'exaggerated preoccupation with ephemeral concepts like sovereignty and nationhood' when you were our voice at NAFTA.

But no worries, as Barbara Yaffe reassures us :

"Conspiracy theorists should recognize that the governments directing the SPP are separate entities, with politicians looking out for their own respective national interest.
No Canadian government interested in reelection is going to sell out to U.S. interests on border policy."

UPDATE : POGGE nails it!

Wanted : Device to Root Out Stupid

According to a few local residents, a public park at the foot of Bute St. in Vancouver is evidently no place for a Device to Root Out Evil.

Well, obviously. A device to root out overly sensitive meddlesome Jeebus thumpers should have been installed there first.

The decision to remove the 25' steel, aluminum, and Venetian glass sculpture after 2 1/2 years was approved unanimously by Vancouver Park Board commissioners.

Artist Dennis Oppenheim "has denied any anti-religious design to his sculpture.

"Pointing a steeple into the ground directs it to hell as opposed to heaven," he told one interviewer. "It's a very simple gesture."

The Park Board should have responded to the complaints with an even simpler one.

A month of non-confidence

Today's vote of non-confidence :
Mr. Layton (Toronto—Danforth) : April 02, 2008
"That, in the opinion of the House, the Conservative government's massive corporate tax cuts are destroying any balance between taxes for large profitable corporations and ordinary Canadians; they are stripping the fiscal capacity of the federal government; they are disproportionately benefiting the financial, oil and gas sectors, while leaving others behind, including manufacturing and forestry; and in so doing have failed to invest in those hard-hit sectors and the needs of everyday working Canadians; therefore, this House has lost confidence in the government."

Defeated 198-63, with only the NDP and Bloc Quebecois supporting it.

Liberals opposed the motion because they said it reflects an outdated, doctrinaire refusal to recognize that cutting corporate taxes helps make the country more competitive.
During the last election, Dion promised to match and exceed the Cons on cutting corporate taxes.

On March 10 the NDP tabled a non-confidence motion against the Cons for failing to respect international climate agreements and for its refusal to adopt legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Only 11 Liberals voted for it.

On March 4 the Con's Budget 2008, an automatic confidence vote, passed with 11 Liberals voting and the rest abstaining.

Not to be left out, on March 5 the Liberals tabled a motion of non-confidence of their own -- against the opposition parties - the NDP and the Bloc - presumably for not being sufficiently supportive of the Liberals' support of the Cons.

SPP and nukes in the tarsands : "a marriage made in heaven"

In 1957 the US Atomic Energy Commission was looking for peaceful uses for nuclear bombs. They began to explore the possibilities of using them in engineering projects and in '58 Project Ploughshares was announced to the world by Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. According to historian Dr. Michael Payne, "the cabinet of Alberta Premier Ernest Manning seriously considered allowing the underground detonation of a 9 kilotonne atomic bomb at Cheechum Crossing in northern Alberta in an experiment to determine if nuclear power might help remove oil from the oilsands."

They don't give up easy, do they?

On Friday the Alberta and US governments signed an agreement to jointly research the use of atomic power for oilsands development. The Alberta Research Council and the U.S. Energy Department’s main nuclear laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, announced they will collaborate on "the potential application of current and future nuclear energy technology".

But what I found illuminating was how differently the "partners" chose to announce it :

Mel Knight, Alberta’s Minister of Energy :
"Meeting our province’s electricity demands both now and in the future begins with reliable and clear information on all of the available energy options,” said Mel Knight, Alberta’s minister of energy. “We welcome collaborations such as the one announced between the Alberta Research Council and Idaho National Laboratories to provide the solid analysis and research on the options available to address Alberta’s unique needs."

So this is for Alberta's electricity demands, Alberta's "unique needs" then?
According to INL - not so much...

INL : "This is a marriage made in heaven," said Idaho laboratory associate director Bill Rogers.
Although no budget for the collaboration was announced, he said potentially all his operation’s 3,800 scientists can be drafted into the Alberta project. “The U.S. is dependent on Alberta for energy security,” Rogers said, pointing to the province’s "essential" role as the biggest source of increasing American oil and natural gas imports."

Not that we haven't had, you know, inklings :
Bruce Power buys assets of Energy Alberta Corp. in bid to build nuclear plant

Alberta doesn't yet have a written nuclear policy, according to Premier Stelmach .
I'm betting the US Energy Department can help them with that.