This forum is for non aviation related topics, political debate, random thoughts, and everything else that just doesn't seem to fit in the normal forums. ALL FORUM RULES STILL APPLY.
Hmmmm... Any conspiracy theorists care to comment?
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing.
This trilateral initiative is premised on our security and our economic prosperity being mutually reinforcing. The SPP recognizes that our three great nations are bound by a shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions.
The SPP provides the framework to ensure that North America is the safest and best place to live and do business. It includes ambitious security and prosperity programs to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade.
The SPP builds upon, but is separate from, our long-standing trade and economic relationships. It energizes other aspects of our cooperative relations, such as the protection of our environment, our food supply, and our public health.
Looking forward, President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and President Fox have identified emergency management; influenza pandemics, including avian influenza; energy security; and safe and secure gateways (border security and facilitation) as key priorities for the SPP. The Leaders also announced the creation of North American Competitiveness Council to fully incorporate the private sector into the SPP process.
Critics slag meeting of top North American ministers as too secretive
22 Feb, 6:45 PM
OTTAWA (CP) - It's not often governments have to put out a press release reassuring their citizens they're not selling out their sovereignty.
But a high-level meeting scheduled for Friday of some of North America's top politicians - including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay - suddenly has officials vowing that no rights are being secretly negotiated away.
The meetings in Ottawa are part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership or SPP, a strategy drawn up by Canada, Mexico and the United States two years ago to improve the continent's collective competitiveness and public safety.
Their mostly regulatory activities have gone on largely unnoticed, with eye-glazing proposals on items like navigational accuracy and duty-free liberalization.
But over the past several months, more and more groups have been asking questions about bigger issues - such as moves to integrate the North American energy market or develop common food safety standards - complaining that there is no public input into the meetings, nor any clearance from legislators on actions taken.
Dark allegations of an attempt to model North America after the European Union circulate on the Internet and even among politicians in both Canada and the U.S.
"We're looking at potentially 300 different areas where Canada is accepting lower American standards," New Democrat MP Peter Julian said Thursday. "If we're talking about fundamental changes to the various policies we've adopted as a country, then the public absolutely has to have that debate."
Comments like those have spurred a counter-offensive by government officials.
"The SPP is legal and in no way violates the Constitution or affects the legal authorities of the participating executive agencies," reads the U.S. website.
And the Canadian take: "The SPP outlines an agenda for co-operation among the three countries, while respecting each country's sovereignty, culture and laws."
MacKay addressed the concerns earlier this week.
"It's ensuring that Canada's sovereignty, Canada's interests and Canada's prosperity and security are going to be advanced through this partnership and through these very open and high-level dialogues," MacKay said.
Still, the Canadian government provided no official briefing on what was expected from the meetings, which include MacKay, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and their Mexican and American counterparts.
Reporters were offered some of the broader strokes by U.S. officials.
"We're working on a trilateral initiative on energy, working on a co-ordinated North American response to avian and pandemic influenza, working on co-operation on emergency management, and looking for ways to improve security while facilitating movement across borders," Tom Shannon, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Thursday.
MacKay will meet with Rice in a one-on-one meeting, and is expected to again raise the issue of Maher Arar. Arar was deported to Syria, where he was later tortured, by U.S. officials. Although his name has been cleared in Canada through a public inquiry, he remains on a watch list in the United States.
MacKay is also expected to raise the cases of Canadians who have been killed in Mexico with his Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa.
The North American Competitiveness Council, a group of top business leaders, will deliver 50 recommendations to the SPP ministers Friday.
An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the NACC will deal with three areas: border crossing facilitation, regulatory co-operation and energy supply and distribution.
Perhaps the most controversial recommendations will deal with energy supply and distribution, including better co-ordination of electricity grids and pipelines.
The report will address issues such as the shortage of skilled labour, co-ordination of energy efficiency standards and conservation, he said. There is apparently no reference to climate change.
But groups have raised the question about the lack of participation of other groups in the discussion, such as labour organizations or human rights advocates.
Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, said the NACC should be shut down until there has been a debate about whether Canadians want deeper continental integration.
"The problem is that from the beginning this has been a process driven by one sector of Canadian society and that is big business on all sides of the border in all three countries," Barlow said.
"Nobody I know objects to having discussions about what kind of North America we want. Unfortunately, not one of us has been asked to participate."
Does that mean i will not need my passport when going south in 2009 ???
Or will the chip implants and biometrics discussed replace that silly easily copied document .
I cannot agree with you more, communism is not dead, it is alive and well and that is what all this unification is truly about. The NAU plan is the thin edge of the wedge, it's a greased slope downward once it comes into place. For all the einsteins out there who know that this is just another tinfoil hat conspiracy - thrown out there by all us people with thousands of spare hours to waste hashing over this tripe - for no purpose whatsoever, I truly hope your right.
