Thinking
the unthinkable about Canada’s future
Is it time to start using the “f”word?
In the eye-opening film Hoodwinked: The Myth of Free Trade,
former Liberal prime minister John Turner reflects on the
mid-’80s battle over the North American Free Trade
Agreement. After a famous heated exchange with Brian
Mulroney, Turner lost the battle for Canadian hearts and
minds on the divisive trade issue – and their votes in the
process.
Turner reflects on how, unlike most politicians, he had
read the actual NAFTA agreement. After discovering an
absence of binding agreements on such things as monopolies,
antidumping, and labour standards, he decided the document
had more to do with investment than “free trade.”
Cut to 20 years later. Iconic Canadian institutions like
Hudson’s Bay and the Laurentian Hotel chain have
disappeared into the deep pockets of foreign investors.
Provincially, it’s more of the same. Texas-based Kinder
Morgan owns BC’s gas delivery system. One third of the
operations and services of BC Hydro, our most profitable
public company, has been outsourced to Bermuda-based
Accenture. The BC Medical Services Plan and Pharmacare are
in the hands of American firms. The CEO of the privatized
BC Ferries hails from the US, where he presided as
vice-president of Covanta Energy, which filed for
bankruptcy protection in 2001.
Neo-conservative apologists in academia and media continue
to applaud the high levels of direct foreign investment,
federally and provincially, even though the bulk of it is
in takeovers and acquisitions. Foreign direct investment
has more than doubled in Canada since 1990. The Ontario
governments’ website boasts that “Canada puts no
restrictions on the repatriation of capital or profit by
foreign investors – one of the reasons the country attracts
a high level of foreign investment.”
In a speech this January in Utah, former US vice-president
Al Gore said “the election in Canada was partly about the
tar sands projects in Alberta… and the financial interests
behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and
support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win
the election... and to protect its interests.” (Under
Chapter 6 of NAFTA, Canada agreed to a “proportional
sharing” provision. A fixed proportion of our energy
supplies to the United States are guaranteed into the
future. Even in the event of a national crisis, Canada
cannot reduce the 65 percent of its oil and 61 percent of
its natural gas which it now exports to the US.)
The suspicion that our nation is being bought out from
underneath our feet, with complicit or ignorant silence of
big media, appears to have little evidence to contradict
it.
In fact, the disassembly of Canada is proceeding on several
fronts simultaneously: economic, political, cultural and
military. While South American nations are disengaging from
the “Washington Consensus,” (the IMF/World Bank
prescription for open markets described by critics as a
Trojan horse for keeping poorer nations in economic
servitude), Canada’s leaders are doing quite the opposite,
bringing us into tighter orbit with the US. A number of
informed commentators, among them former Progressive
Conservative candidate David Orchard, Connie Fogal of the
Canadian Action Party, Maude Barlow of the Council of
Canadians, and University of Ottawa economics professor
Michel Chossudovsky, the overall plan appears to be nothing
less than the elimination of Canada in all but name.
Citing publicly available documents, these critics foresee
the replacement of Canadian public and private institutions
with the cuckoo’s egg of a militarized, branch-plant
economy, with many of the traditional social welfare roles
of government either eliminated or outsourced to private
contractors. It’s a choleric vision of a future that’s two
parts Orwell and one part Huxley, with a shrunken middle
class toiling under the thumb of a borderless corporate
oligarchy, and monitored by unrestricted electronic
surveillance.
In her paper The Metamorphosis and Sabotage of Canada,
Connie Fogal writes “This union is planned, directed,
organized and coordinated by unelected, unaccountable
people of the military/industrial complex with a few
academic apologists thrown in for good measure. It is being
facilitated by all three elected governments. This is the
same military/industrial complex that General Eisenhower
warned against. This group is creating a despotic regime
for the pursuit of their interest (rapacious greed and
power) which is diametrically opposed to the needs and
interests of the citizens in all three countries. Their
plan is to make all of North America their power base
acting in their interest only.”
Fogal doesn’t mince words on the elites’ end game for
Canada. “It is the end of a nation. It is the end of
decisions by ourselves over ourselves. It is a reduction of
our standard of living: a decline of the middle class, an
increase in poverty, homelessness and destruction of our
social safety net. It is the militarization of the country.
It is the creation of a police state.”
Extremist rhetoric from a fringe commentator? Whatever the
overall nature of the game, it’s undeniable that over the
past two decades, an alphabet soup of organizations and
agreements have smoothed the path for Canada’s absorption
into a single North American bloc, with public policy
largely dictated by nonelected officials.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is the nation’s
premier business association, composed of the top
executives of 150 leading Canadian firms. Formed in 1976,
the CCCE promulgated the development of the Canada-United
States Free Trade Agreement, and of the subsequent North
American Free Trade Agreement. Concerned that fortress
America might retreat within its own borders after 9/11,
disrupting Canada-US trade, the organization successfully
pressured Ottawa to bring Canadian military and security
policies in line with those of the US. A “common security
perimeter” serves interests that are not just economic. The
CCCE’s petitioning had the enthusiastic endorsement of the
military lobby.
According to Michael Chossudovsky, another piece of
bureaucratic DNA for Canada’s militaristic mutation came
with the formation of the Bi-National Planning Group.
Accountable neither to the US Congress nor the Canadian
Parliament, the BPG’s role transcended electoral
governance, and as the name suggests, the BPG had members
in both countries. The organization’s role was to negotiate
Canada’s entry into the US Northern Command (Northcom). Its
work now largely completed, BPG expired this spring and
Canada is now positioned to sign on with Northcom.
Michel Chossusdovsky writes that “Canada’s participation in
the Bilateral Planning Group and hence the Northern Command
implies Canada’s acceptance not only of Star Wars, but of
the entire US war agenda, requiring significant hikes in
Canada’s defence spending. The latter are intended to fuel
the military-industrial complex. Canada’s defence
contractors are supportive of this process.”
One should not think of this as a partisan issue, or a
phenomenon brought into being solely by the famously
American-friendly Harper government. The federal Liberals
have danced to this tune for some time, and the
cross-border tango of mutual interests remains the same,
even if the political venues have changed. It’s true that
Prime Minister Chretien offered resistance to the more
extreme aspects of this wheeling and dealing, as did Paul
Martin (ie refusing to join in Star Wars and the war in
Iraq), but it also appears the leaders’ public antiwar
stance proved incompatible with the overall pursuit of
economic and military ties with the US.
The Independent Task Force for North America, organized by
the business elites of the US, Mexico and Canada, was lead
by Canada’s own former Liberal deputy prime minister, John
Manley. Last spring, Manley’s task force released its
Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security
Community by 2010. A united continental bloc will share a
common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law
enforcement and security.
Also in March of 2005, Prime Minister Martin, President
Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox signed the Security
and Prosperity Partnership agreement, which is the general
agreement on “deep integration’ between the US, Canada and
Mexico. According to Fogal, the leaders then assigned three
cabinet ministers in their respective countries to
implement the deal, among them David Emerson, then Liberal
minister of industry.
Emerson’s bureaucratic role in the US-Canada relationship
may explain his high value to the Harper government, if
indeed his role transcends any partisan considerations. His
primary role may be not so much governmental as
extra-governmental. This offers an explanation for
Emerson’s change of allegiance from Liberal to Conservative
within hours of the federal election. Hence his shock at
the post-election outcry from his nominal constituents, who
had the audacity to believe that voting means something.
The meeting of the “Three Amigos” in Cancun last March
(Bush, Fox, and Harper in his Empire-friendly military
jacket) was simply more of the same. The media focused on
the photo ops, while politely failing to mention the
particulars of the meeting. The silence was in large part
due to the fact that deep integration is proceeding with
the ignorance of most elected representatives. According to
Jerome R. Corsi in a report in WorldNetDaily.com, working
groups in all three nations are busy turning the Security
and Prosperity Partnership agreement into reality.
Determining the names of the officials involved in the
working groups has proved to be difficult.
So is this all just a conspiracy theory, a paranoid
extrapolation from the US/Canada “business-as-usual? Corsi
refers to a task report by The Council on Foreign Relations
which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP agreement
into a North American Union that would merge the US, Canada
and Mexico into a superstate/trading bloc. “The CFR task
force report called for establishment of a common security
border perimeter around North America by 2010, along with
free movement of people, commerce and capital within North
America, facilitated by the development of a North American
border pass that would replace a US passport for travel
between the US, Canada and Mexico.”
“Also envisioned by the CFR task force report were a North
American court, a North American inter-parliamentary group,
a North American executive commission, a North American
military defense command, a North American customs office
and a North American development bank.”
Sceptics may ask, so what’s is the big deal? Canada has to
be “competitive” in the New World Order, and if lumbering
dinosaurs like The Hudson’s Bay Co. can’t compete with
neighborhood-nuking behemoths like Wal-Mart, you can’t stop
globalization, right? And if we join the US missile defence
shield and sign on to Northcom, don’t we stand to benefit
from shared security? Again, we are being offered the
polarities of economic stagnation versus global
competitiveness, and civil rights versus police state
safety – even though these represent false choices
manufactured for us. Once we join Northcom, according to
University of Ottawa economics professor Michel
Chossudovsky, Canada’s “borders will be controlled by US
officials and confidential information on Canadians will be
shared with Homeland Security.” The bi-national
arrangements will allow US troops and special forces to
enter Canada, he says. “ Canadian citizens can be arrested
by US officials, acting on behalf of their Canadian
counterparts, and vice versa.”
In this respect, the difference between the federal
Liberals and Conservatives on these matters is one of
degree rather than kind, although Chretien’s principled
stand on Iraq looked better than the knees-to-the-floor
submissiveness of our current crop of Quislings. Ottawa’s
new regime has an enthusiasm for US domestic/foreign policy
that is startling in its transparency. Harper has abanoned
Kyoto, spoken of Canada’s “activist judges,” resumed the
attack on gay marriage, barred reporters from photographing
caskets returning from Afghanistan, and picked up the habit
of ending speeches with a Republican-like “God bless
Canada.” At this stage in the game, the Tories appear to
have little concern about making their intentions plain.
Their apparent sense of immunity from the press and the
people is in itself alarming.
Michael Chossudovsky asks if annexation of Canada is part
of Bush’s military agenda. If anything, it is annexation by
committee. The absorption of Canada into a North American
superstate is happening incrementally, although it has sped
up considerably in the past few years. There is no need for
Bradley fighting vehicles to roll across the border. With
the thorough integration of the Canadian and US economies
through NAFTA, and a common military command and control
structure, Canadian sovereignty will cease to exist by
definition.
Only political players like Fogal and David Orchard are
discussing abandoning NAFTA, allowed in the agreement
itself by either nation with six month’s notice. So why
have none of the major parties touched on the issue of deep
integration during the election campaign, or afterwards in
the House of Commons? Even the NDP has taken a strangely
see-no-evil, speak-no-evil stance. The silence not only
hightlights the high-level secrecy surrounding deep
integration, It also speaks volumes of our traditional
political parties and the sorry state of our big media.
There is very little debate in print, policy circles and in
Parliament over the common security perimeter, or the
mooted North American border pass with biometric
identifiers. A single economic space, at last freed of all
environmental and labour constraints, seems to have all the
appearances of a done deal.
Yet the most worrying aspect of the regime change in Canada
involves a threat to those much-vaunted “freedoms” that
others supposedly hate us for.
In June, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day revealed that
last year law enforcement agencies allowed their “helpers”
to commit a broad spectrum of crimes. According to
Vancouver Sun reporter Ian Mulgrew, these included “gun
offences, passport forgery, counterfeiting, possession of
stolen property, and theft over $5,000.” Mulgrew notes that
“after 9/11, Canadian law enforcement agencies were given
carte blanche to break the law if necessary… as it stands
now, police, park wardens, fisheries officers, custom
officials, jail guards and their agents are immune from
prosecution for virtually anything short of obstructing
justice, non-consensual sex or violence.” And abuses of
power aren’t likely to go reported, due to the all-purpose
rationale of “security.” Incredibly, the February 2002
immunity law is still on the books. With the recent arrests
of alleged terrorists in Toronto, there will undoubtedly be
greater enthusiasm to enlarge police powers at the
municipal and provincial levels.
If you still doubt the depth of Canada’s transformation,
consider how quickly our role in Afghanistan went from
“peacekeeping” to an open-ended, indefinite war in Central
Asia against the “destable murderers and scumbags”
described by General Rick Hillier. The General told The
Globe and Mail “this is a 10 year mission – minimum.” Yet
one ever asked the electorate if the expansion of our
military role overseas was desirable or even sensible. In
the House of Commons, MPs were allowed only one
“note-taking” debate on the matter, with no opportunity to
vote. This is not the behaviour of representative
democracy, but rather of a totalitarian-lite proxy state.
Manipulating people by fear and uncertainty is a
time-tested way to get democratic citizens to deconstruct
their own civil institutions, and quietly assume the roles
of prisoners and prison guards. Is it time to start using
the “f” word for both Canada and the US? As we look into
the political abyss, are we seeing the darkening signs of
fascism?
Geoff Olson
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