The SPP Meeting in August — and Preparations to oppose it

The SPP Meeting in August — and Preparations to oppose it

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July 20, 2007
 

On August 19 to 21, at Château Montebello in Québec, the third meeting of the leaders of America, Canada and Mexico – will take place to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) or ‘NAFTA with guns’ — which ultimately seeks to increase the economic and military harmonization of these three States.

As noted by Fredericton Peace the talks are closed to the public. Yet, the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) made up of 30 CEOs from large corporations [like GE, Ford, GM, Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, Merck and Chevron] have exclusive influence on this “free-trade plus security” agreement. (more info below)

Preparations have recently began to respond in opposition to this meeting and the SPP. From Integrate This!:

SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 1:00 p.m. — RALLY IN OTTAWA
The Council of Canadians will be participating in a family-friendly rally, sponsored by the Outaouais-Ottawa Stop the SPP Committee. More details to follow. Visit www.nowar-paix.ca/stopspp/ for more info.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 7:00 p.m. — PUBLIC FORUM
The Council of Canadians is working with a other labour and social justice groups to organize a public forum near Montebello. This event will feature Canadian, U.S. and Mexican speakers, focusing on how the SPP affects energy security, water, the environment, security policy, and other key issues. More details to come. (NOTE: On July 11, the Council of Candians was informed that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for [the] public forum see here)

MONDAY, AUGUST 20 — NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION
The Council of Canadians will be organizing a National Day of Action Against the SPP on August 20. This will allow people across Canada to “plug in” to the resistance at the Montebello summit. Council of Canadians’ chapters will be organizing public forums and community picnics, lobbying of Members of Parliament, distributing handbills, and speaking to the media. Click here to see information about events across the country as details develop.

MONDAY, AUGUST 20 — PROTEST IN MONTEBELLO
The Council of Canadians will be joining with other groups from across Ontario and Quebec to protest at the summit site in Montebello. More details to come. See Google Map) also see here

Additionally, a protest camp is also being set up which will begin as early as August 8 and last until the 20th. See uncampement.net for updates and more information.

Background, from Countercurrents.org – SPP was formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 meeting in Waco, Texas attended by George Bush, Mexico’s President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It’s a tri-national agreement hatched below the radar in Washington containing the recommendations of the Independent Task Force of North America. That’s a group organized by the powerful US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), and Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. It advocates greater US, Canadian and Mexican economic, political, social, and security integration with secretive working groups formed to devise non-debatable agreements that, when completed, will be binding beyond the power of legislatures to change. It’s also taking shape without public knowledge or consideration.

From what’s already known, SPP unmasked isn’t pretty. It’s a corporate-led coup d’etat against the sovereignty of three nations enforced by a common hard line security strategy already in play separately in each country. It’s a scheme to create a borderless North American Union under US control without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly US ones. It’s also to insure America gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, and in the case of Canada water as well. It’s to assure US energy security as a top priority while denying Canada and Mexico preferential access to their own resources henceforth earmarked for US markets.

It’s also to create a fortress-North American security zone encompassing the whole continent under US control in the name of “national (and continental) security” with US borders effectively extended to the far reaches of the continent. The scheme, in short, is NAFTA on steroids combined with Pox Americana homeland security enforcement. It’s the worst of all possible worlds headed for an unmasked police state, and it’s the Bush administration’s notion of “deep integration” or the “Big Idea” meaning we’re boss, what we say goes, no outliers will be tolerated, public interest is off the table, and the people of three nations be damned.

It’s also the next step in what GHW Bush had in mind when he delivered his “Toward a New World Order” speech to a joint session of Congress on another September 11 in 1990. At the onset of the “crisis in the Persian Gulf,” he said “We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment (offering) a rare opportunity to move toward….a new world order” free from “the threat of terror….and more secure….” He spoke of a “new world….struggling to be born….quite different from the one we’ve known.” He masked his intentions in language of peace and the pursuit of justice while preparing for war on Iraq and the region that’s gone on for over 16 years with no end in sight. A new Bush administration is bringing that “New World Order” to the North American continent. Unless it can be stopped, the streets of Boston, Baltimore and Buffalo may one day look like occupied Baghdad or Bogota when drug barons clash and Colombia’s US-financed military and paramilitaries step in. (source)

Deep Integration


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