|
SPP is
built around secrecy and US military command - law expert
Harper Index | August 21, 2007
By David Edwards
and Muriel Kane
The agreement's
title is classic framing: "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP)
conjures up comfortable images. Michael Byers says the agreement
under discussion this week by Canadian, US and Mexican leaders
Harper, Bush and Calderon should more properly be framed as a secret
agreement to give sweeping military, immigration and border control
of all three countries over to the US. On Sunday, Byers, the Canada
Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the
University of British Columbia told a standing-room-only forum in
Ottawa about the politics and persuasion connected with the
agreement under discussion behind the barricades this week at
Montebello, Quebec.
I want to begin by welcoming the civil servants who been sent to
keep track of what's going on here. Like you, we love our country,
unlike the people who are gathering in Montebello this week, we have
nothing to hide.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership did not begin as a
phenomenon after September 11, 2001. It was part of a trend that
predates that time. But the proponents of North American integration
seized upon 9/11 as an opportunity to advance their cause. And some
of those proponents in Canada were very overt about their
aspirations in the weeks and months after the terrorist atrocities
in New York City and Washington, DC.
David O'Brien, the
CEO of Canadian Pacific and now Chairman of the Board of Royal Bank
of Canada argued Canada would have to adopt US-style immigration
policies to keep the border open. He said that we have to make North
Americans secure from the outside. 'We're going to lose increasingly
our sovereignty but it's necessarily so.' Mr. O'Brien is an
influential man. Within months, the Canadian government had signed
the Safe Third Country agreement with the United States whereby
Canadian refugee policy was essentially assimilated into the refugee
policy of the United States. The rights of human beings to asylum
when they're being persecuted for their religious or political
opinions or ethnic identities is one of the most fundamental rights
of all.
Then there was Nancy Hughes Anthony, the President of the Canadian
Chambers of Commerce who said that we're not going to get anywhere
with our American friends unless we can show we have good strong
anti- terrorist legislation and we intend to enforce it. The result
was the 2001 Anti- terrorism Act, which, of course was modelled on
the [US] Patriot Act.
And then there was Patrick E. Daniels, the President of Enbridge,
the big energy company based in Calgary, who complained that Canada
pushed its sovereignty 'a little too far.' He said it would be
realistic for Canada to either get onside with US foreign policy or
'accept some change in our relationship.'
I was asked to speak about one aspect of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership, namely security, or more specifically, the military. In
the immediate aftermath of September 2001, plans were devised within
the American and Canadian governments to put the entire Canadian
Forces under the umbrella of the US Northern Command. To put all our
soldiers, sailors and pilots and all their equipment under the
operational control of the United States, in a much- expanded
version of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).
Fortunately some sunshine was let in upon that thinking before it
could be taken too far. Some serious credit needs to be given here
to a former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who took
advantage of being out of Cabinet to let the rest of us know what
his former colleagues were up to.
So those who wanted to pursue the efforts of further integration of
the Canadian and US military decided to take their efforts
underground in arrangements that bear striking similarity to the SPP.
And the SPP is part of a larger process. The Bi-National Planning
Group was the military sister or brother of the SPP. Essentially it
was a transborder committee of unelected bureaucrats, military
officers and consultants who were given task of studying and then
reporting on the options for improving the efficacy of the North
American defensive system. The goal was simply to allow us to
respond faster and better to the various kinds of threats that might
arise.
The military officers worked away quietly in Colorado Springs,
Colorado, headquarters of NORAD, as well as the US space command....
Canadian military leaders quite liked playing with the big boys and
using the best military equipment in the world...
The proponents of closer military integration could not believe
their luck when Stephen Harper was elected. And very shortly after
Mr. Harper came to power, they released their final report... which
sets out four different options for the closer integration of the
Canadian and US military. Most of the report is concerned with
public relations, noting that Canadians are particularly attached to
sovereignty.
Imagine how you might actually explain that closer military
cooperation enhances sovereignty because giving up sovereignty is an
exercise in sovereignty! You actually affirm your sovereignty by
giving some of it away..
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was full
integration, the option that had been floated internally in 2002,
the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like an expanded
NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control would
ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last year,
the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance
including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed at
the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New
Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website of
the Bi- National Planning Group, some smart people, including
possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not yet
ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make the public
case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces because Mr.
Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately desired. And so it
was shuffled away once again, it disappeared off the website, and
the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down, and who knows what
they're talking about in Montebello.
But something did happen, and I'm talking about Afghanistan.... We
are seeing the implementation in theatre of precisely the kind of
planning that was going into the Bi-National Planning Group. We are
seeing the Canadian Forces being given more and more equipment.
We're even buying new tanks. We're seeing the integration of
attitudes and rules of engagement with respect to issues like the
treatment of detainees. Why did we not adopt the Western European
approach to detainee transfer rights, following models that were
provided to us by the British, the Dutch and the Danish? Because
Washington wanted to do it another way. And why should we volunteer
for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, a forward-leaning,
war- fighting search and kill mission supported by US airstrikes and
working in tandem with a US-led and -commanded mission that is not
part of the NATO command?
Why have 67 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan? Why did Private
Simon Longtin die today? The simple explanation, and it's only a
partial explanation, is that there are people who want to transform
the Canadian Forces into a miniature version of the US Marine Corps
and want Canada to only choose missions that involve fighting
shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States; that want us to acquire
equipment that integrates seamlessly with the US military, including
in the relatively near future new F35 fighters. The same people who
will tell you that peace-keeping is dead, that we really don't need
new search-and-rescue aircraft in the second largest country on
Earth, and who will tell you that those who stand up for the rights
of detainees are expressing disrespect and a lack of support for the
brave young Canadian men and women who serve this country in
whatever mission they're given because they love this country just
as much as you and I.
The integration of the Canadian and US military is not officially
part of the SPP, but the SPP and the integration of the Canadian and
US military are part of a larger project, and we need to address
that larger project, and understand that what we're up against here
does not involve the existence of an independent Canada. But as we
saw with the Bi-National Planning Group, a little bit of sunshine
can chase these plans away. When I look at this room I see a whole
lot of sunshine.
Related individuals, organizations and significant events
Deep integration - TILMA and SPP to bring in
rules to let corporations challenge our laws
Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
Security / Secrecy, American control
Sovereignty / American control, smokescreen
Links and sources
Bi-National Planning Group
Continental Integration of Military Command
Structures: A Threat to Canada's Sovereignty, by Michel Chossudovsky
|
