The challenge of a United North America

Hockey may be Canada's national sport but now that we're all North Americans, local ties, it seems, are the casualty of international competitiveness. It's happening again with Canada's mining giants Inco and Falconbridge.

If North American integration confuses loyalties, it also rallies those on the further reaches of the ideological spectrum. When the Canadian prime minister recently visited the U.S. president, Linda McQuaig coyly suggested in her Toronto Star column that the question isn't how well these two conservative soul mates get along, but "What are they up to?"

In the U.S., arch-conservative Jerome R. Corsi, in his Human Events Online column, has no doubts. "President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada," he huffed on May 19. The blueprint, he continued, "was laid out in a May 2005 report entitled 'Building a North American Community,' published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations." And the modus operandi for this blueprint with a target enactment date of 2010? None other than The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States at Waco, Texas in March 2005.

The issues are similar, with at least a few overlapping players. For instance, through the offices of the independent U.S. think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales, elite business, policy and scholarly interests are today's prime movers. Their task force, whose Canadian chair is former finance minister John Manley, produced the report entitled "Building a North American Community."

Published shortly after the announcement of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, its central premise is "the establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products and capital will be legal, orderly and safe ..."

Make no mistake, though, about the real genesis of the movement toward greater North American integration, where crisis matters more than lobbyists or think tanks.

In 1994, it was the Mexican peso crisis that revealed the first of many institutional failings of NAFTA and spurred American political scientist Robert A. Pastor, now a member of the CFR task force, to write Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New.

Then Sept. 11, 2001, pushed governments into action. Trinational summits at Waco and Cancun tell the rest of the story.

To be sure, the CFR task force is a step ahead of governments and its influence is undeniably strong. And in a paper whose dominant themes are harmonization, mobility and oversight, the implications for Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are undeniably huge. Its recommendation to establish a permanent dispute-resolutions tribunal, for instance, could have a profound effect on the protracted agony of softwood lumber disputes (including the current deal) and a snowballing inventory of litigation launched under NAFTA's Chapters 11 and 19.

McQuaig and Corsi are right. This paper should be widely read, and not just because of trade issues. As the continental project trundles forward, must our loyalties remain at sea?

National sovereignty concerns may be addressed with precise legal language and government-to-government structures with clear lines of accountability, but issues about Canadian unity are less easily addressed. Stronger north-south ties may further weaken tenuous east-west ties, but as the Mumbai and Mideast bombings forcefully teach, security is a powerful incentive to strengthen all ties.

If institutional integrity is the key to successful co-operation in North America, Canada's institutions can be no less sturdy. Only then will our champions have the grounding necessary to flourish and make their mark, singly or as part of the larger team, in an increasingly troubled world.

"I guess their idea is to try to sucker their "friends" to the south into believing that North America should all be one United country with of course....each country having equal say on everything."

The Canadians and US citizens are being suckered by Mexico. BIGGGGGTIME.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.3622.IS:

June 29, 2006
Mr. CORNYN (for himself and Mr. COLEMAN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

A BILL
To authorize the President to negotiate the creation of a North American Investment Fund between the Governments of Canada, of Mexico, and of the United States to increase the economic competitiveness of North America in a global economy.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `North American Investment Fund Act'.

SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INVESTMENT FUND.

The President is authorized to negotiate with the Government of Canada and the Government of Mexico to establish a North American Investment Fund (referred to in this Act as the `Fund') by--

(1) agreeing to certain amendments to the November 1993 Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Mexican States Concerning the Establishment of a Border Environment Cooperation Commission and a North American Development Bank; or

(2) negotiating an agreement with the Government of Canada and the Government of Mexico to establish and administer the Fund.

SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

The purposes of the Fund shall be--

(1) to increase the economic competitiveness of North America in a global economy;

(2) to reduce the income gap between Mexico and Canada, and between Mexico and the United States; and

(3) to promote economic development in Mexico in the areas of infrastructure, education, technology, and job training.

SEC. 4. PROJECTS FUNDED.

(a) In General- Grants shall be awarded from the Fund for projects to carry out the purposes described in section 3, including projects--

(1) to construct roads in Mexico to facilitate trade between Mexico and Canada, and Mexico and the United States;

(2) to encourage the development and improve the quality of primary, secondary, and post-secondary education throughout Mexico;

(3) to expand the deployment of communications and broadband infrastructure throughout Mexico, with emphasis on rural and underserved areas; and

(4) to expand job training and workforce development for high-growth industries in Mexico.

(b) Project Selection-

(1) IN GENERAL- The agreement described in section 2 shall include guidelines for determining which projects will receive financial assistance from the Fund.

(2) PRIORITY- In selecting grantees to carry out projects described in subsection (a)(1), priority should be given to projects in the interior and southern regions of Mexico that connect to more developed markets in the United States and Canada."

The American people don't give a sh!t about their kids or grandkids. Mexico comes First. Sarcasm

Free trade is not free. This is rediculous.

on a related note,

David Hendricks: The reinvigorated NADBank can do great things for the border

Web Posted: 06/24/2006 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

Amid all the new flexibility given the North American Development Bank on Wednesday by its newly constituted board of directors, the bank staff gained something more important: better lines of communication with the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Wednesday's meeting not only broke a logjam of loans — a dozen totaling $137 million were approved — but a commitment emerged to keep NADBank financial assistance flowing.

As the board met for the first time since 2003, new Chairman Kenneth Peel, a U.S. Treasury deputy assistant secretary, said the board now plans to meet twice a year. It also set up a way to approve project financing and policy changes between meetings by electronic vote.

Procedures finally are in place to keep the NADBank staff in San Antonio in touch with its directors, who work mostly in Washington and Mexico City. More important, the procedures will keep directors thinking about the border and its desperate needs for water, sewage facilities, landfills, road-paving and other projects.

These utilities and services are the building blocks for economic development, and the fast-growing border zone deserves more attention than it has received.

The sense of NADBank's rebirth filled the City Council chambers, which was packed with local and state officials from both sides of the border, all anticipating a liberated and empowered NADBank.

English and Spanish testimony from mayors, city managers, state water commissioners, utility executives and river authority executive directors educated the directors on the hard-to-imagine scope of projects the border region needs.

The Nueces River Authority will be applying, for example, for a loan to build a landfill transfer station so garbage generated around Garner State Park won't have to be trucked to San Antonio landfills.

The El Paso Water Utility wants to engage NADBank as a partner for its master plan of water development projects along that section of the border.

On and on the testimony went, revealing the pent-up demand from the growing border communities. It all demonstrated what a huge mistake the U.S. and Mexican treasury departments would have made if they had fulfilled their recent ambition to disband the bank.

New policies approved Wednesday include:

A better-funded, permanent landfill grant program to replace the pilot program NADBank had started. Landfill projects will be extended to 163 miles south of the border to include many small communities without landfills, dramatically improving the environment.

Setting aside as much as $50 million in grants for NADBank to insert in loans for water, sewage and other projects, greatly reducing the debt communities must repay for better utilities. The lower debt means utility bills will become more affordable for border residents.

This is a model that worldwide development banks need to follow. Many banks think of loans and grants separately. Those tools often fail by themselves, but combining them can help communities establish credit for future investments.

Loans of up to 85 percent of project costs, 100 percent for projects costing less than $1 million. That is an increase from a 50 percent limit.

Synchronization of project financing between NADBank and the Border Environment Cooperation Commission, which certifies projects for NADBank assistance. Before, NADBank sometimes had to put together financing before the project design was finished and had to start again if the cost ended up different.

"The main thing NADBank needs to do is stick to its knitting," Peel stressed, and to show more results for border residents.

NADBank always had the yarn, in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars in capital from the U.S. and Mexican governments. Now it has the needles, hooks, row counters, combs, stitch holders and other tools it needs to make something happen.

The border will be dressed better than ever in the coming years.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/columnists/dhendricks/stories/MYSA062406.1D.hendricks.19bfa9.html

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