Seems like big government colluding with transnational corprations is all the integrationists care about. "In this new world, our North America partnership is critical."
Canada, Mexico, U.S. release blueprint for tight economic and security ties
Anne McLellan delivers a statement on security and prosperity partnership of North America, in Ottawa, Monday. (CP/Fred Chartrand)
BRUCE CHEADLE
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada, the United States and Mexico are committing to much broader and deeper economic and security integration to eliminate what Industry Minister David Emerson calls the "tyranny of small differences."
The sheer scope of the plan, released Monday by senior ministers from the three trading partners, defies easy description.
The proposals range from the mundane to the highly controversial: finding common specifications for dangerous goods containers, for example; and developing common biometric travel documents and visa requirements.
There's a commitment to pursuing a North American steel industry strategy, continental compatibility in automobile standards and removing requirements for "rules of origin" on $30 billion of trade goods.
Standardized food-safety regulations, pesticide-residue rules and veterinary drugs are in the mix, as is a flu pandemic plan.
There's to be more sharing of information among law enforcement agencies, and a joint emergency response exercise "to be conducted in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler," says the 90-page document.
"With today's announcement, we are setting out over 300 specific, concrete milestones in our work plans," Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said at a news conference packed with business leaders and officials.
The package was later attacked by critics who called it undemocratic, skewed toward big business and a threat to Canada's sovereignty.
"Allowing corporate North America to define our interests as a nation implies, in the end, complete regulatory harmonization with the U.S. and the subordination of our economic, social, cultural and environmental policies to U.S. policies," said NDP MP Peter Julian.
McLellan reacted with disdain.
"I don't buy into ill-informed, alarmist rhetoric," she said later. "What we're talking about is a partnership."
The report marks the three-month followup on a meeting between Prime Minister Paul Martin, President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox in Waco, Texas in March. The summit produced what the leaders called the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
"There's been a lot of work done and we are just getting started," Carlos Gutierrez, the U.S. secretary of commerce, said Monday.
"No market economy can thrive without safety and security for its people. The threats we face require seamless co-operation that extends beyond borders."
Emerson said global supply chains are being reconfigured by the emergence of China and India as economic giants.
"In this new world, our North America partnership is critical."
The goal, said Emerson, is to "eliminate duplicative testing and the tyranny of small differences. But we remain unalterably committed to high standards of health and safety for our citizens."
Business leaders who attended the event enthusiastically endorsed the initiative, with the only quibble being that governments may be moving too slowly.
"It's still at the 20,000-foot level and we're going to want to see details on it," Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said of the policy blueprint.
North America has to compete for investment and jobs with the world's emerging economies, said Tom d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, but can't do it by lowering wages here.
"There's only one way to close that gap and that is through greater efficiencies," said d'Aquino.
The fact that the foreign affairs, security and commerce sectors of government are "all now talking the same language . . . is sweet music to our ears."
But others found the blueprint alarming.
Economist Andrew Jackson of the Canadian Labour Congress said he's been following the partnership initiative for months and has seen "no opportunity where public-interest groups can engage with it at all."
Most of the proposed changes are regulatory, not legislative, meaning Parliament won't necessarily get a chance to debate them.
"If we're talking about harmonized product-safety standards, for instance, is this just going to be industry plus officials?" said Jackson.
"Does anybody representing the public interest get anywhere near the process?"
http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/050627/n0627121A.html
I don't think I'll trust anything that would be "sweet music" to any globalists' ears.
"I don't buy into ill-informed, alarmist rhetoric," she said later. "What we're talking about is a partnership."
Like the sculptor of Ozymandias , the writer of this piece well those passions read.
(Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read.)