Canadians call for vote on SPP
Activists demand national referendum on ‘continental divide’
Posted: October 15, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Canadian activists are demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper fulfill a promise and submit the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America to a national referendum for an up or down vote.
“The Prime Minister of Canada and his cabinet in both Liberal and Conservative regimes support the unification of North America as witnessed by the fact of [former Prime Minister] Paul Martin and [current Prime Minister] Stephen Harper being signatories to the SPP process,” said Connie Fogal, leader of the Canadian Action Party.
Fogal rejects the idea that the vote on SPP should be taken solely in the Canadian Parliament.
“A decision about the restructuring of Canada into an integrated North America is not a decision for parliament, but for the citizens of Canada,” Fogal says. “What every Parliamentarian should do is call for a no confidence vote on this issue to cease unification of Canada, the USA and Mexico, and then run a campaign on the life of Canada not its death.”
Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, agrees.
“So far, only 30 CEOs from North America’s richest corporations, including Lockheed Martin, Bank of Nova Scotia, Chevron, Power Corporation and Merck, have had any meaningful input,” a news release on Barlow’s website proclaims. “Only they have been invited to annual closed-door meetings of SPP leaders and ministers, such as the one that took place in Montebello, Quebec, in August.”
As WND previously reported, the North American Competitiveness Council, or NACC, dominated the SPP closed-door meetings with the SPP trilateral working groups, the trilateral cabinet members in attendance and President Bush, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, and Harper at the third annual SPP summit in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug. 20-21.
WND has also reported the NACC is a shadowy council of 30 top North American multinational corporations self-appointed by the Chambers of Commerce in each of the three countries to constitute the sole outside advisory to the SPP.
The 30 companies composing the NACC are listed on a memo posted on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website.
In the United States, the companies on the NACC are:
- Campbell Soup Company
- Chevron Corporation
- Ford Motor Corporation
- FedEx Corporation
- General Electric Company
- General Motors Corporation
- Kansas City Southern
- Lockheed Martin Corporation
- Merck & Co., Inc.
- Mittal Steel USA
- New York Life Insurance Company
- Procter & Gamble
- UPS
- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
- Whirlpool Corporation
No union leaders, public interest groups, environmental advocates or news media have ever attended the closed-door of the NACC with the SPP.
According to a document on the Commerce Department’s SPP website, the organization of the NACC was agreed upon by the three leaders on March 31, 2006.
“We are pleased to announce the creation of a North American Competitiveness Council,” the White House announced the same day.
“The Council will comprise members of the private sector from each country,” the White House said, “and will provide us recommendations on North American competitiveness, including, among others, areas such as automotive and transportation, steel, manufacturing, and services. The Council will meet annually with security and prosperity Ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an ongoing basis.”
On Sept. 25, Harper made a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York where he again endorsed SPP.
In a transcript archived on the CFR website, Harper referred to the NACC, saying: “At the North American summit that Canada hosted in Montebello last month, I was struck by the power of the message sent to us by the leaders from the American and Canadian private sectors.”
“They appealed to us to see the connection between security and prosperity,” Harper continued. “They told us that without the ‘and’ we won’t have either.”
The CFR website also has archived a video of Harper’s Sept. 25 remarks.