The Plan to Disappear Canada: “Deep integration” comes out of the shadows

By Murray Dobbin
June 8, 2007
TheTyee.ca

If the machinations going on in this country regarding so-called “deep integration” were instead a communist conspiracy to take over the country (you will, of course, have to try hard to imagine this) the news media would be blaring the story.

Pundits would pontificate, editorialists would erupt, security forces would be unleashed.

Instead, a virtual conspiracy to make the country disappear through assimilation into the U.S. gets barely a mention.

But news of the scheme — formally called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) — is finally breaking out of the secret chambers of the ruling elite and the federal government. This is both good news and bad. It’s good that ordinary citizens are finally getting a glimpse of the betrayal of their country. The news is bad because it reflects just how much of this scheme is already being implemented.

Given the meetings of CEOs and politicians to advance the scheme politically, as well as all that must go into its actual implementation, there is simply too much activity to keep secret.

Ten dots to connect

Here are 10 developments in the plan to disappear Canada.

1) Pesticides ‘harmonized.’ The most thoroughly reported story (though even this did not go much beyond the CanWest chain) was the revelation that Canada was about to “harmonize” its regulations, setting limits for pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables. In 40 per cent of the cases, the U.S. allows for higher levels. Richard Aucoin, chief registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada’s pesticide levels, said that Canada’s higher levels were a “trade irritant.”

The downgrading of health protection had been a NAFTA initiative, but is being “fast-tracked” as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Some 300 regulatory regimes are currently going through the same process.

2) Tory tirade. The next story that broke through the wall of media silence reported on the paranoid reaction of the Harper Conservatives to any criticism of the SPP. The occasion was hearings of the Commons International Trade Committee into the SPP, forced by the NDP.

Gordon Laxer, head of Alberta’s Parkland Institute, was testifying on the energy implications of the SPP, warning that eastern Canada could end up “freezing in the dark.” He had barely started when the chair of the committee, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, demanded that Laxer halt his “irrelevant” testimony. The Committee members overruled Benoit — who promptly (and illegally) adjourned the meeting and stomped out. The NDP and Liberal members nonetheless continued without him.

[Full article.]