Canadian & Mexican ...

In the poll, a whopping 86 percent of Canadians agree that the SPP should be debated in the House of Commons and submitted to a parliamentary vote. Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, said of the SPP, “while corporations have been given a seat at the negotiating table, the Canadian government has never asked the public, how they feel about it.” The SPP’s fate should be decided by the people in the form of a referendum.

Another part of the poll showed that 87 percent agree that Canada should set its own independent environmental, health, and safety standards, while 89 percent want an energy policy guaranteeing Canadian supply and protecting the environment. In addition, 88 percent of Canadians want a comprehensive national water policy that bans bulk exports of fresh water and recognizes water as a basic human right.

The SPP’s objectives include removing barriers and securing U.S. access to Canadian natural resources. One half of Alberta’s oil sands production is already U.S. owned. The SPP will lead to the further corporate takeover of Canada’s resources. The U.S. government, along with trinational elites in the private sector, will benefit from a North American resource pact.

In April of last year, the North American Future 2025 Project met and discussed transfers, consumption, and artificial diversion of bulk waters. Leaked documents obtained by the Council of Canadians prove that the Canadian government along with some business elites are actively discussing and pursuing bulk water exports. Connie Fogal, the leader of the Canadian Action Party, has said that the SPP will begin, “the accelerated extraction and delivery of Canadian oil and water resources to the U.S. economy.”

It is no secret that the U.S. has long since coveted Canada’s fresh water, and once this process starts, it would be next to impossible to turn off the tap. What Canada desperately needs is a national water policy that would ban bulk water exports. Canadians need to be aware of the SPP’s plan to integrate and hand over more control and access of their natural resources to the Americans. A sovereign independent Canada must put their future needs ahead of U.S. corporate interests.

POLITICS

NAFTA the hot tune for amigos' last dance

Apr 20, 2008

Susan of Delacourt Ottawa Bureau of The Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/News/article/416332

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it clear that Canada should not be playing an active part in the U.S. presidential race.

But Harper, President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon are expected to use their meetings in New Orleans tomorrow and Tuesday to speak out in favour of the North American Free Trade Agreement –which has become a political football in this year's presidential contest.

"It's an institution, a creation well worth preserving," a Canadian official told reporters at a background briefing in advance of the New Orleans meeting.

A U.S. official, speaking in Washington on Friday, was more blunt.

"We are aware that some of the statements that have been made here (in the U.S.) have made actually bigger headlines in Canada and Mexico than they have here. And we expect the leaders to talk about it. We think NAFTA works. We think the record of its past 14 years shows that it works," said Dan Fisk, a director with the National Security Council.

"We want to find ways to, frankly, convince the American people from our perspective, first and foremost, that this is an arrangement that's worked for us and it's also worked for our neighbours. It's been a win-win situation," said Fisk, who was also briefing U.S. reporters in advance of this week's summit.

NAFTA burst into the U.S. presidential race in a large way more than a month ago, during the Ohio primaries, when both Democratic contenders – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – mused openly about reopening the trade deal.

That blossomed into a controversy here in Canada when the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, told some reporters that Canadian officials had been assured that all the Democratic talk of NAFTA was simple campaign rhetoric. A leak of briefing notes from consular officials on this same question – which whipped up a small news storm in the U.S. – prompted Harper to announce an investigation had been launched into the whole affair. And the Prime Minister reasserted that Canada should be staying out of U.S. presidential politics.

Officially, the upcoming meetings are known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit, named after the agreement launched in March, 2005, under the previous Liberal government in Canada.

Critics of the SPP – some of whom were due to stage protest marches in Ottawa over the weekend – charge that the agreement is really a thinly veiled attempt to advance Canada-U.S. integration.

"If the entire spectrum of SPP policies are implemented, I worry about what Canada will be like in 20 years," Seamus Wolfe, a vice-president of the student federation at the University of Ottawa, said in a release issued last week to announce the weekend protest.

With Bush's term in office winding down this year, this will be his last appearance at the meeting that's been nicknamed the "three amigos" summit.

Canadian officials said last week that there probably will be some note made of this fact in New Orleans – some way to thank Bush for his enthusiastic backing of greater North American co-operation.

As for details, though, of what's to be achieved this week, officials were not revealing any hints of progress expected.

When they last met, at Montebello, Que., in August, the three leaders agreed on five priority areas in which to pursue greater "collaboration" by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. These include: food and product safety; sustainable energy and the environment; "smart and secure" borders; emergency management and preparedness; and "enhancing the global competitiveness of North America."

But more generally, officials were saying that this week's meetings were being kept open deliberately, in terms of agenda, so that the three leaders could be more freewheeling about the topics they want to discuss.

Canada, for instance, will want to use this opportunity to once again see where opportunities can be found to enhance access at the Canada-U.S. border – a continuing issue since the U.S. introduced stricter passport requirements at all its entry points.

As well, Canadian officials told reporters that this country will be pressing to know more about potential implications of a recent U.S. congressional move to limit purchases of energy from sources with high output of greenhouse gases. That measure could harm Canadian exports of energy to the U.S. from the Alberta tar sands and have serious consequences for the Canadian economy, the official said.

Harper has private, one-on-one meetings tomorrow with Bush and Calderon and the full, three-way summit doesn't really begin in earnest until Tuesday. In Canada-Mexico dealings, the issue of Canadian citizen Brenda Martin has been looming over this meeting. That's the woman who has been jailed in Guadalajara for two years – her court case only formally unfolding last week. It had been assumed and hoped that the judge in the case would issue a ruling before the summit. As it turns out, the judge said Friday he would issue his ruling at 2 p.m. Tuesday, about an hour or two after the summit ends.

April 17, 2008

Laura Carlsen Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5159

Two Chicken Stories: NAFTA's Real Winners and Losers

Pedro Martin works on a chicken farm just outside the village of Pegueros, Jalisco. The state of Jalisco ranks among Mexico's top chicken-producing states, providing the nation with 11% of all chicken meat produced.

Many of Pedro's friends and relatives have already left Pegueros, pushed up north by the bleak joblessness and poverty of their hometown. But Pedro told the Washington Post that he's determined to stick it out in Mexico.

For many years, he and his co-workers had little reason to even consider making the dangerous trek across the border. They made a decent living at the chicken farm, and the locally-produced chickens found a steady market in the region.

But since all protective tariff barriers to U.S. imports were removed on January 1st of this year (2008), Pedro's not sure he'll have a job anymore. Chicken wasn't originally on the list for final tariff elimination in 2008. It was slated for zero tariffs and import controls for the year 2003.

Faced with an influx of U.S. chicken exports, the industry convinced the Mexican government that "imports cause a threat of serious damage to the national industry." The government asked for a safeguard to restore tariff protection, and it was pushed back to 2008.

The negotiation wasn't that hard. U.S. producers didn't oppose the measure since the export of leg quarters to Mexico is merely supplementary income for them. U.S. producers in general make up costs plus profit just through the sale of the coveted breast meat on the U.S. market. The Mexican industry alleged that U.S. poultry producers were "dumping" (exporting below costs) the leg quarters on their market.

Lorenzo Martin, president of the neighboring Tepatitlan Poultry Farmers Association and the head of a large, well-established poultry farm in the area warns, "If the United States starts selling things extra cheap outside the United States, then it won't just be small farmers and individuals who will be leaving. It will be people like me."

Some of Mexico's chicken farmers displaced from their own communities could end up working in substandard conditions in poultry processing plants in the United States. The world's largest poultry producer, Tyson, has been sued twice now for operating an illegal immigrant smuggling operation that included recruiting in Mexico, providing false documents, and employing undocumented workers. A class action suit charged that these practices enabled the company to drive down wages by 10-30%.

In a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, a Tyson worker at one of its Arkansas plants stated in Spanish, "They have us under threat [bajo amenaza] all the time. They know most of us are undocumented—probably two-thirds. All they care about is getting bodies into the plant. My supervisor said they say they'll call the INS if we make trouble." Although ample evidence was presented on both hiring and recruiting practices, the politically powerful Arkansas-based transnational beat the rap.

Tyson also controls, along with Pilgrim's Pride and the Mexican company Bachoco, 52% of chicken production in Mexico today, thanks in large part to favorable foreign investment rules under NAFTA. These factory farms typically lead to lay-offs and increased pollution. The rapid concentration of poultry production in Mexico has been called a threat to food sovereignty for future generations.

NAFTA promised win-win economic integration throughout the continent. These two chicken stories do add up to a win-win—but only for the likes of Tyson.

Tyson wins when it takes over the Mexican market share and drives Pedro's company out of business. It wins again when it hires Pedro, now unemployed, as an undocumented worker in a U.S. plant. Meanwhile, for its workers—migrants and native, documented and undocumented—corporate mobility coupled with repressive immigration laws means lower wages, fewer benefits, and less power in the employer-employee relationship both abroad and at home.

If we add in U.S. government corn and soybean subsidies that have delivered an estimated $1.25 billion a year in feedstock savings to Tyson and its three closest competitors, things could hardly be better for the food giant.

This is the single most important thing to understand about NAFTA—who are the winners and the losers. Tyson's win-win scenario is a lose-lose for Pedro and thousands like him. The international system is rigged to strengthen the hand of mega-corporations and weaken small farmers, workers, women producers, and migrants.

The good news is that we can create a new win-win scenario. We can reform immigration policies to integrate workers legally into the system and provide full labor rights so they are not, by their very existence, unfair competition to U.S.-born workers. We can guarantee the right to organize, the only route open to evening up the imbalances and inequality of the system.

We can also heed the call of small farmers in Mexico and even U.S. presidential candidates and renegotiate NAFTA to create and maintain decent jobs in both Mexico and the United States.

Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(@)ciponline.org) is director of the Americas Policy Program www.americaspolicy.org in Mexico City. The Americas Mexico Blog is found at www.americasmexico.blogspot.com.

August 24, 2007

Extending NAFTA's Reach

Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4497

Faced with opposition from the left and the right, George W. Bush, Felipe Calderon, and Stephen Harper met August 20-21 in Montebello, Canada to discuss the little-known second phase of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Declarations to the press acknowledged public concerns about the content and the secrecy of the talks, but said nothing to clear up doubts about the closed-door proceedings or disclose specific policies under discussion.

Beyond the vague feel-good rhetoric about a "prosperous neighborhood" and "common commitments" the Canadian, U.S., and Mexican leaders each seemed to have his particular agenda. Canada fears another economically disastrous border closing like the one following the 2001 terrorist attacks and wants to assure it doesn't happen again. Bush emphasized the corporate wish-list of eliminating remaining barriers and harmonizing regulations. Calderon fears that Mexico is losing its NAFTA edge in the U.S. market and called for forming a regional trade bloc to compete with other regions of the world. No joint policy decisions or objectives were announced.

No wonder the public's confused.

A Short History

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was launched in Waco, Texas in March 2005. The heads of state of the three NAFTA countries, other government officials, and business groups have met periodically to hammer out agreements to speed up integration and increase security. This has been done with almost no public input or Congressional oversight.

Since the SPP is not a law or a treaty or even a signed agreement, there are no formal mechanisms of accountability built in. It is essentially a "gentleman's agreement" between the executive branches and major corporations in the three nations.

This is what has people worried. Largely unknown to the public, the SPP has spawned numerous working groups, reports, and recommendations. In 2006, the private sector was brought in with the formation of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). This body is made up of business representatives from industries involved in intercontinental trade and investment, including Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, the Mexican Foreign Trade Council, Canada's Suncor Energy, and others. The Council does not include representatives of labor, environmental, or civil society organizations.

Government officials have justified the secrecy by stating that the SPP is merely a forum for refining rules and standards for transborder transactions. However, the little that is known about it reveals that some major issues are on the table.

Many of those go way beyond what was passed by North American legislatures under NAFTA. They include extraterritorial rights over natural resources, extension of the Bush administration's vastly unpopular counter-terrorism agenda to Canada and Mexico, liberalization of financial services, and most likely a billion-dollar counternarcotics aid package to Mexico.

Although rarely identified as such, some SPP recommendations have already popped up in policies and regulation reforms. These include accelerating environmentally damaging oil production in Mexico and Canada, and "harmonizing" national standards so they sing to the tune of corporate profits rather than consumer protection.

For example, Canada has agreed to raise the amount of pesticide residues allowed in some foods and Mexico has adopted a counter-terrorism law that contradicts its own foreign policy principles. In the United States, proposed highway construction to facilitate intercontinental trade has angered environmentalists and local populations and raised questions about what exactly is the overall "vision" that the SPP purports to have.

Many of the recommendations of the SPP will have a long-term impact on citizens' lives. While opposition has focused on resource use, consumer norms, and infrastructure, the security component of the partnership may prove to be the most far-reaching of all.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership was born in the post-9/11 era, when President Bush sought to extend U.S. counter-terrorism strategies to Mexico and Canada, and Homeland Security became a major player in the trilateral relationship. The counternarcotics proposal falls under the rubric of this new area. The package would include the delivery of U.S. arms and surveillance equipment, sophisticated espionage programs, and training for Mexico's police and army.

Although negotiations on security issues have been among the most tightly guarded, immigration crackdowns on Mexico's southern border and Canada's "no-fly" list of people banned from air travel were most likely negotiated in the context of the SPP.

The Forgotten Issues of Integration

As the SPP extends its purview, the most pressing challenges to trinational integration have been inexplicably left off the agenda. Immigration, which has experienced a two-fold increase since NAFTA, has been discarded as too politically sensitive in the United States to discuss as a regional issue—despite the fact that integration processes in other parts of the world have recognized that labor flows are a central issue of regional integration.

Calderon reportedly expressed concern over harsh new employer sanctions in the United States and the "void" left in the immigration law following the recent failure of the U.S. Congress to pass reforms that effectively deal with the estimated 12 million undocumented U.S. residents. However, no mention was made of measures to reduce deaths and human rights violations on the shared U.S.-Mexico border, provide compensation funds to Mexico's displaced sectors, or regularize Mexican immigrants in U.S. communities.

Another taboo subject was the total elimination of tariffs on corn and beans in Mexico, slated for January of 2008 under NAFTA's agricultural chapter. Mexican small farmers have demanded renegotiation of the chapter, charging it will drive them out of business and increase out-migration. But according to government representatives, the three governments decided not to take up the issue in Montebello.

Nor did those driving the latest stage of regional integration deign to deal with urgent matters such as the impact of NAFTA on job loss and job quality in the United States, or the growing monopolistic control of production and markets exercised by transnational corporations—a subject understandably off the table of a "competitiveness council" led by global market gobblers like Wal-Mart.

Voices of Dissent

Citizen groups have mobilized in all three countries to demand information and protest the priorities of "deep integration" designed in the upper spheres of commerce and government. Canadian citizen groups on hand to protest the summit proceedings were met with tear gas, pepper spray, and police provocateurs.

Elected representatives have also objected to the secrecy of the SPP. In May the Mexican legislature passed a resolution that requires President Calderon to send the Senate a detailed report on all agreements that government officials have assumed in SPP working groups. The U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment that prohibits the use of Department of Transportation funds in SPP working groups until the Congress has reviewed and assessed the SPP agenda. Although this amendment was rejected in the Senate, several more anti-SPP resolutions have been presented. A motion that calls for public consultations on the SPP has been tabled in the Canadian Parliament.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico trade a total of $883 billion under NAFTA. The three nations clearly need mechanisms to assure that these flows are safe, orderly, and mutually beneficial.

The SPP, however, has surreptitiously proceeded well beyond the regulatory mandate into areas that threaten the sovereignty of the three nations and will have long-term effects on the lives of their citizens. This has happened not only without citizen participation, but also in many cases without citizens' knowledge.

Trilateral decisions that affect entire populations should be open to the public and subject to citizen review. The priority should always be placed on increasing the long-term well-being of the people. As democracies we cannot allow the course of North American integration to be dictated by a closed group of corporate and cabinet representatives.

At stake is the future of our three nations, and the continent we share.

Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org in Mexico City, where she has been a writer and political analyst for more than two decades.