Does Prime Minister Harper really think that Canadians will believe him when he says that the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meeting at Montebello was about mundane issues like standardizing the quality of jelly beans?
It’s not jelly beans that Canadians are worried about. It is the reality that important decisions affecting energy security, water exports, environment, foreign policy, food, health, labour, and safety standards, and other issues that could put Canada at a disadvantage and impinge on its sovereignty, are being made surreptitiously, without public and parliamentary debate.
If the issues discussed by the leaders are so innocent, why all the secrecy? Why all the security?
Why couldn’t they be dealt with through the democratic process?
Big business, represented by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), was not barred from the meeting. In a paper made public in April 2004, entitled “New Frontiers” the CCCE proposed a North American partnership based on five objectives.
The first was “reinventing borders.” Also included were: “forging new institutions to improve management of the relationship; enhancing energy and resource security; maximizing regulatory efficiencies; and strengthening the defence and security alliance.”
These objectives can easily be interpreted to mean Canadian sovereignty will be seriously affected. One has to wonder whether Canada is being governed by Parliament, or by the CCCE?
