Bending Over for Bush

Have you heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America? If you have no idea what I’m talking about then I don’t blame you, because our government isn’t taking great pains to enlighten the people on the small ‘teakings’ our country’s regulations.

The SPP brought together Prime Minister Harper, President Bush, and President Calderon (of Mexico) in order to achieve “a better quality of life for you and for businesses.” Hmm… I don’t know about you but it’s been a while since I’ve seen people demanding their government provide a greater quality of life for businesses, especially since I doubt this is going to be helpful for the Mom & Pop shops down the street.

The official SPP website says:
“The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing.”

This description, like the entire website is vague and feels slightly ‘Big Brother-esque’ but the SPP essentially means that we as Canadians can’t really do anything without the U.S.’s permission first. We are essentially aligning our environmental, trade, immigration, and terrorism policies with our southern neighbors.

The U.S. hasn’t had the most impressive track record with their ‘War on Terror’, so I find little satisfaction in knowing that my tax dollars will be supporting it. Plus it means that if my name resembles a suspectived terrorist then I can be barred from air travel(although I have attended a vegan potluck so I think I’m tagged myself…see previous blog)?

And of course, if we are dealing with President Bush we are dealing with oil. The SPP gives the US better access to oil from both Canada and Mexico and I know that most Canadians are very concerned about who we are going to GIVE our oil too. And you know what? Why don’t we throw in some clean Canadian water in that deal too? Because the SPP discussions included giving large amounts of water away too, although the tar sands are ensuring that we won’t have much clean water left anyways… but that’s another blog.

The ‘Fact vs. Myth’ page on the official SPP page boasts that ‘no agreement was ever signed’. Um, does anyone think that is a good thing? It’s as if the leaders of our countries are laughing at us saying “Oh, all that paper work was such a pain in the ass so we just skipped it!” Without a signed agreement how do we know if anyone has breached it? Without anything in writing how do we citizens know what our governments are committing to? Without anything in writing, how do us citizens or the people we elect vote against it?

However we can all take comfort in knowing that our leaders have chosen some outside representatives to participate in SPP discussions, leaders of huge corporations and military officials have been included to voice their opinions.

Excluding public opinion was no mistake because if people had been allowed to vote on it, it would have been dismissed immediately. According to the Council of Canadians, most of us completely disagree with the SPP:
(http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/backgrounders/notcounting/index.html)

Although statistics show that we are completely disagree with pretty much everything the SPP sets out to accomplish, it’s still being implemented. Does anyone else think this is absolutely LUDICROUS? We like to think ourselves a democratic society but our government does whatever the hell they want and seem to just give its citizens the finger when it comes to public opinion.

Which makes me when are we going to stop bending over for Bush?