Canuck MP questions whether SPP negotiations are foot in the door for deep integration,

[JohnyCanuck]

and says Canada's sovereignty and independence are at risk.

From MP Garth Turner's blog:

Early last month, CanWest News rattled many Canadians by publishing a story which was apparently designed by authorities to receive little publicity. Canada, it said, is prepared to raise its limits on pesticide residues as “part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher pesticide residues for 40% of the pesticides it regulates.”

The story went on to report, “the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a wide-ranging plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.” In this case, the harmonization clearly, CanWest said, meant that Canadian standards would be reduced to meet those of the United States.

snip

This posting will be the first in several on SPP, as my research and reading is far from complete. I have spoken to government officials, industry leaders, MPs and academics about this. There is a huge disparity in the quality, quantity and tone of the information resulting from those conversations. Like most Canadians, I am at a loss to know with certainty if this is a beneficial partnership for our nation to be so enthusiastically embracing.

And, in itself, that is disturbing. As an MP, I represent Canadian voters, so it would seem incumbent that all MPs would have a role in the design, approval or implementation of an agreement as profound as SPP. After all, we fought recent elections on trade deals – the FTA and NATFA – which would have far less impact on the lives of our citizens, and the independence of our nation. Governments rose and fell based on the chapter and verse of those documents.

And yet in the case of the SPP, we have no master agreement. No one document exists, but rather a mesh of partially-informative and often spin-doctored government web sites. Of greater concern is the rolling nature of this partnership. Ongoing task forces of indeterminate membership, meeting beneath the public radar, and deciding upon changes which are quickly implemented under existing regs.

That means no SPP motion or bill has ever come before the House of Commons. No extended debate has even taken place, while MPs spend hours on issues of much less impact on the entire country. There is no standing House of Commons committee on SPP and no extensive, publicized and well-promoted hearings. No questions are heard in QP on SPP, and no ministerial announcements are made when key meetings take place. No summary was ever given by PMSH on his pivotal Cancun SPP conference last Spring. No accounting. No words. Nothing.

For a century and a half, we have resisted the siren song of wealth and influence and cultural assimilation that union with the United States would bring. We have stubbornly set our own course, even when it meant paying more in taxes, doing with fewer innovations and making the costly and difficult choices of being a bilingual, multicultural, tolerant and largely pacifist nation.

Is that now changing? Not with a bang? Not even with a whimper?

As I indicated, I do not know what to make of SPP. That alarms me.

My voters did not send me to the capital to worry about railway crossing safety, the crab fishery, ABM fees or appointment terms for senators, while the independence of our nation was being silently and steadily eroded by the unelected. My job is not to jump to conclusions, or raise false alarms. It is simply to defend my country. It may well be time to do so.

http://www.garth.ca/weblog/2007/06/03/deep-integration/

[PDJane]

1. Yeah, it is time to do so.

Thank you for this post; I will continue to watch this carefully. Bulk water is the next thing on the table, and I object.