Know the deal!?

Despite the dearth of definitive data on this deal, its dishonesty is demonstrable. To take one further example from the spp.gov website:

“Myth: The SPP is a movement to merge the United States, Mexico, and Canada into a North American Union and establish a common currency.

Fact: The cooperative efforts under the SPP, …seek to make the United States, Canada and Mexico open to legitimate trade and closed to terrorism and crime. It does not change our courts or legislative processes and respects the sovereignty of the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The SPP in no way, shape or form considers the creation of a European Union-like structure or a common currency. The SPP does not attempt to modify our sovereignty or currency or change the American system of government designed by our Founding Fathers.”

While you ponder the veracity of this claim -- and debate which is “myth” and which is “fact” -- I’d like to introduce you to Robert Pastor Ph.D., vice president of international affairs, professor of international relations, and director of the Center for North American Studies, American University in Washington, D.C.

At the beginning of November 2002, this highly credentialized individual gave a speech in Toronto entitled “A North American Community -- A Modest Proposal to the Trilateral Commission”. It is perhaps the clearest exposition of the SPP and its objectives.

Pastor argues, among other things, that NAFTA should be raised to a new level of cooperation. On this new level, the existing “two bilateral legislative groups” (Parliament and Congress) would be merged into one North American Parliamentary Group. There’d also be a Permanent Court on Trade and Investment -- though he doesn’t say how such a court would stop traditional U.S. contempt for Canadian economic interests (softwood lumber, anyone?) -- as well as a North American Commission to deal with immigration and customs, and propose measures like a continental infrastructure and transportation network, harmonized (sic) regulatory policies, a customs union, and a common currency.

On the latter point he said: “Mexicans and Canadians do not want to be incorporated into the United States, and they are ambivalent about adopting the American dollar, but they are more willing to become part of a single country of North America and of a unified currency, like the ‘amero,’ proposed by Herbert Grubel.” Grubel, of course, is a former MP and now a senior econo-theologian at the Fraser Institute, the British Columbia-based neocon propaganda factory that has more influence on national policy than do elected MPs. He made his proposal in 1999!

If you have considered spp.com’s “myth” vs. “fact” distinction while you read the discussion on Pastor, consider again this “fact” claim: “The SPP in no way, shape or form considers the creation of … a common currency. The SPP does not attempt to modify our sovereignty or currency or change the American system of government designed by our Founding Fathers.”

Significantly when Pastor speaks of the amero, he assumes that Canada and Mexico would convert their currencies to the U.S. dollar, thereby surrendering the right to set national monetary or economic policy.

One would think that in the time since the amero was formally suggested (1999) and SPP discussions were begun (2005) we, the Canadian public, would have been informed about them. Problem is, we aren’t supposed to know about it until it’s a done deal. Who will be doing this deal? Consider Pastor’s final charge to his audience:

“The challenge of the Trilateral Commission – (is) to sketch an alternative future for the entire continent that the people will embrace and the politicians will feel obligated to accept.”

There you have it. A clique of econo-political elites is going to remake North America in its own image and the citizenry of the three countries has no say in the matter! How much does Pastor’s Brave New Economic Order reflect actual discussions on the SPP? I’m sure inquiring citizens would like to know.

Source: TehranTimes - Iran's Leading International Daily