Thousands of people took to Parliament Hill yesterday, waving signs and holding placards telling the Harper government to put a halt to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. With U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderón set to arrive in Montebello, Quebec today, activists are busy getting on buses, preparing to confront the SPP in public as the Harper government continues to discuss it in private.
Yesterday afternoon, more than 500 people packed an auditorium at the University of Ottawa, to hear Maude Barlow, along with civil society representatives from the U.S. and Canada, to condemn the SPP and promote a vision of a more just and sustainable North America.
We had originally planned to hold the forum in Papineauville, Quebec, just 6 kilometres from where the leaders are meeting today, but the RCMP and the U.S. Army forced us to cancel our reservation at the last minute. So we made due with a smaller room in Ottawa, and unfortunately we had to turn away at least 100 people last night, as people stood and crouched in the aisles of the auditorium, hungry for more information about the SPP and how to fight it.
We’ll be in touch soon with a full update on what we heard at the forum last night. In the meantime, you can download our new citizens’ guide to the SPP, Behind Closed Doors: What they’re not telling us about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. We couldn’t keep a single copy on the shelf last night.
In the meantime, check out our online gallery of photos from yesterday’s demonstration on Parliament Hill.
And now we’re off to Montebello to deliver more than 10,000 petitions from concerned Canadians like you. We’ll make sure that Harper, Bush and Calderón hear the message loud and clear that secret meetings shouldn’t be deciding the future of North America.
As Maude Barlow said, “The stakes are very high here. And we have the opportunity not only to defeat something that is profoundly wrong for our peoples and for the sustainability of our planet, but to promote something very, very different.”
Click here to join the Council of Canadians. Help us fight the SPP and stand up for a better and fairer North America..
For more information on the SPP, or on events taking place today, please visit www.integratethis.ca
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