Opposing the Security and Prosperity Partnership: Demonstrations in Montebello
Riot police form a line beyond the summit location. Photo: Stefan ChristoffMilitary helicopters
hovered as protesters converged in Montebello, Quebec, a relatively
remote Canadian town in which the political leaders of North America
gathered for a two-day summit on August 20. The Fairmont Château
Montebello, the location for the critical trilateral meetings, became a
Canadian fortress surrounded by a high metal fence and thousands of
police from throughout the country.
Throughout the summit, over 1,000 protesters converged to oppose the
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a North American
governmental and corporate initiative aimed at developing greater
integration of trade and security policies from Mexico to Canada.
Critics view the SPP as a post-9/11 development of the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade treaty widely unpopular among
labour unions, indigenous communities and social justice activists
across the continent.
Corporate influence is central to the entire SPP process, within
which, according to official documents, "high-level business input will
assist governments in enhancing North America's competitive position."
Entirely absent from the process are environmental groups, labour
unions and representatives from indigenous communities.
Major corporations represented by institutions like the Canadian
Council of Chief Executives and the North American Competitiveness
Council have strongly advocated for the institutionalization of the
SPP. Both organizations were also strong backers of NAFTA. According to
the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), NAFTA negatively
impacted the majority of Canadians: "Income inequality expanded in
Canada during the 1990s," after the implementation of NAFTA "as the top
20 per cent of families saw their incomes increase, while the bottom 20
per cent saw their share drop."
Critics of the SPP argue that the initiative will be a blow to
working people in North America. "The founding premise of the SPP is
that an agenda of economic free trade and national security will result
in human prosperity," writes No One is Illegal -- a grassroots
anti-colonial immigrant and refugee rights collective in Vancouver --
"yet we know that the so-called 'prosperity' of previous free trade
agreements such as NAFTA have only brought corporate prosperity, with
increasing rates of poverty and displacement for the majority of
people."
The Montebello summit included multiple sessions between the North
American leaders on "integrating" more than 300 areas of policy --
including health, safety and environmental standards -- between Canada,
the US and Mexico, according to official documents. Although details of
the meeting have not been revealed, government officials had stated
that areas of discussion at the closed-door meetings included water
exports, environmental policy, immigration controls and military power
in North America.
A stated aim of the Security and Prosperity Partnership is to
"increase border security" in North America, according to internal
documents outlining the trilateral initiative. One area of focus is the
creation of a co-ordinated no-fly list between the US and Canada.
Canada recently announced the creation of its own no-fly list, while
the US list now includes half a million names.
Migrant rights organizations such as No One is Illegal, operating in
multiple Canadian cities, were centrally involved in organizing the
demonstrations against the SPP. The initiative has been slammed as an
attempt to model North American security regulations after extremely
stringent European laws, widely referred to as "Fortress Europe." In
1999, the BBC reported on "Fortress Europe," writing that harmonized
immigration legislation in Europe would "lower the drawbridge for the
few but keep it firmly up for the many."
In light of the SPP standards, migrant rights organizations in North
America expressed concerns of attempts to create "Fortress North
America," a match to the exclusionary European model.
Secret discussions at Montebello also revolved around the "War on
Terror," linking North American foreign policy in both Latin America
and the Middle East, while demonstrators in Canada called for a
withdrawal of Canadian forces from Afghanistan. Block the Empire, a
Montreal collective active in opposing the Canadian military
participation in the NATO mission in the Kandahar province of southern
Afghanistan, was strongly represented at the demonstrations in
Montebello.
Also present at the demonstrations in Montebello were members of the
Centre for Philippine Concerns from Montreal, who decried the Canadian
and US support for the current government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in
Manila, Philippines. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International
accuse the Arroyo government, a key Western ally in Asia, of carrying
out hundreds of assassinations of leftists as part of the "War on
Terror" in the Asia-Pacific region.
Demonstrators faced police violence in Montebello. Federal and
provincial police forces used chemical gas --"tear gas" -- rubber
bullets and clubs to push demonstrators away from the location of the
trilateral summit. Following the demonstrations in Montebello, the
Quebec Provincial Police were forced to admit to the use of under-cover
police provocateurs within the demonstration, after a widely-circulated
online video picked up by news media clearly depicted undercover agents
carrying rocks during the demonstration.
Chemicalgas fills the air in Montebello, Quebec outside of the location of the
trilateral summit, forcing the majority of demonstrators to retreat
from the police lines.
A police helicopter hovers close over the demonstrations. 
Riot police form a line beyond the summit location.
Demonstration on the streets of Montebello in opposition to the "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP).
Flagsin the sky in Montebello: a local of the United Steelworkers Union from
Hamilton, Ontario that joined the front-lines of the protest.
Tess Tesalona of the Center for Philippine Concerns addresses the demonstration in Montebello.
"No One is Illegal" graces the shield of a riot cop on the front line of the Montebello protest.
Teargas is fired at demonstrators in Montebello. Multiple international
health organizations have condemned the use of tear gas by police
forces internationally due to the harmful impacts on personal health.
Riotpolice gather in a local grave site in Montebello, Quebec, which was
used as a staging ground to fire rubber bullets and teargas at
demonstrators opposed to the SPP.
Anschluss
This is a very good article, and I’ll certainly keep it handy for further reference.
Two things really irk me about this whole issue: first, the lack of
any understanding of recent history; second, the analogy with the EU.
Ask an average Canadian under the age of 30 why our prime minister
takes his orders from Washington, why plans for the upcoming Anschluss
must be prepared in secret, why with a booming economy there are now a
quarter of a million Canadians living on the streets and 1.2 million
Canadian children living in poverty, or why the US army gets to decide
that Canadians can’t have a protest demonstration on Canadian soil —
ask any of these questions of young Canadians and you will draw a blank
stare. They do not know that in 1987 their parents and grandparents —
in response to a thinly veiled threat articulated by US president
Ronald Reagan — took the first big step in surrendering Canadian
sovereignty to the American empire.
1987 was the year of the Free Trade federal election. Brian Mulroney
had won the previous election by swearing that he would never under any
circumstances enter into free trade talks with the Americans. Free
trade talks with the Americans began not long afer Canadians put
Mulroney in office. Now he was up for re-election, the treaty was ready
for Canada’s signature, and polls suggested that Muroney would lose
because of it. Mulroney signaled his best friend Reagan to help out
with some kind of a statement, and Reagan complied. If Canada refuses
to sign the deal, Reagan said, the likelihood of the US ever entering
into any other kind of agreement to improve trade relations with Canada
was zero.
The New Democratic Party pressed for a national debate on the issue
and got it. They laid out precisely what was at stake: the erosion of
Canada’s social safety net, including our highly successful and
efficient universal health care system; the loss of Canadian control
over several — if not most — of our primary economic sectors, including
our natural resources; the loss of thousands of well-paid jobs in
industry and their replacement with jobs in the “service industry” —
the euphemism for McJobs. Like Cassandra, the NDP was right; like
Cassandra, they were not believed. Mulroney won the election, the trade
deal was signed, and further consultation with the Canadian electorate
on any issue regarding our vassal-state status vis-a-vis the US was
deemed unnecessary.
Now for my second beef:
Those who claim that “deep integration” — the creation of a North
American superstate — would be similar to the EU don’t know much about
the EU. There are hard and fast rules about who is admitted into the
Union. The “Copenhagen Criteria” are regulations regarding democratic
governance, human rights, and economic viability. Embedded within these
broad criteria are stipulations implying, for example, that prospective
EU member states foreswear aggression, torture, and the death penalty;
have no laws on the books that discriminate on the basis of gender,
race, ethnicity, or sexuality; uphold democratic rights, including such
things as free and fair elections; and produce adequate evidence of
fiscal responsibility. While Europeans debate endlessly over whether
Turkey is pure enough for them, Canadians are not even notified, much
less invited to debate union with the most aggressive state on the
planet — a state that kills its felons and tortures with impunity;
can’t run a clean federal election; denies full civil rights to its
sexual minorities and full reproductive rights to its women; and
currently closes in on nine trillion dollars of national debt while
still borrowing.
Then there are those irksome statistical items that distinguish our
neighbour as “world leader”: the 737 out of every 100,000 American
citizens who languish in prison — the highest imprisonment rate on
earth and the largest detention system in the advanced industrial
world; the 90 privately owned firearms for every 100 citizens, making
the US the most heavily armed society on the planet.
Four and a half million Americans have no health insurance, yet the
cost of the US health care system tops Canada’s by at least 50 percent.
Then you have to ask yourself what’s wrong with a country that
represents 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes half of all
illicit drugs. On the Global Peace Index, the US ranks 96th; 53rd on
the World Press Freedom Index; and 42nd on the Life Expectancy Index.
Where the USA does score high is on the wealth index: there were 13 US
billionaires in 1985; now there are more than 1,000.
That is the nation whose sinking star our corporate elite want to hitch the Canadian wagon.
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