Still Hopeful by Maude Barlow

Author:Maude Barlow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

The struggle intensifies

In Canada, we were facing a whole new series of threats. Integration of the economies of North America was well under way, thanks to NAFTA, when the three governments decided to promote what they called “deep integration” — harmonized standards on goods and services, closer security ties and continental resource sharing. In March 2005, Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, Mexican president Vicente Fox and US president George W. Bush launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America at a meeting in Waco, Texas. Accompanying the leaders were 30 CEOs of the largest corporations from each country who formed the North American Competitiveness Council. This council had been set up to advise the working groups on harmonizing policy in areas as diverse as energy, the environment, financial services, health and immigration. The leaders agreed to meet every year.

Our biggest concern was that the governments were reporting to the business lobbies of the continent and not to their respective elected legislatures in what was clearly a new trade agreement. When the three heads of state — still George W. Bush from the US, but now Felipe Calderón from Mexico and Stephen Harper from Canada — met in Montebello, Quebec, in August 2007, civil society organizations across the political spectrum criticized them for the secrecy of their agenda.

During a demonstration outside the meeting, a number of us discovered and exposed several undercover Quebec police officers posing as protesters, trying to provoke violence with rocks and taunts at their fellow police. When they were challenged as provocateurs, the “protesters” were handcuffed and “detained” by other police, but video of the soles of their boots as they were dragged away showed clearly that they were wearing standard police wear. This stunt made headlines across the continent and further damaged an already discredited process. In August 2009, the official website of the project was updated simply to say: “The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is no longer an active initiative. There will not be any updates on the site.”

This was a sweet victory for me personally. I traversed the country, speaking out against the deal, and my book, Too Close for Comfort: Canada’s Future within Fortress North America, was a national bestseller. While we were up against great odds, our movements had now stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. And the WTO was stalled. It was imperative that we keep up the fight as the forces in favour of free trade were still very strong and there were more deals — and more struggles — to come.

In 2008, two other major trade agreements were undertaken that would have far-reaching effects. The first was the Trans-Pacific Partnership and involved 12 countries: the US, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Canada. It was signed in 2016, but the US pulled out under President Trump the next year and the agreement could not be ratified.

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