First, some pertinent extracts from the astonishingly-prophetic 1996 interview of John Whitley,
Quinn: [laughs] Well, yes, that is true. But she [Hilary Clinton] delivered the welcoming address at the Bilderberg meeting down in Georgia, which was written up by the way by one of the small Georgia papers there. We read that article on the air. It was interesting. He chronicled the incredible amount of security that surrounds this meeting.
Editor of the 'New World Order Intelligence Update', by Jim Quinn...Whitley: Right.
Quinn: Was anybody there who ratted on what went on?
Whitley: Yes, we've always had good sources. I wouldn't like to be too specific because they're people who very cautiously we've developed links with, and who kind of work at a secondary level but who are directly involved with people who are at the Bilderberger meeting. They are becoming increasingly concerned themselves with where this stuff is going. So, yes, we do find out what's going on. Basically what happened at that meeting was they picked up a theme that was also discussed at Davos and [that] they're really pushing - and this was discussed at the Trilateral meeting in Tokyo, too - they're pushing for three regional governments and for the military anchoring of those...
Quinn: The military anchoring of three regional governments?
Whitley: Yes. The whole idea is that you divide the world up into three governmental zones, and each one will have an enforcement army; and then you merge those government zones into one, and you merge those three armies into one. In essence, you get a three-fold world state. And this has been the long-term plan of the Trilateral Commission, which is how it got its name. They're going along three lines, trilateral, to one World State. And, of course, you've got the Asian Union, the European Union, and coming into existence now, first announced at Davos, privately, is the American Union. Now we did publicly announce this one week after Davos finished, from our own sources. We went on the Internet and in our own Newsletter and we said that it was agreed that there would be a fast-tracking of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, plus SAFTA, the South American Free Trade Agreement, for a full union by the year 2003, even if just the structure was in place. And that Newt Gringrich would be backing this and that Bill Clinton will be announcing it. A month and a half after Davos, Clinton announced this. So either this was a plan - part of a global plan - or we got very lucky. [laughs] But we seem to get very lucky most of the time, so obviously there is a plan there....
Quinn: From the War Room, the Quinn In The Morning Show continues. We are having a discussion with John Whitley, expert on the New World order, and, Yes, folks, that's it. I've seen all the evidence I need to see. I am now a full-blown kook. Good morning again, John. John Whitley, up in Toronto, Canada. Now, on the subject of the CFR, you were about to say one more thing.
Whitley: Well, Jim, you know, you can't get anywhere in U.S. military life, at the very top of the military structure, the top of the political structure, the people who are publishers and key editors, and even foreign affairs journalists and so forth of the major newspapers, and correspondents for 60 Minutes, all of these people, together with the key people in the CFR in the State Department and so forth, are members of the CFR. So these are the people who, when they get together, they don't get together with the local members in Chicago. They get together with each other and they read the CFR's bimonthly and sometimes more frequent magazine, Foreign Affairs. They basically follow the CFR line in whatever they do. So the American military, the American government, the American press are being run by CFR insiders, and that's the reality. If we're talking about a parallel government, that's what the CFR has been called.
Quinn: The parallel government?
Whitley: America's secret government...
Quinn: All right, now, John, recently of course Ron Brown just died in a plane crash, and shortly after Ron Brown died there was much shredding of documents going on at the Commerce Department. But there were a number of documents that were left intact and they were spirited away from the Commerce department to the small Business administration, where it was hoped nobody would find them, by a fellow by the name of Ira Sokowitz.
Whitley: Uh hm.
Quinn: And I heard a news story the other night where they were listing some of the documents. And among those documents, they said, "were top-secret documents from the Council on Foreign Relations."
If the Council on Foreign Relations is not part of the U.S. government, what are documents from that Council doing being classified top secret under the auspices of government security if this is a private sector think tank?
Whitley: I hate to be blunt about this, but basically what happens is the CFR writes policy for the U.S. government, and then that policy is executed by CFR members in the U.S. government. In essence, the CFR advises itself on what it should do and then it does it.
Quinn: Okay, so you believe that's probably what's in those classified documents?
Whitley: Oh, I've no doubt that what's in those documents is very revealing of what will yet happen. See, they're pushing for global free trade by the year 2020. I mean, we're talking about hemispheric free trade - essentially a western hemispheric union for the whole of north, south and central America, with the U.S. Constitution well on its way out and the Bill of Rights long gone, and a new political document covering that whole hemispheric union by the year 2003. But they're talking about this global consummation by the year 2020. I'm sure those documents included those kinds of statements and references and the policies to bring them into place. And they don't want the American public awakened to those things yet.
Quinn: Well, in keeping with our tradition here on this show of telling adult ghost stories by the camp fire, what's the scariest stuff that these people are into?
Whitley: The scariest stuff? Well, you'll recollect - I'm going to digress just slightly here - you remember we were talking about the [U.S. government's] concentration camp program, that we'd done a Report on that, as well, but that was [already] in existence - I think we were talking about that for a brief time on your last program.
Clinton was asked by Sarah McClendon [a senior member of the White House press corps] at a March press conference to deny this, to deny all these allegations about the U.S. army being merged with the Russian army, and counties in southern states being given to the U.N. for biospheric reasons [and about the U.S. government's concentration camp program], and so forth. And this is what Clinton had to say. Clinton said, [laughs] "Well, I want Americans to think about this." I'm paraphrasing slightly. "How can we be an independent sovereign nation when we're leading an increasingly interdependent world. This means that Americans are going to have to think about these issues and we're going to have to make some very difficult decisions in the future." Now this was in answer to a question about concentration camps being set up in the United States. So that's the kind of future they've got planned internally. And we've seen the kinds of laws they've tried to force through, the Counter-Terrorism Bill and so forth. We've seen increasing acts of terrorism. Those are the kinds of things that they are planning to unleash upon the North American population because we are too free. And that freedom needs to be restricted and corralled.
We've got, as you rightly said, a tremendous threat from Red China. We've also got the looming threat of a war in Bosnia. They desperately want this. They're going to go after those war criminals, they're going to excite the local Serbs, and they're going to get their war. There's a very real possibility, too, of a nasty conflict in the Middle East which would drive oil prices through the roof. And we have no reserves on hand and nothing available for over a decade apart from [those oil] resources in the Middle East. And, of course, that will send tremendous shocks through the stock market. All of these things help them. So we can expect those things to happen, apart from whatever restrictions they plan to bring in over the next year [because of] the environmental movement...
Quinn: Back now to John Whitley, in Toronto, Canada. A couple of other subjects that were covered at the Bilderberger meeting; ah, Islam....
Whitley: They're maneuvering, of course, to make Islam a big terrorist threat. Islam is something that they've penetrated. Many of the leaders like Khomeini [paid a stipend by the CIA during his "exile" in Paris] were actually CIA-financed and front men. So, you know, it's something they've really been maneuvering to bring into the gap that the Soviet Union has kind of left empty. Plus they need increased terrorism to bring in their recommendations on global governance, which will essentially take our freedom away in exchange for giving us "guaranteed security". in their own words. For that, you need increased terrorism and that is equivalent to "terrorist Islam".
You can read this amazing interview in full at http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/quinn-p.htm
WASHINGTON - North American national borders would be virtually eliminated under plans being considered by senior business and political leaders from Canada, the United States and Mexico for a "NAFTA-plus," continent-wide, customs-free zone with a common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security.
A tri-national task force, chaired by former Liberal Party deputy prime minister John Manley, with the full backing of all three governments, is plotting the roadmap for this new, bolder alliance meant to compete with the European Union. William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts and Pedro Aspe, former Mexican finance minister, join Manley on the panel that reports directly to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The mission has the formal blessing of Tom Ridge, U.S. Homeland Security secretary, who is close with President Bush.
The committee is scheduled to issue its report next spring.
The elimination of borders along the lines of the EU experiment seems to be high on the agenda of the panel.
"I think we've had 11 years of incrementalism, and during that time we've seen the EU expand its borders, eliminate borders among (member) countries and launch a common currency," explains Manley in the diplomatic magazine Embassy. "We're going to have to provide a vision that is more bold than incrementalism. What's the choice? Europe has made enormous steps in the years since NAFTA was signed. China has been going through a transformative process. In Canada, our only leverage is access to the U.S. market. If we're not going to develop and pursue how we use our advantage of location to be the foundation for future prosperity, then we are going to have to figure out another vision."
The "NAFTA-plus" plan has also been referred to as "deep integration." Skeptics see it as a plan to eliminate national sovereignty and erode the American concept of representative government accountable to the people under the framework of the Constitution.
Discussions so far indicate that Canada, under the new agreement, would immediately sign on to the U.S. strategic missile defense initiative. Canada would also make its vast lumber resources available to the U.S. and Mexican markets and provide more open access to the northern neighbor's oil, natural gas and hydro-electric power resources.
Other members of the task force include: Canadian Finance Minister Michael Wilson and Nelson Cunningham of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm, Kissinger McLarty Associates.
As Ottawa prepares to receive George W. Bush in the next few months, expect lots of lectures about how vital Canada-U.S. trade is and how devastated we'd be if the president were to suddenly shut down the border.
This is designed to convince us of the need to walk on eggshells when he gets here, keep protesters out of sight and perhaps whisk outspoken Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish to an undisclosed location outside the capital.
It will be easy to lose sight of an obvious truth - the U.S. trades with us not because Bush has fond feelings for our political leaders or thinks Canadians are nice people who really like him. It trades with us because it's in the U.S. interest to do so.
I know this doesn't fit with the view that world events turn on the rapport between political leaders. We're told, for instance, that it was Brian Mulroney's Irish charm that convinced Ronald Reagan to support the Canada-U.S. free-trade deal, the forerunner of NAFTA.
And we're now told that it's essential Prime Minister Paul Martin be accommodating so Bush will feel fondly towards Canadians whenever he's contemplating slamming the border shut.
In fact, Bush has no intention of slamming the border shut. That would cut off his Number 1 source of energy.
Commentators here tend to stress how much bigger and more powerful the U.S. is, and how desperately we want access to the American market. True, but the U.S. desperately wants access to our energy.
Few things are more important to U.S. policymakers - particularly in the Bush administration - than access to energy. Their hopes of remaining the dominant superpower, economically and militarily, hinge on access to this most essential commodity. But there's a problem.
Notwithstanding images of swaggering Texas oilmen and Jed Clampett's backyard gusher, the U.S. is short on oil.
It has 3 per cent of the world's oil. But, with their voracious energy appetites, Americans consume 25 per cent of the world's oil. This leaves them heavily dependent on foreign sources. Each year they became more dependent. They now import more than half of all their oil.
This explains why one of the first things Dick Cheney did after assuming the vice-presidency was set up a top-level task force on America's energy security, chaired by himself.
It also explains why, long before 9/11 and the launching of the "war on terror," Cheney and other top figures in the Bush administration were focused on Iraq - the largest remaining untapped oil bonanza on Earth.
But their attention also focused northward. Far from the mayhem of the Middle East lie the vast oil and gas reserves of Canada. Such a co-operative little country. So eager to please. Not an insurgent in sight.
Washington has long coveted our ample energy resources, and it scored a huge victory in the early '90s when it got Ottawa to agree to a provision in NAFTA that prevents us from cutting back our energy exports to the U.S., unless we cut our own consumption by the same amount. So, even if there were a severe oil shortage in parts of Canada, we wouldn't be allowed to cut oil exports to the U.S. and redirect them to shivering Canadians.
This was a stunning capitulation on Canada's part. Not that we don't want to sell our energy south of the border. But why would we be willing to give up our ultimate control over such a precious resource, especially one that may well become scarce in the coming decades?
It's easy to see why NAFTA was regarded as a breakthrough in the U.S., making Canada its largest and most secure supplier of energy.
So it wasn't really Mulroney's Irish charm that won the day. American planners had long dreamed of getting secure access to our energy. Even Reagan could grasp that.
Now the U.S. is back for more. This time it's pushing for a full continental energy pact, under which, among other things, our electricity grids and environmental review processes could be integrated.
And it looks like Canada is once again likely to oblige.
Canada is currently participating in a task force, along with the U.S. and Mexico, to plan the expansion of NAFTA, including a continental energy pact. The task force includes some of Canada's most prominent advocates for deeper Canada-U.S. integration, such as former deputy prime Minister John Manley and business lobbyist Tom d'Aquino.
So it looks like the Americans are about to secure even greater access to our energy. And they'll have done it without sending in a single troop. The only loose cannon they'll have to face is Parrish.
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.
Following George W. Bush's re-election last week, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin reiterated his Liberal government's desire for closer relations with Washington. When he phoned Bush to congratulate him, Martin invited the US President to make his first official visit to Ottawa. Planning is now said to be well advanced for a presidential visit, most likely before Bush's January 20 second-term inauguration.
Martin made the need to repair relations with Washington-which became strained when the Canadian government balked at the eleventh-hour at joining the US invasion of Iraq-a central theme of his campaign to replace Jean Chrétien at the head of the Liberal government. However, Martin has been increasingly criticized by Canada's corporate-controlled media and big business for failing to deliver on this promise since becoming Prime Minister in December 2003. Typical was a comment last week by Thomas D'Aquino, the president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), which represents the country's 150 biggest corporations. D'Aquino chastised Martin for repeatedly delaying giving the Bush administration a favorable answer to its request that Canada participate in the US missile defence shield program. "What you need on an issue like this is leadership. If you're going to make a controversial decision it's your responsibility to go out and explain to the people what the pros and cons are. You can't simply hide in your wine cellar..."
Martin has also been derided for failing to kick Carolyn Parrish out of the Liberal's parliamentary caucus. An Ontario Liberal MP, Parrish has repeatedly denounced Bush as a war-monger and criticized him and his entourage as idiots. Martin's "put a pretty big emphasis on improving Canada-US relations-or at least said he's going to," commented Canadian Federation of Independent Business President Catherine Swift last week. "Wouldn't [putting Parrish out of the caucus] be a clearer signal that he means what he says?"
One factor in Martin's equivocation is the strong popular antipathy toward the Bush administration, the occupation of Iraq, and a more bellicose US imperialism. According to a recent opinion poll, four out of five Canadians believe that the US is acting like "a rogue nation." A second factor is the recognition that a closer partnership with the US cuts across the Canadian nationalist ideology that the ruling class has promoted, particularly through the Liberal Party, to harness working people to its rule. Historically mainstream Canadian nationalism was identified with the Conservative Party, the British Empire and opposition to the egalitarian spirit of US democracy. But in recent decades, it has been given, with the assistance of the social-democrats and trade union bureaucracy, a "left" spin, with the Canadian nation-state falsely held up as a pacific and progressive alternative to the rapacious dollar republic to the south.
The most powerful sections of Canada's corporate elite are convinced, however, that the economic and geo-political shifts of the past decade leave them no choice but to seek a closer economic, strategic and military partnership with the US, so as to secure their predatory interests in a world characterized by an ever-more frenzied struggle for markets, profits and natural resources.
The disruption of Canada-US border traffic in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks brought home to Canadian big business its vulnerability in the event that Canada should find itself outside Fortress America. With 85 percent of all Canadian exports going to the US and some 40 percent of Canada's GNP tied to Canada-US trade, no major country in the world is so dependent on a single trading partner.
There are also concerns within Canada's elite that their historically privileged relationship with Wall Street and Washington is being eroded as the US forges free trade deals with other states, new countries like Mexico and China emerge as major trading partners and sites of US investment, and Britain and Australia assume the role of the US's most loyal military allies.
Brian Mulroney, the Tory prime minister who negotiated the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and who since retiring from politics has emerged as one of the country's most influential corporate directors, has spoken repeatedly in favor of a Canada-US customs union and a "common security perimeter."
Last April, the CCCE, far and away the country's most powerful business lobby group, issued a 43-page manifesto titled "New Frontiers: Building a 21st Century Canada-US Partnership in North America." It calls for the Canadian government to seek a special relationship with the US that would ensure that Canada-US commerce would not be disrupted by US security concerns and that would place Canadian goods and companies beyond the ambit of normal US trade laws. "Economic and physical security," declares the CCCE, are "inseparable." We "must integrate our plans for achieving economic advantage with a strategy for assuring the security both of our own borders and the continent as whole."
While the CCCE says it is not necessarily in favor of a single negotiation aimed at reconfiguring the entire Canada-US relationship, it is categorical in its rejection of an incremental approach in response to emerging issues. The Canadian government, it insists, must actively promote a closer partnership, what some have called NAFTA-plus, others "deep integration."
To secure a closer Canada-US partnership, the CCCE advocates that the Canadian government address US concerns about Canada serving as an entry point for terrorists and drastically increase its military capacity and military cooperation with the US.
While the CCCE does not explicitly criticize the Liberal government's decision to keep the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) out of the US invasion of Iraq, it deplores the current state of Canada's military, calls for a "major infusion of new money" into border and internal security and the military, urges Ottawa to sign on to the US missile defence program forthwith, and advocates a major expansion of the CAF's capabilities to deal with both crises within North America and to intervene overseas. "[If] we are going to do our duty to ourselves and to Canadian values, we have to show the world that we are no longer a free rider on American coattails and a toothless advocate of soft power, and instead are serious about being a true ally in the struggle for global peace and security."
As a further means of winning US support, the CCCE advocates that the Canadian government offer Washington and Wall Street a "resource security pact." While such a pact would exempt Canadian lumber from US trade actions, it offers the US the far greater prize of increased and guaranteed access to Canada's energy resources. Canada-with its oil, natural gas and hydro-electric power-is already far and away the largest exporter of energy to the US, and Canadian business hopes to attract US investment in numerous energy projects in the far north, Quebec and Alberta's tar sands.
The five elements of the CCCE's "comprehensive strategy" are: 1) reinventing borders, i.e., working with the US to establish a common security perimeter through far greater security-intelligence cooperation and possibly the introduction of a Canadian national identity card with biometric identifiers; 2) the harmonization of business regulations in Canada and the US, in effect a mechanism for further gutting environmental and labor standards in both countries; 3) a "resource security pact"; 4) "reinvigorating the North American Defence Alliance"; and 5) developing new institutions to manage the Canada-US partnership.
That the CCCE's proposals have attracted the attention of the Liberal government, as well as Canada's NAFTA partners, was indicated last month, when, the Canadian, Mexican and US governments gave their blessing to the establishment of a task force to "examine regional integration since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement ten years ago."
The task force has been organized under the auspices of the US Council on Foreign Relations, a body that functions as a quasi-official foreign policy think tank of the US government and publishes the journal Foreign Affairs. According to the lead article in the Oct. 16 National Post, "Senior business and political leaders from Canada, the United States and Mexico are joining forces to establish a blueprint for a powerhouse North American trading bloc to take on the world, shielded by a Fortress-America style defence perimeter."
Co-chairing the task force are a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, ex-Mexican Finance Minster Pedro Aspe, and, from Canada, the former Liberal Deputy Prime Minster John Manley.
CCCE President and CEO D'Aquino has been named one of the task force's three vice co-chairs. Other members of the tri-national task force include former federal Tory Finance Minister and Bay Street executive Michael Wilson, former Quebec Premier and Parti Québécois leader Pierre-Marc Johnson, former Alberta Treasurer and current TransAlta executive James Dinning, and Tom Axworthy, a former principal secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau. US participants include Nelson Cunningham of Henry Kissinger's strategic counselling firm Kissinger McLarty Associates, Heidi Cruz of Merrill Lynch, and several former US ambassadors to Canada. Mexico is represented by leading businessmen and academics, including Alfonso de Angotia of Grupo Televisa.
The committee, which is to report in the summer of 2005, is to examine the possibility of the three NAFTA partners developing common tariff and regulatory policies-i.e., a customs union-and increased security cooperation.
On a visit to Canada late last month, Mexican President Vicente Fox voiced support for a NAFTA-plus, saying that a closer North American economic bloc was needed to meet the threat of China. The Mexican elite entered into NAFTA with the hope that Mexico's large reserves of cheap labor would attract massive US investment in export-oriented assembly operations. Such operations did grow significantly in NAFTA's early years, but the Mexican elite's maquiladora strategy has since been seriously undercut by the emergence of China as the world's largest site of export-assembly production.
The most powerful sections of Canadian capital seek a closer partnership with the United States to intensify their assault on the working class at home, profit from US economic and geo-political domination around the world, and better position themselves to confront their business rivals in Europe and Asia. Weaker sections of Canadian capital who fear they will be marginalized or eliminated as a result of closer economic integration with the US, along with the social-democratic NDP and the trade union bureaucracy, can be expected to oppose NAFTA-plus from the reactionary standpoint of the defence of the of the Canadian capitalist nation-state and "Canadian" jobs and businesses.
The bourgeoisie's deployment of global economic integration to intensify the assault on workers' jobs, wages and social benefits and the ever-intensifying economic and geo-struggle among rival, nationally-based capitalist cliques for profits, natural resources and pools of labor to exploit points to the urgency of uniting workers in Canada, the US and Mexico with the international working class in a common struggle against capitalism its nation-state system.
A three-country task force sponsored by the American Council on Foreign Relations, studying how to enhance trade among Canada, Mexico and the United States was announced last week and held its first meeting in Toronto. A report will be released in the spring of 2005, following a December meeting in New York City and another in Monterrey, Mexico in February. Former deputy prime minister John Manley, the Canadian chair, spoke with Embassy on Oct.25. The following is an excerpt:
Q: What did you accomplish last week, and what realistic expectations do you have of the outcome?
A: We addressed what the scope of the project was and began some of the discussions. First, the economic integration and second, the matter of security harmonization and cooperation. Some of the things I want to see discussed include: a common external tariff, what we can do about harmonization... and our response on trade remedy matters. A year or so ago, the U.S. brought anti-dumping action against European steel producers. Canada and Mexico were exempted from the U.S. action, but we were not in a position to propose parallel measures to those of the U.S. Trade remedy action is one area we need to talk about.
These are some of the issues in both the economic discussion. As well [there is] the security discussion some of the pressure at the border: how we would react if there was another terrorist attack the magnitude of 9/11?
Q: What challenges does a minority government in Canada pose to further muscling up on a common customs union within North America?
A: It's not a government issue at this point this is an independent task force. What governments do with it will be up to them. My hope is that we really do get a lot of interest and people are responsive to ideas that we put forward. Some of the biggest steps forward in Canadian history have been made during minority governments the Auto Pact, the new flag, public health care.
Q: In your opinion, will a John Kerry or a George Bush win do more to advance a strengthened trade and security policy across North America?
A: I think one of the issues that the U.S. is going to continue to wrestle with is how to maintain their own security. It became a challenge for us when so many news outlets and decision-makers in the U.S. wrongly believed that some of the 9/11 terrorist entered the U.S. from Canada. Despite the fact they didn't, we still need to be sensitive to concerns... keeping the border open is of unquestionable interest to us.
Q: As the Canadian chair will you be demanding an end to trade disputes, such as softwood lumber or mad cow?
A: I think one of the issues around mad cow is that we haven't done a very good job of [establishing a] harmonized framework of inspections and other systems. That is one of the things that we would surely want to accomplish.
Q: Should we try to solve trade and security issues one-by-one (incrementally) or should we work toward a series of measures announced in a 'big bang' package?
A: I think we've had 11 years of incrementalism, and during that time we've seen the EU expand its borders, eliminate borders among (member) countries, and launch a common currency. We're going to have to provide a vision that is more bold than incrementalism. What's the choice? Europe has made enormous steps in the years since NAFTA was signed. China has been going through a transformative process. In Canada, our only leverage is access to the U.S. market. If we're not going to develop and pursue how we use our advantage of location to be the foundation for future prosperity, then we are going to have to figure out another vision.
Q: Does security trump trade as U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci has remarked in the past?
A: I think that if we're going to have the attention of the U.S. government, we are going to have to address the security concerns there. I don't think there is any doubt about that. I think Ambassador Cellucci is accurately describing the viewpoint of the current administration and the next administration, whomever wins. I don't think the Americans can truly be secure if they don't address economic issues as well. Looking at it from a Canadian or Mexican point of view, we have to understand that security is a preoccupation of the U.S.
Q: In your opinion, will it be difficult to convince the Canadian government which seems fixed on entering new and emerging markets to strengthen trade relations with Mexico?
A: We have done a lot of Canada's position in new and emerging markets ... it's important work and it's work that needs to be done. But the volumes are very small compared with what we do in North America.
OTTAWA, Canada - 10/29/04 - Mexican President Vicente Fox has called for closer economic integration among Canada, the US, and his own country to challenge China's rising economic power, reports the Toronto Globe & Mail.
"All three of us are losing jobs to China," he said in an interview with the paper. "We, in a way, have a destiny that is common to the three of us."
Fox said there is reason to believe that by building on the 10-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the three countries can compete against China.
Some companies, he said, have already become "NAFTA companies," with parts of their operations in each of the three countries.
"The three of our countries were losing jobs to China, and through this strategic association, and working as NAFTA corporations, we've regained competitiveness and regained market share throughout the world" to specifically meet the challenge, he told the paper.
Fox said "a refined NAFTA could encourage this trend."
For example, he said, "the agreement could be changed to make it easier for a company to have its financial operations in one member country, its research and development in a second, and its manufacturing in a third, whichever was most economically advantageous."
The Mexican government has been particularly concerned about the loss of labor-intensive manufacturing and assembling jobs to China where wages are lower, Fox told the paper.
But strengthening the strategic partnership of NAFTA, and even broadening the agreement into what the Mexican president called "NAFTA plus," would, he said, "help protect the economies of all three countries."
In a speech earlier in the day, Fox told the Canadian Parliament that he has a vision for transforming North America into a "region of co-operation and integration."
Mexican officials, he said, are particularly keen on closer integration of the energy sector, noting that Canada and Mexico are major petroleum producers and the US is an enormous consumer.
Mexico also wants closer three-way co-operation on international security and anti-terrorism strategies, he added.
"The time has come to reflect on the best way to build a new community of North America…I am also convinced that Canada and Mexico have much to contribute to the design and operation of this regional co-operation and integration scheme," Fox told the Canadian politicians.
But Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose weakened minority government is conducting a foreign-policy review, provided few words of encouragement for the Mexican chief executive.
For the moment, the Globe & Mail reported, the Martin government is going no further than announcing a "Canada-Mexico Partnership" agreement to encourage private- and public-sector political and economic discussions at senior levels.
Fox is on a three-day working visit to Canada to promote trade and investment. He brought along a large delegation that included seven cabinet ministers.
In his interview with the widely-circulated paper, Fox said his opposition to the US "invasion" of Iraq "has not caused any lasting damage to Mexico's relations with the administration of US President George W. Bush."
Nor was he especially concerned that Senator John Kerry, the Democratic challenger to President Bush in next week's presidential election, has been a harsh critic of NAFTA.
Mexico has an established relationship with the US that is "very, very institutional. It's not related to names or persons," and ongoing programs, such as NAFTA won't be affected, Fox said.
Moreover, he added, "politicians' statements during an election campaign are one thing, and our relationship and our working together is thoroughly apart from elections."
The Mexican delegation had hoped to get Ottawa to expand a program that allows low-skill migrant workers from Mexico to work in Canada.
More than 10,000 Mexican fruit pickers and farm hands come to Canada each year to work. Fox said he would like Canada to broaden the program to include workers in construction and the tourism-service industries.
But Ottawa simply agreed to a pilot project and to continue to study the issue.
The low-skill migrant labor program with Canada is not terribly important economically for Mexico. Annual remittances amount to about C$80million annually.
However, some Mexican officials say the program is very important diplomatically as a model for a possible similar agreement with the US, which employs hundreds of thousands of temporary Mexican workers each year.
OTTAWA -- The minority Liberal government will have to decide by year's end whether to renew the mandate of a joint Canada-U.S. military planning group, which has been working on an ambitious project that could bring the armies and navies of both countries under a single command for North American defence...
One step closer to the new 'North American Union' - then 'Goodbye, U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights - Hello, Newstates Constitution' (already written, ready and waiting, by the way, courtesy of the Ford Foundation).
For the full background to this CFR-sponsored all-out assault on U.S. and Canadian liberty and sovereignty, see the astonishing and prophetic interview at http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/quinn-p.htm
Remember also, as you read the story below, that an agreed part of this current 'unity' process is the enforcement of a personal identity card requirement for every American and Canadian citizen.
From the TORONTO STAR article below...
WACO, Tex.-President George W. Bush has shrugged off Prime Minister Paul Martin's non-participation in his missile-defence program as a small detour on the road to closer, more sweepingly co-operative ties with Canada.
"Look, we've got differences. I don't know if you'd categorize them as differences that would then prevent us from finding common ground. I don't view it that way," Bush said yesterday after meeting with Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox to unveil a sweeping new plan for a "security and prosperity partnership" among the three nations.
"The fundamental question is: Do we have the capacity to continue moving forward with the relationship? And the answer is absolutely."
It was the first face-to-face meeting between Bush and Martin since Canada rebuffed the president's missile-defence scheme last month. The missile-defence decision and Canada's previous decision not to join the war in Iraq were seen as major irritants in the relationship. Canadian officials were pointing to the Texas meeting as a time to renew the relationship and to show it had not suffered major damage.
Yesterday, the president appeared eager to move on.
The three leaders sealed a complex, itemized pact committing them to a "security and prosperity partnership of North America" - security being Bush's main concern, and prosperity, or trade, the major issue for Martin going into yesterday's meeting.
Beyond their collective worries about terrorists or trade irritants, however, all three leaders noted yesterday that their drive to greater co-operation comes from the growing economic tide in Asia and particularly China and India.
"There is no doubt there is a recognition that the changes occurring in the global economy as a result of the rapid growth we're seeing in China, to be followed very quickly, in fact already by India, is going to change the nature of the world's economy," Martin said. "The desire to make North America as competitive as possible ... is certainly an important force behind this."
Their pact commits the "three amigos," as they're called, as well as their ministers and governments, to an immediate 90-day working plan on everything from enhancing border security to better co-operation on shared concerns on the environment, the spread of disease and the food supply. It's a plan that focuses heavily on clearing away what bureaucrats like to call "underbrush" in the relationship; red tape and regulations that are estimated to cost each country millions of dollars each year in trade tie-ups.
"It's not a big bang, but it's big progress," Martin said repeatedly yesterday.
The words "missile defence" were not even uttered in public, or in private, Martin confirmed yesterday after a working lunch at Bush's ranch.
"The issue's closed and we've moved on," Martin said.
"I can understand why people disagree with certain decisions I have made," Bush told reporters, noting: "I'm amazed that we don't have more sharp - whatever you call them - disagreements, because we're doing a lot together."
Martin, however, actually went out of his way early in the day to point out publicly to Bush where there were other Canada-U.S. disagreements, specifically on softwood lumber, the continuing beef ban at the border, proposed oil drilling at an Alaskan wildlife reserve and a U.S. drainage project at Devil's Lake, N.D., which is viewed as a serious environmental threat to Manitoba.
Only on the oil-drilling plan were the two leaders at odds still when the meetings yesterday were over, Martin said, and he noted that his visit had been an important opportunity to advance the concerns, even if nothing concrete immediately flows from his talks with Bush.
"On this kind of an issue, you should raise them every time," he said.
Bush also made no secret yesterday of his support for more open trade and said he would remind protectionist-leaning Americans that the value of that approach includes more access to Canada's energy exports.
The Prime Minister's pointed mention of troublesome Canada-U.S. issues, in a lengthier-than-usual prepared statement, also seemed to be a subtle reply to his last joint news conference with Bush late last year, at which Canada was caught off guard by the president's open and unexpected appeal for Martin's support of missile defence.
It was also obviously addressed as much to critics back in Canada, who have been arguing that Martin is too keen to be friendly with Bush to risk raising issues that mar the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Friendship was clearly on display yesterday. After their working session in the morning, the three leaders went off to Bush's private ranch at Crawford, where they dined simply on grilled chicken breasts, green salad, cheese biscuits and chocolate-chip brownies.
Bush gave Martin a gift of black cowboy boots, embossed with the Prime Minister's initials and the flags of Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Martin presented Bush with a hardwood bowl, carved by a Muskoka artist, while he gave Fox a Haida-carved wooden box.
In a brief appearance before reporters at the Prairie Chapel Ranch yesterday, as the three leaders walked along with Barney, the president's Scottish terrier, a casually dressed Martin joked that the big difference between Bush's farm and his own in Quebec's Eastern townships was the lack of snow.
Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, a dog lover, reportedly insisted on posing for a picture at the ranch while she held Barney and the president held Barney's canine companion, Miss Beazley.
Asked whether he would invite Bush and Fox to his own farm, Martin smiled and said: "I certainly would." Later, he told reporters that this didn't amount to a full-fledged invitation and there would need to be more negotiations on the site and timing of their next gathering, due to take place sometime after the first 90-day progress report on the new partnership plan.
Martin made special mention of the fact that he found the ranch "nice," and McLellan quickly corrected him: "Really nice." He also said that he would describe his relationship with Bush as an "easy" one.
There was also an underlying message, however, that this friendship remains within limits. For the most part, for example, Bush and Martin avoided any talk of wider North American integration, as has recently been proposed by a U.S.-Canada business panel that included former deputy prime minister John Manley.
Martin said none of the nations has compromised sovereignty, rather, that it had been strengthened for all. "Are we going to move towards (a European Union)-type arrangement? The answer is No," Martin said.
Canada's new ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna, took part in yesterday's morning sessions at Baylor University in Waco, telling Canadian reporters that he's already been involved in no fewer than a half-dozen meetings with Bush administration officials and on his way to a good working relationship. Yesterday's announcement gives him significant direction for his new job, he said.
The so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America" is indeed more of a working plan across a whole field of issues, which seems to proceed from the idea that real national relationships are all in the details. It builds on the same kind of detail work that has been done in the so-called "smart borders" agreement already in place
and expands that plan.
Martin seems to have abandoned any grand hopes for a wholesale review of the dispute-settlement structure within the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he used to say has proved its inefficacy through the long-running problem of the softwood-lumber dispute. He seems to have reconciled himself to fixing this problem in the complex
realm of regulations and fine points.
"The three leaders sealed a complex, itemized pact committing them to a "security and prosperity partnership of North America" - security being Bush's main concern, and prosperity, or trade, the major issue for Martin going into yesterday's meeting."
BUSH, MARTIN MAKE NEW START ON UNITY
Leaders put rifts over missile defence, Iraq behind them
Susan Delacourt,,
Summit with Mexico results in `security, prosperity' accord
Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau Chief,
Thursday, March 24th, 2005
(These news items are posted under 'Fair Use' provisions)
See also:
'The Coming 'North American Union': The Elite
Plan The End Of Canada And The U.S.''The 1935 U.S. War Plan For The Invasion Of Canada'
'Canadian Troops To Police U.S. Cities During Martial Law?
U.S. Troops To Seize Strategic James Bay Hydro Plant If Quebec Separates?''More Preparations For U.S. Martial Law'
'The Constitution for the Newstates of America'
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