H
Hydrogen
Guest
Fine, then they are different in degree - but a significant degree.
As for Bush leaving office, we'll all find out January 20th, 2009.
As for Bush leaving office, we'll all find out January 20th, 2009.
|
|
|
Let's Save Canada - Stop the North American Union
- Thread starter Drocker
- Start date
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
No thinking person could describe Bush's crimes as anything less that hugely significant.
Pep'rJack
Active Member
.
Continental integration on the march
by Linda McQuaig
July 10, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/234049
It's a great irony that, while the United States has probably never been less popular among Canadians than in the era of George W. Bush, plans to integrate Canada more deeply into the U.S. have been proceeding at a brisk clip.
The threat of Canada being absorbed into the U.S. has traditionally provoked strong reactions here, as the pitched electoral battles over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1980s and '90s attest.
But the issue seems to have largely disappeared in recent years, leaving the impression that the push for deeper integration has stopped or that Canadians no longer care about it. Neither is true.
Rather, what's happened is that those pushing for deeper Canada-U.S. integration – principally members of the corporate elite on both sides of the border – have become more sophisticated in their strategy. Rather than loudly trumpeting their agenda, they've made their push largely invisible.
Their latest vehicle is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Since it was officially launched by the leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in March 2005, it's operated largely under the radar, even though it deals with some of the most important issues a nation faces – national security and energy, as well as trade.
Given the centrality of these issues, one would have thought that any changes – especially changes that would make Canada more like the U.S. – should involve wide consultation with the Canadian people.
But exactly the opposite is happening. The public has been completely shut out of the SPP process. The key advisory body in the SPP is an all-business group called the North American Competitiveness Council, made up of 30 CEOs from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
It's fine to have input from business, but why only business? Corporations have interests which are not necessarily the same as the broader public interest; indeed, these two sets of interests are often in conflict.
Take the small example of the harmonization of regulations involving pesticides. This harmonizing of standards – in the interest of removing "trade barriers" – has been underway for more than a decade under NAFTA, but it is now being fast-tracked under the SPP.
So, as the Ottawa Citizen reported in May, Canada is raising the limits on pesticide residue permitted on fruits and vegetables, to bring Canadian standards into line with weaker U.S. standards.
As a citizen and an eater of fruits and vegetables, this alarms me. Canada's standards are already weak enough. For example, both Canada and the U.S. permit the pesticide permethrin to be used at levels 400 times higher than the European Union permits; we allow methoxychlor at levels 1,400 times above the European limit, according to a study by Canadian environmental lawyer David Boyd.
Shouldn't our government be tightening our standards, not quietly watering them down further to make things easier for those in the business of selling these – and other – products?
Regulatory harmonization is just one small area that the SPP is working on. I'll deal with the more contentious issues – security and energy – in a later column, all in the interest of setting the stage for next month, when Bush arrives in Montebello, Que., for what he, Stephen Harper and Mexican president Felipe Calderon are no doubt hoping will be an opportunity to quietly discuss the SPP and weigh the advice of their business council.
No public consultations have been planned for Montebello. Indeed, security measures will ensure the leaders hear as little as possible from the people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
McQuaig's new book:
http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Bully...4876904?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184097623&sr=8-2
.
Continental integration on the march
by Linda McQuaig
July 10, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/234049
It's a great irony that, while the United States has probably never been less popular among Canadians than in the era of George W. Bush, plans to integrate Canada more deeply into the U.S. have been proceeding at a brisk clip.
The threat of Canada being absorbed into the U.S. has traditionally provoked strong reactions here, as the pitched electoral battles over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1980s and '90s attest.
But the issue seems to have largely disappeared in recent years, leaving the impression that the push for deeper integration has stopped or that Canadians no longer care about it. Neither is true.
Rather, what's happened is that those pushing for deeper Canada-U.S. integration – principally members of the corporate elite on both sides of the border – have become more sophisticated in their strategy. Rather than loudly trumpeting their agenda, they've made their push largely invisible.
Their latest vehicle is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Since it was officially launched by the leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in March 2005, it's operated largely under the radar, even though it deals with some of the most important issues a nation faces – national security and energy, as well as trade.
Given the centrality of these issues, one would have thought that any changes – especially changes that would make Canada more like the U.S. – should involve wide consultation with the Canadian people.
But exactly the opposite is happening. The public has been completely shut out of the SPP process. The key advisory body in the SPP is an all-business group called the North American Competitiveness Council, made up of 30 CEOs from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
It's fine to have input from business, but why only business? Corporations have interests which are not necessarily the same as the broader public interest; indeed, these two sets of interests are often in conflict.
Take the small example of the harmonization of regulations involving pesticides. This harmonizing of standards – in the interest of removing "trade barriers" – has been underway for more than a decade under NAFTA, but it is now being fast-tracked under the SPP.
So, as the Ottawa Citizen reported in May, Canada is raising the limits on pesticide residue permitted on fruits and vegetables, to bring Canadian standards into line with weaker U.S. standards.
As a citizen and an eater of fruits and vegetables, this alarms me. Canada's standards are already weak enough. For example, both Canada and the U.S. permit the pesticide permethrin to be used at levels 400 times higher than the European Union permits; we allow methoxychlor at levels 1,400 times above the European limit, according to a study by Canadian environmental lawyer David Boyd.
Shouldn't our government be tightening our standards, not quietly watering them down further to make things easier for those in the business of selling these – and other – products?
Regulatory harmonization is just one small area that the SPP is working on. I'll deal with the more contentious issues – security and energy – in a later column, all in the interest of setting the stage for next month, when Bush arrives in Montebello, Que., for what he, Stephen Harper and Mexican president Felipe Calderon are no doubt hoping will be an opportunity to quietly discuss the SPP and weigh the advice of their business council.
No public consultations have been planned for Montebello. Indeed, security measures will ensure the leaders hear as little as possible from the people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
McQuaig's new book:
http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Bully...4876904?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184097623&sr=8-2
.
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Okay, how about different in terms of sheer numbers, will that satisfy you? Or will you feel the urgent need to try to slip in some little remark at this as well (and I'm sure you will).
Maybe it would be worth your while to read up just a little more about the doings of Hitler and Stalin. You just might rekindle a sense of understanding of just how the doings of Bush et al. are different in terms of proportion than those of the previously mentioned absolute dictators. To say one is worse than the other is not to suggest that anyone gets let off the hook.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
I already said they were different in term of degree. You must not have read that.
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
Member Bio
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 4,107
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- a strange reality, bizarro toronto
have you ever noticed that when two things form a union, one side does the fucking and the other gets fucked? it's common reproductive knowledge.
i think, in the end, we'd be the ones bleeding from the ass.
i think, in the end, we'd be the ones bleeding from the ass.
AnarchoSocialist
Active Member
^Why do you think we take Mexico along for the ride? At least with someone else to distract them it means we have to deal with the hurt just a little less.
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Yes you did. Pardon me.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Certainly.
ShonTron
Moderator
Member Bio
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 12,520
- Reaction score
- 9,479
- Location
- Ward 13 - Toronto Centre
I thought a reason Mexico was brought along was because it's regulatory standards are even more lax than the States. So "harmonization" can be skewed farther to the bottom rung for regulations and standards.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I think the USA will rue the day they opened greater relations with Mexico, since the under practical realities of the Reconquista, the South-Western USA will again be part of Mexico.
Lone Primate
Active Member
To separate the southwest from the US and actually return it to Mexico, even if it could feasibly be managed, would be hugely disadvantageous to the people there. Why would they do it? They’re part of a larger nation with profoundly deeper pockets, a better infrastructure, a world-straddling (or strangling) armed forces, and broader and wider economic opportunities. A lot of that would be given up with they ceded themselves to Mexico; they’d be reassuming most of the problems that led them to leave in the first place. Aside from ethnic pride, there’s absolutely no reason to even contemplate it under current circumstances.
Far better would be the idea of simply slowly converting that part of the US to a more Hispanic norm; where Spanish was the common, or at least more common, language of business, government, and education, while maintaining the benefits of the broader union with the other US states. This does in truth seem to be what’s happening, actually.
JasonParis
Moderator
That sounds a bit like how we deal with French Canada, and that's not exactly a bad thing.
Lone Primate
Active Member
That actually occurred to me while I was framing the second paragraph but I didn't wanna be the one to say it.
