Watching Tom Clark’s West Block program on Global the other day sent a severe chill up the back. The show had two American guests General David Petraeous, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Robert Zoellick, former head of the World Bank. The two gentlemen were promoting their study for the United States Council on Foreign Relations entitled, North America: Time for a New Focus. It sounded very much like a blueprint for the takeover of America’s two neighbours.
The study makes the point forcefully that while a great deal of attention is paid to Europe and China, the number one and number two trading partners of America are Canada and Mexico. The report says that this relationship has to be consolidated so that North America will be the dominant trading force in the world.
The study stems from the realization that with the new oil and gas fracking capabilities and the exploitation of tar sands, North America is once again self-sufficient in energy. They see the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline by TransCanada as a no-brainer and essential to ultimate integration of the economies of the three countries.
The two chairs of the North American Task Force danced a bit when Tom Clark asked how open the borders should be between the three countries, They were okay with Canadians but pointed to the Mexican drug cartels and Central American migration as problems to be addressed before there can be greater investment in Mexico’s energy resources—and taking down America’s southern ‘wet-back walls.’
The two chairs also seemed oblivious to the many problems forced on Canada in expediting free trade as it currently exists. Has the U.S. president approved the customs plaza yet so that Canada can go ahead to build and pay for the new bridge at Detroit that is so desperately needed? And that is just one complaint to be voiced over being a junior partner in the American version of free trade.
Further integration of North America is probably going to happen. It is just cannot be all that Americans think it should be. What we have to be wary of is the carte blanche control of our country’s relationships with other parts of the world. The Americans have to realize that their democracy is measured by how it treats the democracies of others. Canada has too much to offer the world as an independent nation.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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