Notes for an address to:
“Trading Away Mexico”
April 13, 2005
National Press Club
Ottawa, Ontario
By: John W. Foster (*)
IMAGINARY CITIZENS
Responding to the attempt by the political establishment and the two right-wing parties in Mexico to prevent him running for President next year, Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador described the mentality of the people who reject and resist this sort of manipulation. The mentality of the people has changed, he said “Once we were imaginary citizens. Now we are real. And we are not going to go back.”
It reminded me of the popular response to the Asia Pacific APEC meeting in Vancouver a few years ago. You’ll recall that it was described by our government and others as a meeting of “economies” not a meeting of “countries” or “nations” and certainly not of “peoples”.
Nothing could better describe the way in which the advocates of so-called “deep integration” in North America approach their agenda. It is put forward as essentially a problem of economic management, the sort of thing that top managers and CEOs can handle, with a little help from their political allies. As for anyone else, citizens, you and me…imaginary! Just not there.
The recent meeting of the so-called “three Amigos” at the Bush Ranch at Crawford, Texas has given the proponents of deep integration, like Tom D’Aquino, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, a great deal to celebrate.
As west-coast journalist Murray Dobbin points out, they have succeeded in moving their agenda, from the CCCE through a trinational elite panel sponsored by the US Council on Foreign Relations right into the declaration of the two Presidents and the Prime Minister, without pausing to consult the citizens of any one of the three nations. And Mr. D’Aquino, many of whose Chief Executives are heads of American-owned and controlled corporations, call anyone who disagrees with the agenda “nationalist extremists.” In 2003 the CCCE launched what they called the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative. At the March 2005 Waco meeting, the three heads of government issued a statement entitled the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Not bad.
The agenda
There have been a number of studies and proposals from various Canadian think tanks, some of which like C.D. Howe have groups at work this week, all supporting what some call a “big idea”, others a “strategic initiative” among others. You can consult the website of the CCCE, for example, or seek one of the most recent, the statement of the Chairmen of the Council of Foreign Relations Task Force headed by John Manley, Mexico’s Pedro Aspe and former governor William Weld of Massachusetts. Tom D’Aquino is one of the vice-chairs. Just before the Waco summit they called for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010.
Common themes abound, in these proposals and they show up in the Waco statement of the three heads of government, the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
I don’t have the time to expand in detail on the major components, but the results of the Waco meeting do more than repeat the themes of the CCCE’s advice. They comprise a security agenda, a common screening of travelers at foreign point of departure and first North American port of entry, cargo and bioprotection strategies. Strategies for maritime and air security and enhanced partnership on intelligence. A comprehensive NA strategy for combating transnational threats including terrorism, organized crime, illegal drugs, migrant and contraband smuggling and trafficking, border facilitation for low-risk traffic across our shared borders.
And a prosperity agenda: harmonization of regulation in a variety of sectors, sectoral cooperation to enhance North American Competitiveness against emerging competitors elsewhere; enhanced transportation corridors and relief of border bottlenecks, and perhaps most importantly, enhanced cooperation in energy. The emphasis at the moment is on efficient movement of goods and reducing the costs of trade.
There is a section on enhancing the quality of life, no reference, of course, to Kyoto, but the desire to expand cooperative work on air quality, combating the spread of invasive species, enhanced water quality. Food safety and protection from infectious diseases are listed.
Mr. D’Aquino and CCCE Vice-President David Stewart-Patterson were worried that Waco would result in what they called “policy snack food”. And former Canadian Ambassador to the US, Alan Gotlieb is worried that it might yield only baby steps forward. Clearly the heads of government did not resolve a number of significant irritants nor establish clear ways of resolving them. However, the Waco Statement and companion Security Agenda and Prosperity Agenda are not cast-offs. Ministers will lead working groups, setting specific, measurable and achievable goals and report back in 90 days. Ministers will continue to report back every six months.
Despite the use of the word community at times, what strikes one, is the typification of North America as an “economic space”. The overall view in terms of future governance of this North American “economic space” is that the three heads of government would meet regularly and would be advised by an Advisory Council to prepare and monitor action to implement decisions. Given the success of the CCCE and its allies in advising their policy prescriptions right into and through the Waco Summit, why would you look any further for worthy advisors.
In short, while the press concentrated on the truck tour of the ranch and menus, the implications of the Waco meeting slipped by. In governance terms the chief executives achieved what they set out to do two years ago: get the government chiefs to act as a management team on their behalf, and ensure that their advice gets priority attention and adoption.
In policy terms, as Maude Barlow and a number of others have pointed out: no sector is off the table, key elements like deeper energy cooperation are central.
- The implications of regulation harmonization include the gradual erosion of what remains of policy autonomy.
- The implication of common tariffs and negotiating approaches is that the Canadian trade ministry becomes a ministerial assistant to the US Trade Representative.
- The implication of the border security and immigration measures are that a separate refugee policy is toast, if it isn’t already.
- The implications of further energy cooperation are probably more threatening to Mexican national ownership of petroleum, then they are to Canada, as we have already given up virtually all that remained of our energy autonomy.
So what appears to be a rather dry and low-key talk about nuts and bolts represents a major counter to the exercise of democratic sovereignty in Canada. It builds on elements of NAFTA which prioritize the rights of private corporations over those of democratic governments, like Chapter 11, and goes beyond.
Further, we need to remember that what has been agreed in the joint statement and agenda, is only a portion of what is recommended by the CCCE and its allies, and what they have published themselves, is, as Maude Barlow has pointed out, only a portion of the agenda they are considering and developing.
The challenge: what do we want
Kairos and its predecessor coalitions, trade unions, development and environmental groups have twenty years or more experience in collaboration with US and Mexican allies. In the context of the battles over NAFTA in the 1990s we established ongoing relationships build on shared discussion of values and priorities. We seldom agreed on every detail, but across three languages and countless sectoral and cultural assumptions we established a durable working relationship.
It is time to renew, refresh and expand those relationships. Prior to the Waco Summit we issued a joint statement which is available here tonight and on the Common Frontiers web-site. If you haven’t sampled it, there is also an animated version of our commentary on the Waco summit, at the same website.
Let me highlight just a few of the elements of the vision put forward in that joint statement of social movements:
Based on our experience of 11 years of NAFTA, we challenged the agenda choices of the meeting, and called for public debate.
We suggested that the leaders address themselves to human security
- ending poverty and reducing inequality in all three countries and among them
- protecting and improving the environment, supporting Kyoto and going beyond.
- Guaranteeing universal access to health care for all.
- Food sovereignty and a decent standard of life for rural as well as urban people
- Ratification and implementing international human rights agreements as the foundation for democratic governance.
With these fundamentals, debate should be encouraged about the appropriate democratic means of further participation and shaping relations among all the peoples of North America.
The statement did not go beyond these fundamentals in dealing with the issues of governance, sovereignty and democracy raised by the Waco Summit. We need to go further.
The European model of integration, with human rights treaties, an increasingly active parliament and practices of civil society and trade union engagement in policy making and execution hovers in the background. There are a number of reasons why a direct transfer is unlikely, not least of which is the history and attitude of the US Congress and the simple lack of public enthusiasm for such a project.
However some people have begun to consider what might be useful elements to consider. David Bonior, former Democratic Whip in the US Congress, and Carlos Heredia, former opposition foreign affairs critic in the Mexican Congress have suggested a couple of items which are worth considering:
- A common human rights declaration or convention. This is more challenging than one might think, as neither Canada nor the US have ratified the relevant hemispheric convention, and the US has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. My view would be that a joint citizen’s effort to achieve common ratification and build a common trinational instrument on that foundation could have the effect of renewing attention and priority for human rights.
- A trinational parliamentary assembly to deal with those issues, like migration, environment, etc., which particularly transcend borders.
I’m probably dreaming in technicolour, but I don’t see why the conversations about the future of North America should be restricted to how we ensure that the trucks move faster. In fact, in a post-Kyoto world, we need to think about how we have fewer trucks, consuming less carbon-based fuel moving in our environment, and find ways of sustaining our economy with lower energy consumption.
Moving forward
My fundamental point in all this is that whatever the way forward ought to be for North America, community or not, it should not be decided in the fashion which is currently practiced. Naturally, those whose priority is to facilitate business, want to keep it simple and very focused. But the implications of the assertion of their needs and priorities affect many more than themselves and their firms. Therefore we must, now, challenge the dominant assumptions, and broaden the discussion , the priorities and the participation, and from the ground up.
There are a number of opportunities which we can consider or create.
- The KAIROS mission to Mexico, which was not the first and I hope will not be the last such effort, is the sort of people to people encounter that needs to be multiplied, building understanding, solidarity, accountability and we sincerely hope, policy and behavioural change.
- We also have a history of civil society human rights investigations, mutual reflections on government civil society relations and trade union exchanges and joint actions.
- Our experience of civilian election monitoring goes back almost 15 years, and we have the opportunity in 2006 to do pre-election and election monitoring in partnership with Mexican allies. On at least one occasion Mexican observers have come to monitor a Canadian election. The opportunity to invite that kind of initiative may come sooner than we think.
- At the initiative of Mexican parliamentarians, a trinational meeting of sympathetic members of the US and Mexican Congresses and the Canadian parliament is projected for the near future.
Personally, I think we need something more, but I don’t think it’s a matter of a single person’s or single organization’s prescriptions. I think we need to work toward something like a trinational people’s commission, formally or informally, at least a search party, exploring common ground. The first objective of such an initiative would be simply to indicate that more people than corporate CEOs and former cabinet ministers are interested in the issues, and that the agenda is greater than the themes of economic management in corporate interests and militarized and invasive security prescriptions. I hope that a working party of Canadian organizations, like KAIROS and Common Frontiers and our American, Mexican and Quebecois allies might explore these possibilities soon. The common statement issued before the Waco meeting could be a good place to start – health – environment – agriculture – equality.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, we are faced with the same challenge that faced people of good will in Vancouver at the time of APEC. Are we passively waving flags as the limos of power roll by, or are we challenging them and the road map they’re following. Are we content to be treated as simply being not there, or are we willing to turn imaginary citizens into actors with imagination. Allies, whether in Mexico, Quebec, the United States, Canada or beyond, who will construct and fight for an agenda of human rights, environmental protection and sustainability, health and equality on this continent.
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(*) Representing Common Frontiers. Dr. Foster is one of the founders of Common Frontiers, has been a frequent visitor to Mexico, a citizen observer in several Mexican elections and a participant in the Trinational Alliance of Social Movements. He is currently Principal Researcher at the North-South Institute in Ottawa, and publishes an annual review of NAFTA in a British annual volume on Canada-USA relations.