Action Update:Click Here, and Here. For info on the SPP visit: No SPP and AW@L's Understanding the SPP - Following the Paper Trail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 10:15am

AW@L Occupies Lobby of Manulife Financial, Delivers Demands to NACC, “Stop the SPP”

WATERLOO—Today, AW@L activists descended upon the Manulife Financial building at 500 King St N in Waterloo. The demonstration was a part of the regional Day of Action against the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Protests and demonstrations will be taking place in other cities across South-western Ontario.

The activists arrived before 9am, and engaged with Manulife employees who were on their way to work, handing out flyers and sharing information. “We spoke to people about the SPP and the North American Competitiveness Council [NACC], which is a group of corporate elites who make up the primary advisory board for the anti-democratic SPP Agreement,” explained AW@L spokesperson Dan Kellar. The goals of talking to employees were educational, and to have them help deliver a message to Manulife CEO and NACC member, Dominic D’Alessandro, that he must disclose all information relating to his participation in SPP working groups, and that he and Manulife pull out of the NACC. AW@L facilitated these letters from employees through their website.

Just after 9am, members of AW@L gained access to and occupied the Manulife lobby. They are refusing to leave until they are able to speak with d’Alessandro by phone, so that they could personally deliver their demands.
Dominic d’Alessandro is not the only NACC culprit on the Manulife BOD. Thomas d’Aquino, who has been a Board member at Manulife since 2005, is Chief Executive and President of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE). He is Chair of the CCCE’s North American Security and Prosperity Initiative. The CCCE serves as the Canadian Secretariat for the NACC and is one of the primary architects of the SPP.

Robert J. Harding was brought onto the board of directors of Manulife Financial in 2008. He is also Chairman of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Brookfield is a fellow NACC corporation. According to Dan Kellar, “all three of these men are part of the corporate oligarchy that is selling out the environment and the rights of communities and workers, and all three are guilty of helping to solidify the integration of Canada and the Canadian military into America’s economic agenda and their Global War on Terror.”

The SPP is a post-9/11 version of NAFTA that at times has been referred to as a ‘North American Union’ and a new ‘Fortress America.’ The SPP Agreement pursues “goals and a framework for alarmingly deep integration of trade, regulatory and military policies between Canada, the United States and Mexico,” said activist Rachel Avery. “The SPP establishes, what amounts to a modern corporate oligarchy that has decided that the fate of the continent is to be unified under the banner of extreme capitalism and the Global War on Terror, that it is best achieved by conceiving of ‘security’ and ‘prosperity’ as inseparable and mutually reinforcing,” explained Avery. “The problem is; whose security and prosperity?” Rachel Avery, also from AW@L. The SPP has been referred to as a militarized NAFTA.

The SPP has resulted in impacts ranging from a planned five-fold expansion of Tar Sands production to the creation of Canada Command and the expansion of NORAD in 2006. The SPP will impact everything from the militarization of border services and civil policing, to the harmonization of policies covering issues from pesticides to intellectual property rights to immigration and labour regulation.

Kellar and AW@L pointed out that “some people have denied that the SPP exists at all, but government websites and a massive paper trail say that the Agreement is very real and far reaching.” Some members of the NACC, as well as some critics of the SPP, have recently suggested that the partnership is dead. However, both SPP documents as well as critics have also said that, says to Kellar, “while the SPP agreement and the NACC’s formal advisory process may come to end, it will only be to have them replaced by newer agreements that pursue advanced versions of the same agenda.” Recently, Liberal and Conservative party advisors have indicated that a major upcoming task for Canada will be to convince the new American President to stick with NAFTA, which means sticking with the SPP. However, “the military agreements and restructuring, the energy plans, the border securitization and law enforcement militarization, the environmental destruction and the waves of deportation and persecution of immigrants and minorities,” said Kellar, “these injustices will not be undone, but hardened by a newer articulation of deep integration policies.”
More info on the SPP is available at peaceculture.org. AW@L has a document available, Understanding the SPP – Following the Paper Trail, containing dozens of links to primary source documentation from the SPP as well as links to other commentary and analysis.
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MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release
October 28, 2008

Regional Day of Action against the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)

On November 3, Activists across South-West Ontario plan to target corporate power and anti-democratic integration of continental trade and security.

Monday, November 3 has, regionally, been declared a day to raise awareness about the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), and to take action against the corporations and government ministries responsible for implementation of the continental integration agreement. Protests and demonstrations will be taking place in Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Stratford and London.

The SPP is a post-9/11 version of NAFTA that at times has been referred to as a plan for a “North American Union.” While the actual documents of the SPP specifically state that there is no plan for a single, centralized continental government, “the SPP agreement does pursue goals of, and layout a framework for alarmingly deep integration of trade, regulatory and military policies between Canada, the United States and Mexico,” said activist Rachel Avery. “The SPP establishes, what amounts to a modern corporate oligarchy that has decided that the fate of the continent is to be unified under the banner of extreme capitalism and the War on Terror, that it is best achieved by conceiving of ‘security’ and ‘prosperity’ as inseparable and mutually reinforcing,” explained Avery. “The problem is; whose security and prosperity?” Rachel Avery is a member of AW@L, the activist organization that called for the regional day of action. The SPP has been referred to as a militarized NAFTA.

The SPP was initially ratified by Paul Martin, George Bush and Vincente Fox—then heads of State for Canada, the US and Mexico—in 2005 at a Leaders’ Summit in Waco, Texas. The Plan was put forward by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and representatives from the US Council on Foreign Relations. Currently, the only oversight body for the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), a representative board made up of the CEO’s of 10 of the most powerful corporations from each of the three NAFTA/SPP partners. AW@L has called for activists across the region to target NACC companies on November 3. Canadian member corporations of the NACC are: Manulife Financial, Brookfield Asset Management, Ganong Bros Ltd, Suncor Energy Inc, Linamar Corp, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc, Royal Bank of Canada, ATCO Group, Yellow Pages Group, and The Home Depot Canada.

In Canada, the government ministries primarily responsible for implementing the SPP Working Groups’ directives are the Ministries of Public Safety, Industry, and Foreign Affairs. The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Department of Defence’s new Canada Command (as well as NORAD) are deeply involved in SPP implementation, which has been causing the militarization of border services and civil policing, and the harmonization of policies covering issues from pesticides to intellectual property rights to energy and resource security. “Because of the fact that these Ministries and Agencies are merely following the direction of an elitist corporate sector, and because of the fact that the SPP will not be debated in the Canadian House of Parliament nor the American Congress, nor the Mexican Parliament, the SPP is inherently and irredeemably anti-democratic,” said AW@L spokesperson Alex Hundert. For November 3, AW@L has also called for the targeting of what they call “government (mis)representatives.”

AW@L, also known as Anti-War@Laurier is an activist group based in Kitchener-Waterloo. Recently, AW@L was involved in a rail blockade of CP Rail’s Olympic Spirit Train and the Pan-Canadian Day of Action against the War in Afghanistan. The group also works on issues concerning the War in Afghanistan, American War Resisters, Indigenous Solidarity and Native Rights, as well as SPP and anti-2010 organizing. More information about the Regional Day of Action and about AW@L can be found at peaceculture.org.
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Contact: Alex Hundert – 519 500 1878 or alex@peaceculture.org
For more info visit AW@L's Web Site or email spp@peaceculture.org