THE NEW WORLD DISORDER: Mexico, Canada partnership underway with no authorization from Congress
Flyingmonk
has launched extensive working-group activity to implement a trilateral
agreement with Mexico and Canada.
The membership of the working groups has not been published, nor has
their work product been disclosed, despite two years of massive effort
within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Agreement
office in the Department of Commerce, are to implement the Security and
Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican
President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in
Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005.
The trilateral agreement, signed as a joint declaration not submitted
to Congress for review, led to the creation of the SPP office within
the Department of Commerce.
The SPP report to the heads of state of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, --
released June 27, 2005, -- lists some 20 different working groups
spanning a wide variety of issues ranging from e-commerce, to aviation
policy, to borders and immigration, involving the activity of multiple
U.S. government agencies.
The working groups have produced a number of memorandums of
understanding and trilateral declarations of agreement.
The Canadian government and the Mexican government each have SPP
offices comparable to the U.S. office.
Geri Word, who heads the SPP office within the NAFTA office of the U.S.
Department of Commerce affirmed to WND last Friday in a telephone
interview that the membership of the working groups, as well as their
work products, have not been published anywhere, including on the
Internet.
Why the secrecy?
"We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups
distracted by calls from the public," said Word.
She suggested to WND that the work products of the working groups was
described on the SPP website, so publishing the actual documents did
not seem required.
WND can find no specific congressional legislation authorizing the SPP
working groups. The closest to enabling legislation was introduced in
the Senate by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on April 20, 2005. Listed as
S. 853, the bill was titled "North American Cooperative Security Act: A
bill to direct the Secretary of State to establish a program to bolster
the mutual security and safety of the United States, Canada, and
Mexico, and for other purposes." The bill never emerged from the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
In the House of Representatives, the same bill was introduced by Rep.
Katherine Harris, R-Fla., on May 26, 2005. Again, the bill languished
in the House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and
Terrorism Risk Assessment.
WND cannot find any congressional committees taking charge for specific
oversight of SPP activity.
WND has requested from Word in the U.S. Department of Commerce a
complete listing of the contact persons and the participating
membership for the working groups listed in the June 2005 SPP report to
the trilateral leaders. In addition, WND asked to see all work
products, such as memorandums of understanding, letters of intent, and
trilateral agreements that are referenced in the report.
Many SPP working groups appear to be working toward achieving specific
objectives as defined by a May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task
force report, which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP
agreement into a North American Union that would merge the U.S., Canada
and Mexico into a new governmental form.
Referring to the SPP joint declaration, the report, entitled "Building
a North American Community," stated:
The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the
partnership can be pursued and realized.
To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North
American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We
propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005
Joint Statement of the three leaders that "our security and prosperity
are mutually dependent and complementary." Its boundaries will be
defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter
within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be
legal, orderly, and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure,
just, and prosperous North America.
The CFR task force report called for establishment of a common security
border perimeter around North America by 2010, along with free movement
of people, commerce and capital within North America, facilitated by
the development of a North American Border Pass that would replace a
U.S. passport for travel between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Also envisioned by the CFR task force report were a North American
court, a North American inter-parliamentary group, a North American
executive commission, a North American military defense command, a
North American customs office and a North American development bank.