GNEP - Another Facet of SPP?

Until recently, I doubt that most Canadians had ever heard of GNEP, much less thought about it.

But then again, this is another one of Bush's bright ideas, which if you look at it puts Canada squarely in the field of play. Not only are we the United States' biggest trading partner, but we are one of the largest Uranium producers in the world as well.

But, then again, I didn't expect it to pop up as a under the table topic at APEC this week either. In general, I'm a trifle suspicious of our politicians on good days, Harper has always struck me as less trustworthy than most.

Sure enough, CTV observes the following:

Both Harper and Howard could see the GNEP become a major election issue, but to date, the Canadian government's position on the agreement has been a closely guarded secret.

At a briefing last week, one of the prime minister's most senior officials skirted a question on the GNEP.

"It doesn't feature on the APEC agenda, per se,'' said the official. "Whether the initiative has disappeared off the global agenda or the U.S. agenda, I really can't say.''

So ... the short answer is likely that Canada's government is engaging in secretive talks with the United States on this matter, just as they have been doing with the SPP - talks which they either categorically deny, or simply refuse to talk about. Like small children, when politicians go silent on something, you can pretty much bet that they are up to something - and they don't want you to know about it.

A brief perusal of the DOE GNEP site raises some interesting risks. The implication is that countries that produce Uranium would be responsible not just for mining and processing it into nuclear fuel, but also for accepting spent reactor fuel and subsequent reprocessing. This would mean that Canada would wind up accepting the return of a great deal of spent fuel from US reactors - when we have enough difficulties dealing with the waste from our own reactors.

Second, while transporting nuclear fuel rods is dangerous enough, it's comparatively safe when one considers the risk that transporting spent fuel poses.

This "partnership", like so many other things out of the current White House, is not a partnership, but a way for the US to get out of dealing with its own energy waste - by making it somebody else's problem. Even with the potential for positive research and revenue related to developing appropriate technologies, this vaguely spelled out plan raises more questions than it answers.

The silence of the Conservative government in Canada on this matter is neither acceptable or appropriate.

So...Who Gave The Order For This?

As many had alleged in the blogosphere, it seems that a number of the "demonstrators" at Montebello were in fact police officers.

The official excuse is this:

Police said the three undercover officers were only at the protest to locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any incidents.

Amusingly, these are the same clowns who approached the police lines with rocks in hand and were "soft-arrested" by the police.

However, one might be suspicious that the micro-managing PMO has a hand in this. Think about it a moment - if Harper can deflect attention away from the SPP talks (preferably by discrediting SPP's critics by showing them to be "thugs"), he wins all ways around - without having to be held accountable to the Canadian public.

Nor should we forget that Harper has used police muscle in the past to get his way. I don't think for a moment that he, or Sandra Buckler are above such tactics.

In the meantime, he gets to continue agreeing to sell Canada out to GWB behind closed doors. Next time you are talking to your Conservative MP, I suggest you ask them why the Harper government refuses to table the content of the SPP discussions in the House of Commons.

[Update 9:15]:
In further digging about, I found this article from the Toronto Star where we learn that Stockwell Day is part and parcel of the Con$ efforts to cover up whatever involvement they had in this debacle:

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day rejected opposition calls Thursday for an inquiry into agents role in trying to provoke protesters into violence at this week’s North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

“I’ve made the inquiries and there was no RCMP that were involved as far as those three individuals go,” Day told reporters after making a crime-prevention announcement in Winnipeg.

“If people have concerns ... there is a complaints process for the RCMP. There is also one for the Surete du Quebec. This incident happened in Quebec, so I imagine people could also file under that complaints process.”

No, Stockwell - you missed this one. As public safety minister, you are also responsible for ensuring that the bodies responsible for public safety are conducting themselves in a reasonable manner. The public has right to know exactly why the police overstepped their bounds so badly in this one - who gave the orders, why were those orders given ... all the way to the top.
[/Update]

Why The SPP Is Bad News

I'm not opposed to trade regimes that work (whether NAFTA does or not is debatable in a number of ways). However, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) bothers me in some very fundamental ways.

First off, unlike NAFTA, this discussion is going on behind closed doors. While Harper, Bush and Calderone sit around "talking", none of these men is taking the results of their discussions back to their legislative houses.

The euphemism used is that the "SPP" is a "dialogue" and not a treaty, and therefore doesn't need to involve the legislative houses. Frankly,any time I see politicians doing things behind closed doors (and there have been several secretive meetings related to the SPP in the last couple of years), and refuse to table anything in the legislative houses, they're up to something ... and I doubt it's "good" for Canada.

The Canadian government SPP website says that "consultations occur at many levels," although the only specific group it mentions having presented recommendations to it is the North American Competitiveness Council.

The NACC is a group of CEOs from each of the three North American countries. Most of the Canadian representatives are members of D'Aquino's group, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Okay - newsflash for people here, but generally speaking, Corporate CEOs are not the people we want making public policy. Corporations are accountable for one thing only - making a profit, and delivering it to their shareholders. Period. The interest in social issues goes only as far as it impacts the company bottom line.

Attempting to disguise sweeping negotiations that affect the future of three sovereign nations by calling them "discussions" is a bald-faced lie. If they are mere "discussions" and as "boring" as Thomas D'Aquino, of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, claims, then it is high time for our politicians to table what they've been discussing in the legislative houses and make their activities known.

Mere "discussions" don't provoke the kind of security overreaction that we are seeing in Montebello, Quebec this week.

Remember, this little gem is brought to you with the active participation of Canada's Gnu Government - which ran on a platform of being more "open, honest and accountable" to the public.