As Canadians watch their daily news — the same sex marriage debate, thecontinuing saga of equalization payments and the fight over splitting theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in two — the future ofthe country is being decided elsewhere by unelected corporate power brokers.

This particular future is called “deep integration” and is backed by themost powerful business groups, think tanks and foundations in the country.The most recent manifestation of this betrayal of Canada is called the Task Force on the Future of North America. Its leaked report shows the plan in its most refined form to date.

The “team” backing this annexation initiative is politically ambidextrous,which signals the élites’ unanimity. Two of the heavy hitters on the TaskForce are John Manley, quite likely the next leader of the federal Liberals,and Michael Wilson, former Tory finance minister. It also includes formerQuebec Premier Pierre Mark Johnson. Two of the six Canadian members areenergy CEOs — just to indicate to George Bush that the oil companies runCanada, too.

The fact that Canadians are more anti-American now that any time in the past50 years has had no impact on the plans of the annexationists in our midst.It doesn’t matter that huge majorities of Canadians want nothing to do withmore integration with the rogue nation to the south of us. The democraticimperative is well and truly dead amongst the high rollers who, havingfailed to meet the competitive challenge of free trade, have adopted a newslogan: If you can’t beat ’em, join em.

Water, power, culture on the table

The deep integration initiative was publicly launched in early 2002 with anopinion piece in The Globe and Mail by the C.D. Howe Institute’s Wendy Dobson. A former staffer in Paul Martin’s finance department, she described the thrust of the initiative this way: “Instead of waiting to be told what’sexpected of us [by the Americans], Canadian governments and industry shouldprepare for this possibility in a proactive way.” She discussed the “BigIdea”: that in order to get the Americans’ attention we should give themeverything we think they might want and then pray they give us real,unimpeded access to their market.

The Task Force — co-chaired by John Manley — is trilateral and reports notto governments but to the Council on Foreign Affairs (CFA), one of the mostinfluential think tanks in Washington. The CFA is one of three co-sponsorsof the Task Force along with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE)and the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs. The ubiquitous Tom d’Aquino of the CCCE (formerly the BCNI) is a vice-chair.

There isn’t much new in the summary report of the Task Force’s firstmeeting, held last October in Toronto. But it does focus in on the mostcritical features of what Canada’s business leaders want. Among the mostcontroversial: eliminating the current NAFTA exemptions for culture andcertain sectors of agriculture. Another is expanding the egregious energyprovisions of NAFTA — which guarantee the U.S. an ever-increasing percentageof our gas and oil production regardless of Canadian needs — to otherresources, including water. Messrs. d’Aquino and Manley also want to offerthe Americans the same deal on electricity that they already have withnatural gas — through a North American electricity grid.

The initiative is driven by the post-9/11 geopolitical atmosphere and wasfirst launched just months after the attack. The report states plainly that“security considerations trump other issues.” The thinking behind thisannexationist plan suggests that the only way Canada will not be hurt byU.S. security concerns is to adopt them as our own — and redefine ourselvesas North Americans.

Kids to learn continental virtue

Indeed one of the most perverse parts of the plan would see the educationsystem hijacked to implant in the minds of young Canadians the idea thatthey are, actually, North Americans: “Participants agreed that progress onthis front will require effort within the education system [including]supplements to the standard curriculum.”

Talk about social engineering. Thomas Axworthy, another Task force member,and a long time advocate of creeping annexation, is going to “work” on thisidea. A North American passport would also be part of the effort to eraseany vestige of Canadian identity and replace it with one that wouldinevitably be American — not North American.

Until recently, Bay Street’s annexation initiative has been almostexclusively a private affair — the CCCE, think tanks, business columnistsand now the Task Force. But the proponents believe that the time is ripe toengage the three governments and make the process a formal politicalproject.

In January the CCCE’s d’Aquino initiated news coverage of the idea of atrilateral summit of Bush, Martin and Mexican President Vincente Fox. D’Aquino claimed that Bush was interested in calling a summit this year on“the scope and extent of a major initiative to forge a new economic andsecurity partnership within North America.”

This is the most dangerous development in the annexation push so far.Conventional wisdom has suggested that the U.S. was simply not interested.If Bush is suddenly willing to talk about the idea there is only one reason:Behind the scenes our quisling economic elite has promised the U.S. suchhuge concessions on security, energy and water that they can’t afford toignore them.

Sound the alarm.

murray_dobbinBW

Murray Dobbin

Murray Dobbin was rabble.ca's Senior Contributing Editor. He was a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over 40 years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy...