Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

Location map:
Member countries:

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was a region-level dialogue with the stated purpose of providing greater cooperation on security and economic issues. The Partnership was founded in Waco

Waco, Texas

Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

on March 23, 2005 by Paul Martin

Paul Martin

Paul Edgar Philippe Martin, PC , also known as Paul Martin, Jr. is a Canadian politician who was the 21st Prime Minister of Canada, as well as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....

, Prime Minister of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...

, President of Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, and George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, President of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was the second of such regional-level agreements involving the United States of America following the 1997 Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean

Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean

The Partnership for Prosperity and Security in the Caribbean is a regional-level dialogue with the stated purpose of providing greater cooperation on security and economic issues...

(PPS). Since August 2009 it is no longer an active initiative of any of the original dialogue partners.

Organization

The initial SPP Working Groups were the Manufacture Goods and Sectoral and Regional Competitiveness Working Group, E-Commerce & ICT Working Group, Energy Working Group, Transportation Working Group, Food & Agriculture Working Group, Environment Working Group, Financial Services Working Group, Business Facilitation Working Group, Movement of Goods Working Group, Health, and Immigration.

These working groups were tasked with implementing the SPP as initiated by the North American Heads of Government and 30 CEOs of the largest corporations from each respective country on March 23, 2005. They were to consult with stakeholders; set specific, measurable, and achievable goals and implementation dates; and issue semi-annual progress reports. A 24-month agenda was established to serve as a time line milestone to have the initial framework fully developed.

Goals

The stated goals of the SPP were cooperation and information sharing, improving productivity, reducing the costs of trade, enhancing the joint stewardship of the environment, facilitating agricultural trade while creating a safer and more reliable food supply, and protecting people from disease.

It was intended to assist, rather than replace, existing bilateral and trilateral institutions like the North American Free Trade Agreement

North American Free Trade Agreement

The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

(NAFTA) and to work towards the three North American countries working cooperatively in the face of common risks and economic competition from low cost, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade Corridor

International Mid-Continent Trade Corridor

The International Mid-Continent Trade Corridor is a supercorridor linking highways in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The North American SuperCorridor Coalition promotes and lobbies for further development of the corridor...

to improving both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.

North American Facilitation of Transportation, Trade, Reduced Congestion & Security (NAFTRACS) was a three phase pilot project designed to focus on business processes and information as freight is transported from buyers to sellers. The project was intended to create a partnership between businesses and local, state, and federal governments, while claiming to foster cooperation among the same entities.

Announced funding

On 26 February 2008, Canada's Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty

Jim Flaherty

James Michael "Jim" Flaherty, PC, MP is Canada's Minister of Finance and he has also served as Ontario's Minister of Finance. From 1995 until 2005, he was the Member of Provincial Parliament for Whitby—Ajax, and a member of the Progressive Conservative Party caucus...

, announced his government's 2008 Budget

2008 Canadian federal budget

The Canadian federal budget for the 2008-2009 fiscal year was presented to the Canadian House of Commons by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on February 26, 2008....

, which includes "$29 million over two years to meet priorities under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America."

North American Competitiveness Council

The North American Competitiveness Council

North American Competitiveness Council

The North American Competitiveness Council is an official tri-national working group of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America . It was created at the second summit of the SPP in Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico, in March 2006...

(NACC) was an official tri-national working group of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). It was created at the second summit of the SPP in Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico, in March 2006. Composed of 30 corporate representatives from some of North America's largest companies, the North American Competitiveness Council has been mandated to set priorities for the SPP and to act as a stable driver of the integration process through changes in government in all three countries.

Trilateral summit meetings

To date, the following summits have occurred:

March 23, 2005 - Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...

, Waco, Texas
Waco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

A video of the Waco SPP Trilateral Summit News Conference is available online.

March 31, 2006 - Cancún
Cancún
Cancún is a city of international tourism development certified by the UNWTO . Located on the northeast coast of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico, more than 1,700 km from Mexico City, the Project began operations in 1974 as Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR Cancún is a city of...

, Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

Meeting between Mexican President Fox, Canadian Prime Minister Harper and U.S. President Bush. A U.S. White House press release regarding the Cancun SPP Trilateral Summit is available online.

February 23, 2007 - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

The meeting went almost unpublicized by local and national media outlet, and its narrow timeframe of announcement meant it was ignored by a vast majority of the public. It did, however, attract protesters who were concerned about excessive secrecy surrounding the event. Redacted meeting minutes of the meeting have been obtained and posted online.

August 20 - August 21, 2007 - Montebello, Quebec
Montebello, Quebec
Montebello is a municipality located in the Papineau Regional County Municipality of Western Quebec . As of the 2001 census, there were 1,039 permanent residents. The village has a total area of , and is located at the eastern edge of Canada's National Capital Region.The village is world famous for...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

The leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico had a major trilateral summit meeting, in relation to the SPP, at the Château Montebello, in Montebello, Quebec

Montebello, Quebec

Montebello is a municipality located in the Papineau Regional County Municipality of Western Quebec . As of the 2001 census, there were 1,039 permanent residents. The village has a total area of , and is located at the eastern edge of Canada's National Capital Region.The village is world famous for...

. This conference was described as a public relations event with the purpose of promoting the SPP among investors and to reassure the public about the consequences of the plan. A protest during the event led to controversy, when labour leaders identified three masked, rock-wielding individuals as disguised police officers and accused them of disguising themselves as demonstrators in order to incite violence

Agent provocateur

Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...

. Footage of the clash was shown on Youtube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

and attracted significant media attention; the Quebec Provincial Police subsequently admitted that the individuals in question had been police officers in disguise, but denied any attempts to incite violence.

April 21 - April 22, 2008 - New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

In his 2008 State of the Union

State Of The Union

"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....

address, President George W. Bush announced that a summit on the SPP would be held from April 21 - April 22, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

. According to the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

, the summit focused on improving the SPP initiatives and on discussing "hemispheric and global issues of importance to North America".

August 9 - August 10, 2009 - Guadalajara
Guadalajara
Guadalajara may refer to:In Mexico:*Guadalajara, Jalisco, the capital of the state of Jalisco and second largest city in Mexico**Guadalajara Metropolitan Area*University of Guadalajara, a public university in Guadalajara, Jalisco...

, Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

Criticism

In 2006, CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

anchor Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs

Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...

argued that the SPP was part of a plan to merge the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a North American Union

North American Union

The North American Union is a theoretical economic union, in some instances also a political union, of Canada, Mexico, and the United States...

similar to the European Union,. Dobbs claimed at the time that US President Bush, who left office on January 20, 2009, was to have bypassed Congress and ultimately create a Union based on a Texas highway corridor

Trans-Texas Corridor

The Trans-Texas Corridor was a transportation network that was discontinued in the planning and early construction stages in the U.S. State of Texas. The network, as originally envisioned, would have been composed of a network of supercorridors up to wide to carry parallel links of tollways,...

. One variation of this theory was that President Bush would declare a state of emergency to avoid leaving office, which, in fact, never came about; on January 20, 2009, his successor, Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, who had openly voiced misgivings about NAFTA, the predecessor to SPP, let alone SPP itself, took office as US President, but his anti-NAFTA views soon disappeared from his public persona.

The Council of Canadians claimed that the SPP extended the controversial "no fly list

No Fly List

The No Fly List is a list, created and maintained by the United States government's Terrorist Screening Center , of people who are not permitted to board a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of the United States. The list has also been used to divert away from U.S. airspace aircraft not...

" of the USA, made Canadian water a communal resource, and forced Canada and Mexico to adopt the USA's security policies - one of which would allow foreign military forces to neglect sovereignty in the case of a "civil emergency". In addition, it also touched on the issue of Albertan tar sands

Athabasca Oil Sands

The Athabasca oil sands are large deposits of bitumen, or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada - roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray...

expansion to five times its current size.

On May 10, 2007, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, chair of the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade

Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade

The Standing Committee on International Trade is a committee in the Canadian House of Commons. It focuses on international trade. The committee is a new one for the 39th Parliament, having split off from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.-Studies:*Canada-Central...

, prevented University of Alberta professor Gordon Laxer from testifying that SPP would leave Canadians "to freeze in the dark" because "Canada itself – unlike most industrialized nations – has no national plan or reserves to protect its own supplies" by saying Laxer's testimony was not relevant, defying a majority vote to overrule his motion, shutting down the Committee meeting, and leaving with the other three out of four Conservative members; the meeting later continued presided by the Liberal vice-chair. After these disruptions, the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

reported on a Conservative party manual to, among other things, usurp Parliamentary committees and cause chaos in unfavourable committees. The New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...

also criticized SPP for being undemocratic, not open to Parliament, and opaque. New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party

leader Jack Layton

Jack Layton

John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC was a Canadian social democratic politician and the Leader of the Official Opposition. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and previously sat on Toronto City Council, serving at times during that period as acting mayor and deputy mayor of...

described the process as not simply unconstitutional, but "non-constitutional", held completely outside the usual mechanisms of oversight.

Some thirty US-based organizations also sent an open letter to Congress on April 21, 2008 criticizing the secrecy and lack of any sort of democratic oversight:

"What differentiates the SPP from other security and trade agreements is that it is not subject to Congressional oversight or approval. The SPP establishes a corporate/government bureaucracy for implementation that excludes civil society participation. ... Facing a worrisome pact pushed forward in secrecy, it is time for Congress to halt this undemocratic approach and establish a process based on openness, accountability, and the participation of civil society.

Cancellation

In August 2009, the SPP website was updated to say: "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) is no longer an active initiative. There will not be any updates to this site." Subsequent to this the website link does not connect and the cache website links do not work.

Currently, the website calls itself an archive for SPP documents and announces: "Going forward, we want to build on the accomplishments achieved by the SPP and further improve our cooperation."

The NDP has called this a "victory" which is "the result of the active and sustained efforts across the country, and across North America, of Canadian, Mexican and American activists from the labour movement, civil society, progressive legislators and all those concerned and committed to build a better quality of life in our Canada and throughout North America."

Renewed Security and Prosperity Discussions

On February 4, 2011, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barack Obama announced a new security and prosperity initiative. In it they planned to "to pursue a perimeter approach to security" "in ways that support economic competitiveness, job creation, and prosperity".

On March 13, 2011, the Canadian government announced it was beginning a five week consultation process "with all levels of government and with communities, non-governmental organizations and the private sector, as well as with our citizens" on the implementation of the shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness."

External links

Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America – Information by the United States government
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America – Information by the Canadian government Alianza para la Seguridad y la Prosperidad en América del Norte – Information by the Mexican government
US Government Agency SPP Documents obtained by Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch is an organization that describes itself as "a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law." According to its mission statement, Judicial Watch "advocates high standards of...

via FOIA
Freedom of Information Act (United States)
The Freedom of Information Act is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure...
From NAFTA to the SPP from Dollars & Sense
Dollars & Sense
Dollars & Sense is a magazine dedicated to providing left-wing perspectives on economics.Published six times a year since 1974, it is edited by a collective of economists, journalists, and activists committed to the ideals of social justice and economic democracy.It was initially sponsored by the...

magazine
Building a North American Community – report detailing how to improve upon the SPP

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Organization

Goals

Announced funding

North American Competitiveness Council

Trilateral summit meetings

Criticism

Cancellation

Renewed Security and Prosperity Discussions

See also

External links