quote:

---

Away from the spotlight, from Sept. 12 to 14, in Banff Springs, Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor met with U.S. and Mexican government officials and business leaders to discuss North American integration at the second North American Forum.

According to leaked documents, the guest list included such prominent figures as U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mexican Secretary of Public Security Eduardo Medina Mora and Canadian Forces chief General Rick Hillier, although we have no final confirmation of attendees.

The event was chaired by former U.S. secretary of state George Schultz, former Alberta premier, Peter Lougheed and former Mexican finance minister Pedro Aspe.

---

quote:

---

The focus of the event was on North American security and prosperity. Not surprisingly, this included topics such as "A North American Energy Strategy," "Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American Integration" and "Opportunities for Security Co-operation" — all topics where the public interest is at odds with that of big business elites.

Unfortunately meetings like this are now commonplace.

Since Paul Martin, Vicente Fox and George W. Bush signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership in March 2005, discussions on continental integration have gone underground.

The media have paid little attention to this far-reaching agreement, so Canadians are unaware that a dozen working groups are currently "harmonizing" Canadian and U.S. regulations on everything from food to drugs to the environment and even more contentious issues like foreign policy.

---

quote:

---

They can have our gas, our oil, even our prescription drugs, but Canadians need to draw the line at selling water to the U.S.

---

quote:

---

If water ever were to be traded, the North American Free Trade Agreement would make it virtually impossible to control. Under NAFTA, once trade has begun in a commodity, the supplying country is obliged to maintain those levels of trade and cannot unilaterally reduce them. That means once water begins to be pumped in large quantities across the border, there is no mechanism for slowing trade to ensure sufficient quantities remain in Canada.

---

Canadians, under NAFTA, will already freeze if the oil/gas levels lower, as the US gets our resources before we do.

Canadians, we need to start talking about exactly what this government is doing to any notion of sovereignty we may have had. We are letting our politicians, behind closed doors, sell Canada out to every whim from the US. Our natural resources belong to us. Our fate belongs to us. Not to big business. WE need mass demonstrations against deeper integration with the US.

Water is not just another commodity

Getting closer to Uncle Sam

While the Liberals did things behind back doors, we now have a government whose policies call for deeper integration. Make no mistake, Conservatives care for the interests of big business, and they are the most blatant in selling out Canada.

[ 20 September 2006: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

I remember the alarm bells in 1988 when Free Trade was being debated, then NAFTA subsequently, and people like Maude Barlow and Mel Hurtig (Council of Canadians) were issuing dire warnings about the potential for the same thing to happen to water as is happening to energy. I think Maude even had another article here on rabble recently about it again.

That ass Cellucci views Canada as a vast resource supply dump for US multinational corporations. Its sounds trite and simplistic but its true. And we know these corporations care nothing for the average person, let alone the planet.

But people feel helpless - what can we do? They buy off the politicians - hell, without them they can't even get elected, let alone serve effectively.

And if we threaten the corporations they'll just collect their golden parachutes, fire us all, and move to Singapore.

But someday, and that day will come, when Canadian farmers watch their crops die because they can't access that "commodity" which is being pumped south of the border; when people in the prairie west sit shivering in their homes because the gas went to the United States and what's left is parceled out at obscene prices, when that day comes, what will people do then? Who will they turn to?

As I might add here to paraphrase Tommy Douglas - keep voting for the cats and this is what you get.

[ 20 September 2006: Message edited by: Américain Égalitaire ]

Because it's been 17 years, many of us have slipped into complacency, thinking "oh, it must be not all that bad", not realizing perhaps that the agreement hasn't really been used yet to anything near its full power. The agreement was for the times to come. It probably would not have passed were it introduced today, with natural resources in much more apparently short supply.

quote:

---

Under NAFTA, once trade has begun in a commodity, the supplying country is obliged to maintain those levels of trade and cannot unilaterally reduce them.

---

quote:

---

According to leaked documents, the guest list included such prominent figures as U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mexican Secretary of Public Security Eduardo Medina Mora and Canadian Forces chief General Rick Hillier, although we have no final confirmation of attendees.

The event was chaired by former U.S. secretary of state George Schultz, former Alberta premier, Peter Lougheed and former Mexican finance minister Pedro Aspe.

---

So we have meetings with formers..Schultz, Lougheed and Aspe, who are they representing exactly? And why is Hillier involved?

Secrecy and Rumsfeld in Banff has my tin foil beeping. I had heard not a word about this meeting taking place so what is there to hide that it takes place in secret?

This sounds very typical of Harper and his "formers".Schultz is a Bechtel guy, what would be his interest?

Here are a couple of website where you can see the treaty between the USA and Canada and a watershed map of North America.

Now, it’s time for a bottle of Mont Clair. Actually, this is where the current problem is. Bottled water consumption is huge. Check the Agri-Canada website for the bottled water statistics.

quote:

---

...The event was chaired by former U.S. secretary of state George Schultz, former Alberta premier, Peter Lougheed and former Mexican finance minister Pedro Aspe...

---

This reminds me of when Vice President Dick Cheney met with US oil execs and formulated Energy Policy? None of them wanted to talk about it, even before the US congress. Does this mean this is how our own government is now going to function?

Here are their traitorous reportings:

North American Forum held in secret at Banff Springs Hotel

quote:

---

• U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld listed as keynote speaker; critics say presence of “war criminal” should have been announced

By Aaron Paton
Tuesday September 19, 2006

Aaron Doncaster holds the sign he carried around the Banff Springs protesting the conference that was scheduled to involve U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.

Brendan Nogue
Banff Crag & Canyon — A handful of Banff residents are outraged the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel hosted American political leaders in a series of secret meetings with political and business leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States.

And they’re suggesting the conference included a man some consider to be the most powerful man in America: U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

An internal document obtained by the Banff Crag & Canyon shows that Rumsfeld was scheduled to be a keynote speaker on Wednesday, Sept. 13, although no one at the hotel would confirm or deny that he was in Banff.

Reported sightings of Rumsfeld couldn’t be confirmed by the Crag, but his speech was supposed to have been entitled: Opportunities for Security Co-operation in North America -- Military-to-military Co-operation. It was scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

Rumours circulating in Banff said the hotel’s fourth floor was taken up by the conference and that many of its attendees showed up in the middle of the night in buses.

---

Getting closer to Uncle Sam- Maude Barlow

Some background on what this Banff meeting was all about:

Macleans magazine:

quote:

---

Ron Covais is in a hurry. The president of the Americas for defence giant Lockheed Martin, and a former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney, he's one of a cherry-picked group of executives who were whisked to Cancún in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and asked to come up with a plan for taking North American integration beyond NAFTA. Covais figures they've got less than two years of political will to make it happen. That's when the Bush administration exits, and "The clock will stop if the Harper minority government falls or a new government is elected." In Cancún, the executives gathered behind closed doors in a luxury hotel and vented about slow borders, duplicate regulations and the competitive threat from the European Union and Asia. "It was an intimate discussion. It was a lot of fun, there were no reporters, just a freewheeling discussion on the things that drive you crazy," recalls Annette Verschuren, the president of Home Depot Canada, who flew in on Harper's jet and said the PM was "very engaged."

The objective of the current Banff conference is to draw up a list of recommendations for ministers of "Canada's New Government" for the reopening of parliament in October.

---

Other links re this stealthy Banff meeting:

Global Research

Vive le Canada forum

creekside blog

pacific gazette blog

[ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: blogbart ]

The Devils Lake controversy is a result of a plan to divert water from the large lake in North Dakota into a river system that flows northward into Manitoba’s Red River and then into Lake Winnipeg.

North Dakota has additional plans to further divert water from the Missouri River basin to the Red River, to Lake Winnipeg and ultimately to the Hudson Bay basin.

In case you missed it, the Americans are giving Canadians water! Of course, pushing water over natural watershed boundaries gives rise to threat of alien species invasions and changes to Canadian watershed chemistry and dynamics.

quote:

---

first of all it's not our water

---

Right, and the oil isn't Alberta's

[ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: jas ]

[ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: mimsy ]

Selling water off to the Americans makes me think of the same dynamic at work when an endangered species becomes more tempting to poach as their scarcity increases and value goes up. Anyone know of a formal name for this?

[ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: gram swaraj ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by gram swaraj:
Selling water off to the Americans makes me think of the same dynamic at work when an endangered species becomes more tempting to poach as their scarcity increases and value goes up. Anyone know of a formal name for this?

---

Right now I'm looking out my window at a small lake, which flows via a small creek and three big rivers into the Arctic Ocean. This lake originated when the glaciers melted away thousands of years ago, and is kept topped up now by precipitation. Around this lake, and in this area in general, the water table is high, which supports all kinds of wetlands that provide habitat for waterfowl, moose, and many other critters. All along the rivers on its way to the ocean, the water flowing from this lake helps to keep other areas moist and productive for wildlife and humans who live along its route.

If water from this lake were diverted into pipelines and sent south to keep the desert golf courses nice and green, or for any other use, the balance that has been established upon which so many creatures depend will be disrupted. Water tables would drop, wetlands would dry out and become shrub or forest land, and the habitat for creatures that lived there before would no longer exist.

You simply cannot take large amounts of water from a watershed without altering its ecosystem. This is an absolute. We will already be facing difficulties with water supplies if temperatures keep rising and evaporation increases. It would be stupid and foolish to add to the problem by diverting water elsewhere.

If you believe water belongs to all of us, then you must be willing to allow innumerable ecosystems to be changed irrevocably. You must be willing to live with the consequences of permanently lowered water tables and, in a populated area, the increasing scarcity of water for its own needs that would eventually result.

quote:

---

Time to tap Canada's water riches: We should ignore left-wing bleating and exploit this renewable resource

National Post
Diane Francis, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Oil was the focus at the Global Business Forum in Banff, Alta., last week, but water will become the New Oil.

And Canada has an embarrassment of riches, while other nations are sorely disadvantaged. Fresh figures from an expert invited to the conference underscored a very bright future for Canada's water largesse.

For instance, one pipeline carrying surplus fresh water from Manitoba to Texas could double provincial and municipal government revenues each year.

"It would cost between $4-billion and $9-billion to build a pipeline of water to Texas from Manitoba," said Paul Wihbey, president of GWEST LLC of Washington. "Annual revenue could be $7-billion, which is about the current budget of the provincial government and City of Winnipeg government combined."

.......................

---

It seems to me that many years back, Francis wrote a Maclean's column stating that forests should be treated like farmers treat wheat. Completely clear cut and re-harvested once the trees re-grew.

Whomever tried to teach her biology is probably still pulling out chunks of their own hair.

[ 29 September 2006: Message edited by: siren ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4716036.stm