SPP, not just for cows anymore

Robert Pastor : "It's time for Canada to take the lead to propose rule-based institutions that permit cows to roam across borders and people to declare: I am not just a Canadian, a Mexican, or a U.S. citizen; I am also a North American."

Pastor, author of Toward a North American Community, director of the North American Forum on Integration, and tireless cheerleader for "a North American consciousness", is at the University of Ottawa today, plumping for letting the little people in on his pet cow-freeing project :

Mr. Pastor said the SPP summit at Montebello this August "offers an opportunity for the leaders to open the process, to invite in more civil society groups," including academics, environmentalists, unions, the media and state and provincial legislators."

Unlike Ron Covais and his co-conspirators in the North American Competitiveness Council who advocate for "integration by stealth", Pastor says : "What we need is something more bold."

Well, exactly.
Pastor was quite bold himself when he spoke to the Canadian Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade in Feb 2002 on implementation of a common currency :

There are three options for us. Option one is de facto dollarization. That is to say, no government makes a decision, and increasingly Canada and Mexico use the U.S. dollar.

The number two option is de jure dollarization. Three governments all sit down and they decide the dollar makes sense: let's just use a single currency.

The third option is a unified currency. Herbert Grubel has proposed this idea of the amero.

I think it's in the long-term interest of the United States to propose or to discuss a scheme in which all three countries feel there is space for them to define a portion of this larger entity of an amero system, not a dollar system.

Some of the FAIT MPs promptly widdled on the carpet in their gratitude and excitement.
See how much better it is to be open and transparent and let "state and provincial legislators" "feel there is a space for them" in the decision-making?

Actually, the mewling sychophantic behavior of the MPs aside, I heartily advocate Pastor's strategy.

Pastor promotes the SPP as NAFTA-Plus.
NAFTA overrides Canadian law for the benefit of corporations to which it affords the rights and freedoms previously reserved for people. It allows quisling business groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives an increasingly large say in public policy issues while excluding the public. It advocates the deregulation and privatization of hard-won public services like health and education, promotes intellectual property rights of corporations over the needs of consumers, nullifies control over foreign investment, and guts protection for workers, stakeholders, and the environment.

In 1993, Canadians reacted to the wholesale promotion of Mulroney's corporate free trade agenda by throwing him out on his ass and reducing the Cons to two seats in the House.
So let's hope the Cons listen to Pastor today and Canada is provided with the opportunity to hear them defend this NAFTA-Plus in the House. And the sooner the better.

Garth wakes up. Somewhat.

H/T Accidental Deliberations : Transparent

"Manley, Best-Selling Author?"

reads the incredulous Jan 30 headline at Embassy Mag, following the news that John Manley's Afghanistan panel report has been down-loaded 160,000 times since its release on Jan 22.

Oh man, Manley must be saying to himself right about now, how soon they forget!

Indeed, who could forget his previous hit best seller, Building A North American Community, written for the US Council on Foreign Relations with Thomas d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Robert A. Pastor, self-proclaimed father of the North American Union.

Here - let me refresh your memory with a quote from it :

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

In fact, right now at Amazon, you can get Manley's first best-seller plus his co-author Robert Pastor's Toward A North American Community, both for the low, low price of $33.48.

It's a steal.

SPP : Mom Loves Me Best Edition

Four collaborating alumni of the Task Force on the Future of North America are duking it out in the pages of the Globe and Mail over how best to hasten North American deep integration.
At issue is the inclusion of Mexico, long considered by Team Canada to be a usurper of Canada's rightful pride of place in America's heart.

Team Canada, represented by John Manley and Gordon Giffin : Canada is more special to the US than Mexico.

Team Mexico/US, represented by Andrés Rozental and Robert Pastor : No, you aren't - try harder.

Good thing RevDave is here to guide us safely through the towering clichés and treacherous platitudes.
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SPP : Back to school edition

Hey teachers! Having trouble finding course materials that rebrand Canada as part of the North American Union?

Arizona State University is your one-stop go-to place to find everything you need to - what was that happy phrase the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America used again? oh yeah : "to launch an educational project to teach the idea of a shared NA identity in schools".

Just look at these handy course materials :

Teaching Modules: Backgrounders and Cases
Building North America Into Your Course
North American Economic Integration: General Overview
Analyzing North American Integration
Managing North America
North American Structures and ¨Sites¨of Integration
Continental Strategies of Selected North American Companies

Now I know what you're thinking. That it will all be written from a US point-of-view. Not so at all. They've got lots of Canadians on their link roster : Fraser Institute, C.D.Howe Institute, I Asper School of Management. Plus there's papers on many now familiar integration projects : Atlantica, the Pacific North West Economic Region, North America's Super Corridor Coalition (NASCO).

Here's a sample from a "teaching module" written by George Haynal, "Senior Fellow at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, Ottawa-based vice president of public policy at Bombardier, Inc., and former Canadian consulgeneral in New York" :

"The Next Plateau in North America- What's the Big Idea? Mapping the North American Reality" :

"The obligation to defend the North American landmass has become far more complicated now but defending ourselves and defending space that we share in North America still constitutes one inseparable set of obligations for both our countries. So we had better face up to the need not only to defend our territory but also to do it in a way that also constitutes a satisfactory contribution to the defence of the United States."

"We must ensure that the critical infrastructure that serves us and which we share with the United States is protected against threats from terrorism or criminality. North American security is a joint need; it should be supplied as a common enterprise."

and in a section on Canadian companies (Bold - mine) :

"Ownership rules intended to ensure that owners were obliged to be "patriots" seem almost quaintly archaic at a time when multiple citizenship is so available, including to global investors."

You'll recognize some other familiar faces at the Arizona State U site as well. Stephen Blank guided the Montreal-based North American Forum on Integration for Canadian students up here in April, while Robert Pastor, author of Toward a North American Community, was Vice Chair of The Task Force on the Future of North America and, yes, author of that phrase : "to launch an educational project to teach the idea of a shared NA identity in schools".

Get 'em while they're young, I always say.

H/T to ToeDancer at Bread and Roses for the Arizona State U. link

North American Forum 2007 Naff Off

Many of us first became aquainted with the North American Forum when it held its now notorious "private, not secret" meeting in Banff last year.
This year's informal sister to the SPP brings some familiar names and themes :

North American Cooperation and Community
Vallarta Palace Hotel Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico
October 12-14, 2007

Under the Joint Chairmanship of:
The Hon. George Shultz, Former U.S Secretary of State
The Hon. Peter Lougheed, Former Premier of Alberta
The Hon. Pedro Aspe, Former Finance Minister of Mexico

II Strategic dimensions of the North American security and prosperity partnerships
Gustavo Mohar, Deputy Director, National Intelligence (CISEN)
Stephen Rigby, Executive Vice-President, Canada Border Services

III: Investing in competitiveness: new ideas and options for infrastructure, borders and business - Public/private partnerships, municipal bonds and border development
Tom d’Aquino, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Ron Covais, President, The Americas, Lockheed Martin Corp.

IV: NAFTA at 15: where do we go from here? How to create a North American Community
Anne McLellan, former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada
Moderator: Robert Pastor, American University

VI: Energy in North America – Security, rationalization and climate change
James Gray, Former CEO Canadian Hunter Exploration
David O’Reilly, CEO, Chevron Corporation

Read the full Agenda on pdf H/t to Council of Canadians

Gotta love that title "Energy in NA - Security, rationalization, and climate change" as discussed by oilbidness.

Purportedly SPP booster John Ibbitson from the G&M attended as a supporter.
He later declared the SPP to be dead.
Perhaps the Mexican poolside buffet didn't agree with him.

The SPP is dead - Long live the SPP

Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" (now available in book form and co-authored by John Manley) and author of the book "Toward a North American Community" says the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead.

It was killed, he tells us, by the timid incremental approach of its policy makers who tried to fly the SPP below the radar of public opinion, thereby arousing their deepest suspicions.
Right wing fears of Mexican immigrants and a North American Union combined with left wing fears of unfair labour practices to create 'a perfect storm' of public alarm that scuttled its chances of success.

So that's it then - it's been nailed to its perch pining for the fjords since last April. It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile.
THIS IS AN EX-SPP!!

Well ok then.

In other totally unrelated news just this week :

1) the U.S. is leaning on Mexico to privatize its state-owned oil consortium PEMEX

2) Saskatchewan has followed BC in introducing the Enhanced Driver's Licences demanded by Homeland Security for admission to the U.S.

3) U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan is calling for greater energy integration and enhanced energy supply routes between the U.S. and Canada, praising the benefits of "benefits of market-based free trade agreements" to "enhance energy security throughout North America".

4)Avi Lewis and Linda Carlsen on Democracy Now discuss "re-armouring NAFTA" : Plan Mexico, the $400 million regional cooperation security initiative that introduces a greater US military presence into Mexico under the guise of lending aid for the war on drugs.

5) The U.S. Navy has reactivated gunboat patrols off the coasts of Latin America to "send a strong signal to all Navies operating in the region".

You see we don't care what you call it : SPP, deep integration, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny. We don't care. Really. Call it whatever you like.

North America Next

A year ago the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave Arizona State University $15 million to establish a Center of Excellence for Border Security and Immigration. The border security research centre is led by Rick Van Schoik, director of ASU’s North American Center for Transborder Studies.
Arizona State U presser, Feb. 2008 :

"The establishment of the center by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security follows more than two years of work assembling a team of U.S. universities, Mexican and Canadian institutions, government agencies, technology companies and national laboratories.

Research at the center will focus on new technologies such as surveillance, screening, data fusion and situational awareness using sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technologies. The center will also provide research on population dynamics, immigration administration and enforcement, operational analysis, control and communications, immigration policy, civic integration and citizenship, border risk management and international governance."

Canadian advisors to NACTS include Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Anne McLellan and Christine Frechette, Director of the North American Forum on Integration, and York University and the University of Alberta, along with notable US deep integrationists Stephen Blank and Robert Pastor.

In their Feb 2009 policy paper "North America Next: A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness", they make eight recommendations calling for deeper integration, including :

• the inclusion of private sector and public-private P3 partnerships in meet-ups prior to the North American Trilateral Leaders’ Summits
• a National Security Council deputy to expand their "focus on traditional security to include law enforcement, commerce, transportation, environment, water, and regional development in the three countries"
• enhanced overall joint defense of North America which would allow Canada to continue responsibility for the Artic
• a joint revolving fund for infrastructure investments in North America
• a North American Greenhouse Gas Exchange Strategy to "ensure the United States continues to have priority access to Canada’s wealth of hydro-electricity, natural gas, light petroleum and uranium in exchange for offsets for the greenhouse gases created by their development"
• "moving the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders (and their processing costs) away from the (actual) borders to the factories and farms from which trade goods originate", and
• "building and improving trade corridors like CANAMEX that go from northern Canada to southern Mexico".

The paper recommends less emphasis on "integration" and more on "plug and play interoperability".

Just keeping you up on the new North American language here.

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North American security perimeter ... again

Yet another article PR piece telling us how the Canada-US border can become 'wafer thin' again, if only we just agree to get inside a North American security perimeter ...

Canada warms to the idea of a tougher 'perimeter'

reads the Star headline while supplying no evidence to support it.

Apparently, however, "the more knowledgeable watchers of the cross-border condition suggest Canadians are ready".

Like the director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, concern-trolling about Canada's pig-headed insistance on remaining Canada :

"Perimeter is no longer a dirty word. It's beginning to come up again, at least in academic circles," says David Biette

... whose 'academic circle' includes fellow University of Calgary academic advisor Robert Pastor, Vice Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America:

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

Falling a little behind on that 2010 schedule, aren't we?

Back to Biette in The Star :

"Canada has done so well by NAFTA and we are seeing the emergence of a new generation of more confident, culturally secure Canadians. The old Toronto nationalists of the 1960s were essential to building the idea of a postmodern Canada, but now they're starting to die off."

Nice.

Former US ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin, whose"one security perimeter" proposal met a very chilly reception in Canada in 1999, also gets trotted out :

"Those old Canadian worries now sound soooo 20th-century, says Giffin.
"Those old cultural arguments sound like dinosaur-speak today. The world just sort of passed them by," Giffin told the Star.

Whereas by comparison, the deep integration fans are just bristling with fun new ideas.

Here's David Biette in June 2006 :

"Being different from the United States for the sake of being different is irresponsible and an abdication of the national interest. Letting foreign policy be driven by public opinion (particularly when public opinion is an emotional reaction to whatever George W. Bush does) shows a lack of leadership. This was particularly evident in the debate over Canada’s potential participation in ballistic missile defence, something the government had requested before it let the public opinion tail wag the foreign policy dog. If the government changes policies at the whims of public opinion, how reliably will Canada be viewed?"

Let's have that one more time :

"Letting foreign policy be driven by public opinion shows a lack of leadership.
If the government changes policies at the whims of public opinion, how reliably will Canada be viewed?"

Oh, democracy and public opinion. Sooooo '20th century'. Sooooo 'dinosaur-speak'.

I'm guessing a militarized NAFTA in the form of a North American security perimeter would be the end of all that public opinion nonsense.

Canada warms to the idea, indeed.

With thanks to West End Bob for the heads up.

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Update : Harebell says What security perimeter?! And provides a nice pie chart.

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The SPP is undead

Just three months shy of 2010 - the date by which the Canadian Council of Chief Executives originally projected the goals of the SPP would be completed - some people have been mourning or celebrating for years already.

The SPP is dead - a short history :

Oct. 10, 2007 "The Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead," wrote John Ibbitson in the G&M. "Nothing's going to happen anytime soon."

Aug. 1, 2008 "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead," says Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" available in book form with co-author John Manley.

Feb. 25, 2009 "The SPP is probably dead," Canadian Council of Chief Executives President Tom d’Aquino tells the foreign affairs committee, adding that "something else" will replace it.

July 13, 2009 "The SPP is in hibernation," - Chris Sands, Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Hudson Institute, in Toward a New Frontier which recommends "rebranding a revived SPP."
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Aug. 2009 "The SPP's Death Knell has Sounded" - Embassy Mag. "The Security and Prosperity Partnership, as we knew it, is dead. May it rest in peace."


Aug. 19, 2009 "The SPP is dead, so where's the champagne?" - Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians, at Rabble.

Sept. 24, 2009 "The SPP is dead. Let's keep in that way." - Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, long time foe of deep integration, and one of my personal heroes.

That's two whole years of announcements about the SPP nailed to its perch and pining for the fjords.

The most recent - Dobbin and Trew - do not imagine for a moment that the push towards deep integration is over by any stretch, yet Dobbin does not see any successor on the horizon:

"Some on the left are so accustomed to losing that they make the claim the SPP will just re-emerge with another name."

And indeed I do so here - Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas.
Bush's outgoing gift to Obama has been embraced and described by Hillary Clinton as "a multilateral initiative to promote shared security and prosperity throughout the Americas".
Stockwell Day has already begun dutifully using the phrase "pathways to prosperity" in the House, while exPM Paul Martin, Chris Sands, d'Aquino, David Emerson and other fans of deep integration assure us of the inevitability of some future SPP rebrand and relaunch.

But what worries me is : do we even need a rebrand and relaunch anymore?

In 2003 the Canadian Council of Chief Executives' came up with the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative to shape Canada's future within North America. It called for "reinventing borders; regulatory efficiency; resource security; and a North American defence perimeter."

Here's how that agenda has been achieved through the SPP so far :
Joint RCMP-Homeland Security “Shiprider” pilot project
Civil Assistance Plan signed in Feb. 2008 allows the military of one nation to support the other during a civil emergency
Passenger Protect no-fly list
Sharing military responsibilities in the arctic
"Smart Borders' and unmanned drones patrolling the Canada US border
The exile and/or detainment in Canada of persons of interest to Homeland Security
Canada's cats paw FTAs with countries the US hopes to reach
The Canada Israel 'Homeland Security' pact
Canada helps the US occupy Afghanistan
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
Biometric data into visas for foreign nationals
RFID drivers' licences - a de facto continental ID
Run-of-river projects and ramped up tarsands extraction for energy export
Proposal for national Canadian energy or water policy blocked
Streamlining regulations on food, drugs pesticides, genetically modified seeds.
"Intermodal transportation concept for North America"
Integrated North American energy and resource program

Does anyone really think just because 30 odd CEOs from the North American Competitiveness Council aren't meeting as a designated SPP group anymore that that's the end of it?

Ten days ago Harper stood in the White House and said :

"Today, Canada is announcing a major hydroelectric project, a big transmission line in northwestern British Columbia, which has the capacity down the road to be part of a more integrated North American hydroelectric system."

"Canada is not leaving Afghanistan; Canada will be transitioning from a predominantly military mission to a mission that will be a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011."

So, no, I'm not celebrating anything until the SPP and the groundwork already laid by the CCCE - plus the unseen continued integration of its facets throughout the public service - can be stopped and rolled back.


Paul Manly is taking his film ‘You, Me and the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’ on the road.

The tour, which will visit 33 cities across Canada, will be launched with an Ottawa Premiere on Parliament Hill on October 1st. hosted by NDP International Trade Critic, Peter Julian.

The Ottawa screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q & A, featuring, Peter Julian, Teresa Healy (Senior Researcher, Canadian Labour Congress), Bruce Campbell (Executive Director, Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives), Maude Barlow (Chairperson, Council of Canadians), Louise Casselman (Common Frontiers) and Paul.

The screening and panel will be streamed live by Rabble.ca - see promo page

From Ottawa, the tour will be working its way east to Newfoundland and then back across Canada to British Columbia. You can see all the tour dates on the film website here

Each confirmed screening date has a pdf poster, handbill and press release that can be downloaded and used to promote the screening. Please help out where you can. All of the screenings are either free or by donation.

This ain't over yet.
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Push-polling deep integration for General Dynamics

A mere four days after foisting John Ibbitson's paeon to deep integration on us, the Globe and Mail is at it again, this time reporting on a poll which purports to show that "Canadians want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to work more closely with a new U.S. administration" and "Canadians expect their government to work closely with the U.S. on international problems".
According to this poll, 62% of Canadians would even "adopt American regulatory standards if it would ease restrictions at the border".

As Ibbitson also proclaimed, the reason why this will all be ok is : "Canadians are excited about the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency". Obama, a fine orator whose speeches move me to tears but whose voting record is thus far still somewhere to the right of Stephen Harper's, is apparently the new deep integration selling point to Canadians.

The G&M refers to the institute which commissioned the poll, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, merely as a "Calgary-based institute".
Rather more useful would have been the information that CDFAI is a lobby group funded by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and "defence contractor" General Dynamics, beneficiary of millions of dollars in arms contracts due to Canadian participation in the U.S War on Terra.

The article also quotes "Colin Robertson, senior fellow with the institute", but fails to mention "he was a member of the team that negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States", information freely available on his CDFAI bio, or that currently Mr. Robertson has been seconded by DFAIT to Carleton University to direct the Canada-US Project, along with fellow continentalist Derek Burney :

Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement under a New Administration
Purpose: To develop a blueprint for a joint Canada-US agenda focused on bilateral and global prosperity and security issues.

Included among its listed "themes" are :

• Canada-US defense cooperation (Note US spelling of defence)
• The North American energy-environment nexus
• Cross-border regulatory cooperation
• Scope and issue areas for greater bilateral cooperation in the Americas

Unsurprisingly, these are the same issues addressed in the CDFAI poll and happily reported in the G&M as Canadians, despite their "healthy skepticism of the Americans", enthusiastically supporting greater ties.

Thanks, G&M. Can hardly wait for your next one. And as CDFAI is holding a one-day conference in Ottawa today - What Does it Mean to Be Good Neighbours? - including Robert Pastor, Vice Chair of the 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America and author of Toward a North American Community, I expect we'll be hearing more of the same from you again quite soon.

Manley : Screw the coalition - go straight for collaboration

"As a Liberal, I believe the first step for my party is to replace Stéphane Dion as leader with someone whose first job is to rebuild the Liberal Party, rather than leading a coalition with the NDP.

His weakness probably fuelled the Conservative hubris that led to this fiasco in the first place.

But the first task should be to work collaboratively with all other parties to restore the confidence of Canadians in their Parliament."

~ John Manley in an editorial in today's G&M

I see. As a Liberal your advice is to ditch the coalition for a collaboration with the Cons, is it?

The only chance the coalition has to bring down Harper is before the next Speech to the Throne in January. Best you work on playing nice instead, says deep integrationist John Manley, as a Liberal. Feh.

OK, you all know the words by now - everyone sing along :

John Manley : Harper's hand-picked chair of last year's Afghanistan panel which sought to legitimize Canadian partipation in Operation Enduring Freedom, Canada Chair of the deep integration project, 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, and author of "Building A North American Community" for the US Council on Foreign Relations with Thomas d'Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Robert A. Pastor the self-proclaimed father of the North American Union :

"The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

Next stop for Manley - IggyNation.

The return of the North American Competitiveness Council, now with "spiritual vision"

We have yet another new contender in the "Project North America" sweepstakes.

The Standing Commission on North American Prosperity
or "N.A. 2050"

"A united effort of distinguished individuals from Mexico, Canada and the USA to provide sound economic and social policy guidance to the political leaders of the three countries for the prosperity of all peoples of North America.

In the aftermath of NAFTA and the SSP initiatives, a vacuum presently exists in developing a vision for North American prosperity. The lack of such a vision jeopardizes previous achievements in building strong economic ties across North America made during the past 15 years.

The Commission will be composed of up to 200 members from the 3 countries. The Commission will be governed by a Board of Trustees of 10 members per country and an Executive Committee of 2 members per country.

The Commission will meet 3 times a year and will provide "A North American Prosperity" White paper to the leaders of the three countries upon conclusion of each session.
Membership on the Commission is by invitation only.

Former President of Mexico Vicente Fox addressed the inaugural summit this week. A former Coca-Cola executive whose grandfather hails from Cincinatti, Fox was president of Mexico from 2000-2006 and signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Bush and Paul Martin in March 2005. From his keynote address on May 12 :

"If we are together‚ the U.S.‚ Mexico and Canada‚ no doubt we’ll be number one – the number one economy‚ the number one market‚ the number one consumer market – in the world.
My dream is that we will not have a border."

This must be what got the Canadian deep integrationists all jacked up last week. Canada falling behind, oh noes!
Canada was represented at the summit by World Bank and IMF luminary Dr. Peter Appleton, who has gone south to become president of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, sponsor of N.A. 2050 :

"If ever there was a match in theory that was made in heaven, it is North America. Canada and Mexico both have the oil supply and the United States needs resources. Why can't we work together? Ronald Regan took down the Berlin wall and we've spent the last 10 years putting one up. Where's the logic in that? How is that fair?"

Um, yeah.

Of course no deep integration project is complete without the guiding presence of Robert "I am a North American" Pastor to provide that vision thing :

"The European Union called on all people to unite. North America didn't do anything like that with NAFTA. We didn't have a spiritual vision past anything other than a business contract."

Yeah, bring on that North American spiritual vision. Summit entry fee - $1000US.
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