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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Left, Right Unite to Oppose North American Union
Barry Brown - Washington Times
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 |  | This is how Hitler started. First jelly beans, then other things.
- Rivka Waller |  | |
Toronto — America's right-wing and Canada's "loony left" have found common ground — both are horrified at the thought of a North American Union modeled on Europe.
"This is how Hitler started. First jelly beans, then other things," Canadian Rivka Waller said after hearing from her friend about the two-year-old Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) discussed among the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico at Montebello, Quebec, last week.
To earnest Canadian nationalists, the jelly bean quickly became a metaphor for poisonous American intentions when Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained that SPP was simply a means to harmonize trivialities such as nutritional labeling on the soft candy snacks.
When Mr. Harper, President Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met in Quebec last week, American conservative groups attacked the SPP as a stalking horse for a secret U.S. agenda to erase its borders with Canada and Mexico. Accounts of those concerns featured prominently in some American newspapers, including The Washington Times.
Now that the summit is over, Ms. Waller and other patriotic Canadians are fuming that any American would dare think that Canada wants to be part of the United States.
Jack Layton, leader of Canada's left-wing New Democratic Party, does not see Nazis behind the jelly beans: he sees Americans coveting Canadian resources.
Mr. Layton thinks his government and those of Canada's southern neighbors are "looking for ways to intertwine social, economic and policies" away from "public scrutiny."
Mr. Layton expanded the argument from jelly beans to pesticides, voicing fears that Canadians would change their standards to match those of the United States.
EU-style union resisted
For many Canadians, however, jelly beans and pesticides are a side show to the real issues of Arctic sovereignty and Canadian water. Canada has lots of fresh water.
Mr. Harper loudly and repeatedly said he would not surrender Canada's Arctic claims or allow bulk water sales to parched regions of the United States.
"If there was a real proposal on the table for the same level of integration as the European Union, there would be a lot of resistance in both countries," said Rex Murphy, a commentator on CBC-TV's flagship news show. "But there isn't."
Mr. Murphy says the excessive secrecy at the summit had more to do with security concerns that have accompanied every such meeting since the riots in Seattle protesting the World Trade Organization summit in 1999.
Still, he said, "Canada and the U.S. have been in some ways merging under the guise of normal relations since September 11. We have the biggest two-way trading relationship in the world, so adjustments have to be made."
Anne McLellan, who was in Waco, Texas, as Canada's deputy prime minister when the first SPP was signed in 2005, said she and then-Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge worked quickly to secure the partnership's security and economic prosperity.
The closing of the U.S.-Canada border after the attacks was a shock to Canadians, and while both sides adjusted to America's new security concerns, Ms. McLellan conceded, "we didn't talk to Canadians a lot about the SPP because we saw it as incremental and not a big idea."
Now, she says, the "loony right in the U.S. and the loony left" in Canada have created conspiracy theories around it. |
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