Anschluss Creep

Now that John Negroponte is expected to bring home the Salvador Option, I suspect even more Americans will seriously entertain the Canada Option. Already, since last November 2, more than three times the usual number have left to make a life north of the border. But Americans may not have the opportunity much longer. Not because the border could close, but because the border could, in every meaningful sense, cease to exist.

Keep an eye on this initiative:

Border talks called "disturbing"

OTTAWA—An influential tri-national panel has considered a raft of bold proposals for an integrated North America, including a continental customs union, single passport and contiguous security perimeter.
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Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow said the summary, a copy of which was obtained by the Toronto Star, was "disturbing" and "shocking."

"What they envisage is a new North American reality with one passport, one immigration and refugee policy, one security regime, one foreign policy, one common set of environmental, health and safety standards ... a brand name that will be sold to school kids, all based on the interests and the needs of the U.S.," she said.

She said the discussions have added weight because the panel includes such political heavyweights as former federal finance minister John Manley.

Thomas d'Aquino, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and one of the task force's vice-chairs, said the summary reflected only preliminary discussions and scoffed at Barlow's concerns, saying insinuations of a secret agenda are "totally wrong."

D'Aquino is right; the agenda's no secret. It's the undisguised ambition of generations of continentalists. To someone like d'Aquino, who led corporate Canada's charge for free trade with the US in the 1980s, 9/11 was also an "opportunity." In this instance, to accellerate assimilation. In December 2001, d'Aquino's CCCE created the "CEO Action Group on Canada-United States Co-operation," and he said, "our contributions to the war on terrorism have created an important opportunity to articulate a new vision of the relationship that will enhance Canada's sovereignty and competitiveness within a highly integrated North American economy." (And ya gotta love that Bushian doublespeak: "enhance Canada's sovereignty," indeed.) Keynote speakers at the Council's two-day session included US Ambassador Paul Cellucci and future Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The border suffered a significant breach the following December, when the two governments agreed to terms which would allow their militaries to cross it in order to respond rapidly to a terrorist act. "As an example of a case in which U.S. troops might enter Canada," The Washington Post reported, then-Defense Minister John McCallum "cited a hypothetical biological attack in Vancouver. U.S. forces in Seattle might be able to respond faster than Canadian forces in Ontario." I do not see from McCallum a hypothetical situation in which Canadian forces would be required to enter the United States.

A month later, d'Aquino was at it again:

Tom d'Aquino, the president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which is made up of Canada's 150 largest titans, told the [National] Post the border should no longer be seen as a demarcation line between Canada and the United States.

"It should simply be an internal checkpoint," he told the newspaper.

The jointly-managed perimeter would require a common approach to trade, immigration, security and defence. It would see Canadian and American authorities working together to fight terrorism and drug smuggling.

It's never been wise, but always easy, to underestimate Canada's importance to US security. (China's recent interest in making massive investment in Canada's resource sector surely hasn't gone unnoticed by Washington strategists.) There's the gross fact of geography, of course. Canada may offer an example as the other North America, with socialized medicine and gay marriage, but it will never be permitted to fall out of the US orbit. And naturally, there's Canada's role as the United States' principal source of foreign oil and natural gas. But think beyond oil, to fresh water. The Oglala aquifer, beneath the Great Plains, is expected to be exhausted in 30 years. Canada, meanwhile, has the world's largest supply of fresh water, and a tenth of America's population. Canadians have jealously guarded the resource, and refused all talk of bulk export. But we're entering desperate times for the United States, and we know what such times call for.