Continental integration by stealth
by Michael Byers | the Toronto Star
As Ottawa prepares to renew NORAD agreement, a bi-national panel suggests nothing less than the complete integration of Canada’s military, security and foreign policy into the decision-making and operating systems of the U.S.
They seem harmless enough at first: two mid-level Canadian Forces officers and a mild-mannered bespectacled American consultant explaining the work of their 48-member Bi-National Planning Group to audiences across Canada. Their professed goal is to improve co-operation between the Canadian and U.S. militaries, the better to defend both countries.
Yet a close reading of their final report released last month, reveals that their actual intent — or at least the intent of the politicians who set their mandate — is far from benign. They seek nothing less than the complete integration of Canada’s military, security and foreign policy into the decision-making and operating systems of the U.S.
In 2002, it was revealed that Ottawa and Washington were contemplating a “combined defence plan” that would have placed our forces under the umbrella of the U.S.’s new Northern Command (NORTHCOM).
Opposition to the plan quickly led to its being shunted out of view and into the newly created Bi-National Planning Group (BPG). Based at the headquarters of NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs, the planning group was intended to devise counterpoints to critics’ concerns, while postponing formal decision-making until a more politically opportune moment.
Today, two Canadian elections later, the authors of the BPG report can hardly believe their luck. Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have only a minority government, but there is little doubt he desires closer ties with Washington….
Read the rest of the article here
Posted Sun Apr 30th, 2006
