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Liberals Embrace North American Deep Integration

The timing was uncanny – less than two weeks after the release of a special report by a former Liberal cabinet minister calling for accelerated North American integration, Prime Minister Paul Martin met with U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox and agreed to just such integration.

The special report, dubbed by some commentators the “NAFTA Plus” report, was produced by a task force that included business people and politicians from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico,; it was co-chaired by John Manley, well known for his views on the benefits of closer economic integration with the U.S. Other members of the task force included William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts, Pedro Aspe, former Mexican finance minister, former Canadian finance minister Michael Wilson and Nelson Cunningham of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm, Kissinger McLarty Associates. The task force was the brain child of Paul Cellucci who, until very recently, was the U.S. ambassador to Canada. The group was charged with putting together a plan for a continent-wide, customs-free zone with common policies on trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security.

The group’s report, released in March, included several specific proposals. These included:

- a tri-national security policy to include harmonized visa and refugee regulations and joint tracking of all entries and exists of foreign nationals in all three countries;

- a trilateral customs union, with all three countries charging the same tariffs on imports;

- a common energy policy, that would give both the U.S. and Mexico preferential access to Canada’s oil, natural gas and hydroelectric power.

According to Manley, the proposals are a matter of necessity. Echoing the proponents of first free trade and then NAFTA, Manley argued that only by furthering economic integration with the U.S. and Mexico will Canada be able to prosper. Referring to the beginning of NAFTA in 1994, Manley, in an interview with the diplomatic magazine Embassy, stated: “I think we’ve had 11 years of incrementalism, and during that time we've seen the EU expand its borders, eliminate borders among countries and launch a common currency. We’re going to have to provide a vision that is more bold than incrementalism. What's the choice? Europe has made enormous steps in the years since NAFTA was signed. China has been going through a transformative process. In Canada, our only leverage is access to the U.S. market. If we're not going to develop and pursue how we use our advantage of location to be the foundation for future prosperity, then we are going to have to figure out another vision."

While the Martin government did not comment publicly on the proposals in the report, last week the prime minister signed a pact with Bush and Fox that is quite similar. The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America agreement calls for the establishment of a “common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America and further streamline the secure and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our shared borders.” The agreement commits the three countries to:

- implement common border security and bioprotection strategies;

- enhance critical infrastructure protection, and implement a common approach to emergency response;

- implement improvements in aviation and maritime security, combat transnational threats, and enhance intelligence partnerships;

- implement a border facilitation strategy to build capacity and improve the legitimate flow of people and cargo;

- improve productivity through regulatory cooperation to generate growth, while maintaining high standards for health and safety;

- promote collaboration in energy, transportation, financial services, technology, and other areas to facilitate business; and

- reduce the costs of trade through the efficient movement of goods and people.

A ministerial task force was established to implement the agreement and is due to report to the leaders within three months on what measures need to be taken to achieve further integration.

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