ENDRUNNING DEMOCRACY
Oil, Water Wars and the Corporate Take-Over of North America
An Interview with Tony Clarke
London, UK - February 23, 2007
A Canadian author and organizer talks about the politics and economics of water, energy policy, and a well-advanced, corporate-driven stealth program aimed at by-passing the democratic institutions of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada' to establish a deceptively-titled 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of America (SPP),' or 'North American Union.' Clarke describes how trade agreements, negotiated behind closed doors by anonymous committees of technocrats, are being designed to supercede the labor, food safety, transportation and environmental laws of all three countries. He describes the emerging strategies being developed by Canadian activists to inform and mobilize citizens for cross-border coalitions aimed at exposing and defeating this anti-democratic corporatist agenda before it becomes a fait accompli.
Interviewed by Mary Beth Brangan & James Heddle
Co-Directors of EON - The Ecological Options Network
[option/alt click to download]
EON: Tony, tell us about your organization, what it is, what it does, and your relation to it.
TC: Well, I am the founder of the Polaris Institute. We're located in Ottawa, Canada. Polaris grew out of our work on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) when it became clear to us that really corporations are calling the shots, not governments.
There's such collusion between governments and corporations that it was really important we start rethinking how to develop strategies in relationship to bringing about public policy changes, and how to do that in a way that was also related to increasing the capacity of communities to take on these issues, and to be able to push for policy changes - but keeping in mind what it means to take on corporate power. So that's what we did with the Polaris Institute. We've had a history of doing profiles on major corporations, and also doing work on international trade issues, but much of our focus today is on water issues, and also on oil and energy issues.
EON: Why is water is such an important issue right now?
TC: All over the world it's an incredibly important issue simply because one-third of the world's population does not have access to clean water sources.
If the current trends continue, by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will be facing water scarcity. On top of that the demand for water is doubling every twenty years which is twice the rate of population growth. And again if those trends continue by the year 2025, the demand for water in the world will outstrip supply by 56%. So we're up against the limits, really, of water in the world and fresh water sources and it's going to become increasingly a critical issue for the 21st Century. It's been said, and I think it's true, that increasingly the wars of the 21st Century will be fought over water.
EON: And why is it a shortage? What's happening to our water?
TC: Well, it's a number of things. It's not just the fact that the numbers of people and population growth has reached a fairly high level, but really it's our demand for products, our demand for certain consumer goods.
If you take agriculture…agriculture is by far the biggest water guzzler in the world; but what's happened is, it's not just small farms that put a huge demand on water so much as it's these great big agri-business enterprises which have been set up, of course, to create this long-distance food system that we have where we get food from exotic parts of the world and have it shipped in and so forth. All of that takes a huge amount of water. It depends upon what part of the world you're in, but it can be anywhere between 65% and 75% - and even as high as in California almost 85% - of the water demand is really for agriculture. So it depends really upon where you are in the world. But on top of that, we've new technologies for industries, computer chip industry, the automobile industry, mining, and the kind of oil extraction that's going on deep under the earth, requires a great deal of water. So we're using more and more water to produce more and more goods.
EON: You've been doing a lot of research lately about the so-called 'defense' industry. Just give us a couple of headlines about why you're focusing on that and what you think is important.
TC: Well, one of the reasons that it comes out of both the work on water and on oil is because what's happening is that not only did we have 9/11 - not only have we had a huge build up of military security - but much of that military security is focusing on the whole question of control over resources.
We know where the military power exists, and the questions of securing control over resources by using the Army, Navy, and Air Force is something that's very much on the move today. We know, of course, that in the case of oil around the world, securing supply and control of supplies, and protecting the passage of supplies, or the transportation of supplies of oil from one point to another is something that is a top priority for the Pentagon, and for the American military. At the same time, we're going to find more and more, I think, that that's going to be the same with water as well.
It's very interesting that right now there is a consortium of corporations which is lead by Lockheed Martin in the United States - which has actually recommended very strongly that water be incorporated into American foreign policy and be very much a part of the future of American foreign policy. So by working on these issues, we've found that it's taken us back to something that's very evident in front of all of us, but something we often leave out of the equation, and that's the extent to which there has been very much a military build up and strengthening of militarization and it's related very much to foreign policy.
EON: And another place where water is impacted is with the Alberta Tar Sands Project. Can you talk about that?
TC: Well, the tar sands in Canada, you know, is something between the 180 and 220 billion barrels of oil that can be extracted from the tar sands. It's a form of crude oil that comes from digging down very, very deep into the ground and tearing up the ground, and getting at the bitumen which lies beneath the rock and the shale and everything else. And then the process is to separate the oil from the bitumen. This is designed to get as much oil as can be found to get it out of the ground to export it to the United States.
And right now, as I say, using current technologies, they can get anywhere between 180 and 220 billion barrels which is one of the larger recoverable deposits to be found. With unconventional technologies or new technologies, they may be able to get as much as 1.2 trillion barrels of oil out of the bitumen and out of the ground. So we're talking about one of the largest known hydrocarbon deposits found in recent years and so, therefore, it's of great value to any oil-consuming country and in this case the United States. And so what's happened is that we're locked into an arrangement largely because of the North American Free Trade Agreement but also because of the current negotiations going on regarding the Security and Prosperity arrangement between Canada and the United States.
It means simply this, that oil is for the most part designated to go to the United States, and so to get that oil out of the ground requires two major things. It requires a great deal of natural gas. We burn a lot of natural gas which gives off greenhouse gas emissions; three times the amount that we get is given off in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than you would find through conventional oil production.
And the second thing is that, of course, a great deal of water - it ranges between 4.5 barrels of water for each barrel of oil to 7 barrels of water for each barrel of oil. And so you get an idea of the amount of water that is used as a part of the extraction process.
The big problem on the water front is that the water is largely taken from the Athabasca River and the Athabasca River flows north in our country and it, therefore, affects the northern communities which are really made up of largely first nations or aboriginal peoples in our countries. So it's having a major effect up and down the whole corridor. If they continue to fuel the extraction process with natural gas, we are running out of natural gas, conventional natural gas and the plan is to build a big natural gas pipeline down through the McKenzie Valley which is again going to cross the aboriginals or first nations' territories. The peoples there are called the Dehcho and they will be directly affected by the gas pipeline, too. So they're going to be affected on both fronts, both in terms of the gas pipeline and what that means, and secondly also in terms of the water takings that are affecting their livelihood.
EON: Not to mention the emissions.
TC: Not to mention the emissions, yes, which, as I said, if you look at all of the contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada at least, the tar sands is by far the largest single contributor to our greenhouse gas emissions which are quite high right now. And we're a country that committed ourselves to the Kyoto Agreement, such as it is. I mean, we were on board with the Kyoto Agreement and we are a long ways away from meeting our targets of 6% below 1990 levels, and we're a long ways away from that right now mainly because of the tar sands. Not only, but mainly.
EON: What do Canadians feel about that?
TC: Well, first of all, Canadians are just beginning to awaken like so much of North America to what climate change and global warming is all about. And as that awakening takes place, and as more and more awareness takes place about the fact that the tar sands is making such an impact and also on the water demands that are taking place. I think this is having a double effect and I think we are going to see over the next number of months, particularly in this year 2007, an increasing awareness about that.
Up to this point, there's been every effort to keep the lid on this. Government and industry officials have done everything they can to keep the temperature down, to make sure the stuff doesn't really break out into the open. But what's happening now is that the people are beginning to realize what the situation is, and the campaign is beginning to take off in that part of the country, so we'll see what the results will be in the next few months.
EON: The larger context for all these issues is a stealth scheme, apparently well advanced, to integrate the three countries of North America - Mexico, the U.S. and Canada - into one bloc. Can you name it and describe what it is and how they're going about doing it?
TC: Well, it's called the Security and Prosperity Initiative which is meant in many ways to build on the edifice of NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], which is a legal context and framework for the relationships between the three countries.
The reason for the security part of this has a lot to do with the fact that we're dealing in a post-9/11 world, a time where in relationship to the war on terrorism all sorts of new imperatives came into place - anti-terrorism legislation, Patriot Act, and things like that. So what's happened is that there is now an attempt to try to advance this forward and to put this on a different keel.
What they want to do is to avoid any kind of new legislation or public debate around this. What they want to do is to be able to do it by administrative fiat or executive order, which is, in effect, to make as many changes as you can in knocking down the barriers and harmonizing the relationship between the three countries so that you start to operate more and more as a common market and turn North America into a common market.
Now that's definitely on the economic front and that's definitely dealing with the standards and the regulations between the three countries to harmonize them, to bring them into line with one another. So it means harmonizing our health standards across all three countries. That means harmonizing our transportation or licensing, every conceivable measure you can think about.
And there were 12 committees that were put in place to start that process and get that going made up of bureaucrats from all three countries to work together to try to bring about what they could do through executive order, or administrative fiat, and not through having to push something to the legislative level. So, this is the process that has been going on at the economic level to bring about that kind of harmonization.
At the same time - which is not spoken about very much - is the extent to which there is the tying of a security perimeter around all three countries, to make sure that there is a great deal of control over the movements of people within that bloc and certainly anybody that's coming from overseas landing in Canada and wanting to get into the United States, that definitely is brought under very tight scrutiny.
So, what is going on right now as a result of that is the Patriot Act, and the anti-terrorism legislation of Canada, that are now very much in force, as are the anti-terrorism laws of Mexico. And the idea is to create the security perimeter around all three countries and it means that everything gets redefined or a lot of things get redefined in the security framework.
So, for example, take energy. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, we would say that there's a free flow of energy between Canada and the United States; but under this new arrangement there will be what's called a “resource security pact,” and that resource security pact is meant to guarantee a flow of energy resources, say from Canada to the United States or from Mexico to the United States.
In some ways it's a bit ironic, because we already thought we had that in place, unfortunately, in terms of Canada, because we negotiated through the NAFTA the proportional sharing clause that in effect says that we must continue the flow of oil and gas and other resources from Canada to the United States and maintain a level of export that is consistent with what the average has been over the previous three years.
So, since there's always been an increasing amount of oil and gas exported to the United States. We must maintain that level of exports. And, therefore, for environmental reasons dealing with the greenhouse gas emissions, for example, if we were to put a quota on the amount that we are exported, that would be seen as a violation of NAFTA. Under the Resource Security Pact, that wouldn't even come into play; we would automatically be obligated, period, to continue that flow of energy of oil and gas between Canada and the United States. So, therefore, what's being put in place is just an extension of what's in the Homeland Security Act and the agenda of the United States is to make sure that there is a guaranteed supply of that resource flowing from Canada to the United States.
EON: Does Canada have enough for itself?
TC: Well, in the case of natural gas, as I was explaining before, we do export natural gas to the United States. But we've been using a heck of a lot of that natural gas that we do have in conventional supplies to actually fuel the tar sands. So, as we run lower and lower, I think we've got 8.7 years left[ as of 2-25-07 ]; but a few years from now we could begin the real danger zone. In fact, people would say that once you get below 10 years you're in the danger zone. So, it's very tight right now. And I think we're heading for a serious problem in Canada if we continue to move in this direction.
EON: I've read that it's actually part of the planning documents of this organization, if it's an organization, that the changes enacted will be done incrementally and stealthily so that it's basically an end run around any legislative process in Canada, United States, or Mexico.
TC: That's right. Well, I mean the whole process is moving, if you want to put it by stealth, in the sense that there is no way in which this will be democratically debated in the legislatures of any of the three countries. It's not something that will be debated in Congress. It will not be debated in our Parliament or the political process in Mexico. The reason is that both the corporate elite and the political elite, if you will, of our countries have decided that they don't want this to become a major issue of debate. They don't want the potential process towards greater unification and deepening of integration between the three countries to be a matter of serious public debate.
What they want is to be able to make sure that the job gets done by using what we call administrative fiat or executive order. So under the executive order of the President - a lot of power comes under that - a lot of power comes under the executive order or administrative fiat of our Prime Minister as well. So what they've done is resorted to those kinds of powers and said “get the job done that way.” And that means, bringing these changes in, if you will, by stealth. It means the public has no say in the matter. There cannot be any real debate. It is done through the executive administrative powers of the governments as they presently exist.
And on top of that, it is beneath the radar screen - nobody knows what's going on. These 12 committees that have been working and back and forth and trying to find ways of harmonizing, etc., there is no public report of this stuff. Very little of it is available to the public in any one of the three countries.
EON: So, is there going to be joint military force?
TC: Well, there is. That's a good question. There is already a great deal of what is called 'inter-operability.' What's happened is that there was a big push since 9/11 on Canada to increase its military spending and to become much more of a player in the process. Well, we've seen that happen. Our military spending has just grown by leaps and bounds in the last five or six years. We've made a commitment to Afghanistan to be a major player in the war in Afghanistan. We stayed out of the war in Iraq. We didn't joint the coalition of the willing but, by God, we're in there as far as Afghanistan is concerned.
At the same time, the increase in military spending - which means, of course, buying new hardware and equipment and so forth - much of the equipment that we are buying or will buy and are buying is equipment that makes our forces much more inter-operable with the U.S. So, we're seeing behind the scenes a greater and greater integration of our armed forces, or assimilation of our armed forces into that of the United States and we'll see more of that happen.
And, of course, when you're dealing with the kind of world we're in today with the technologies and everything that are necessary, if you're going to be inter-operative, if you're going to really work side by side in close communication with the armed forces of another country, having the technology machinery be inter-operable is really important.
EON: And that's a great boom and a boon for American weapons makers.
TC: Exactly.
EON: And isn't this just really a step in the direction of annexing Canada and Mexico to the United States? Can you say something about that and how you feel about it?
TC: Well, it's been a process that's been going on for quite some time, certainly since the first free trade deal between Canada and the United States in 1989 and then the North American Free Trade Agreement and now the Security and Prosperity Initiative. All of these have been steps along the way to greater and greater integration between Canada and the United States and, for that matter, all three countries. And so, yes, I mean eventually we may see…of course, everybody denies that we may very well see it. Just like we've seen the European Union where all the states pooled their sovereignty together into something called the European Union. We're very much like that. We seem to be heading down that road ourselves in North America.
EON: Didn't the people get to vote on that, though?
TC: Oh yes, but that's exactly it. People got to vote on that.
EON: And there was a lot of debate.
TC: Yeah, there was a lot of debate and some countries stayed out of it and never joined the European Union - a big debate in Norway, for example, and so forth. But, no, it's not happening that way. At least to date it's not happening that way in Canada and the United States and Mexico.
EON: Canada has always been famous for your health care system being so much better than the United States and, in fact we know some people who are considering to moving there just because of that. What do you foresee happening in that regard?
TC: Well, we've gone through a period where we've really had major public discussion and debate about our healthcare system. Our healthcare system has been in some trouble lately, and when it's in trouble, then the forces of privatization start to take over. And so there has been what we call creeping privatization inside of our healthcare system; and the more that that happens, the more at least parts of our healthcare system can somewhat harmonize with that of the United States. So, I think that this is a direction in which things have been going.
Thank goodness that there's been a great deal of resistance expressed on the part of Canadians about that happening to their healthcare system so that we've been able to at least force the government to some extent to pour more money into strengthening the healthcare system. But it is a concern and it's an ongoing concern; and Canadians can never take for granted that they have a universal healthcare system now today, but five years from now we don't know. And so, this is all part of the process that's going on now.
EON: I've heard the so-called Security & Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, also referred to as the North American Union. You don't seem to think of it in those terms, or you don't use those terms.
TC: Well, certainly that language has been used and all I can say is that the other side has used that language, but also is very careful sometimes not to use it publicly because they know there's enough resistance both in Mexico and Canada, and to some extent even in the United States, to not go down that path. So I think that that's why they're doing it by stealth. That's why they're doing it by administrative fiat but certainly in some of the documents reference is made to the North American Union. You're absolutely right.
EON: Is it true that talk about a common North American currency is going around?
TC: It's been around for some time. You know, there are a number of documents that have been written by different think tanks on both sides of the border; and in some of the reports and documents written by some of those think tanks they've talked about several things like a common market, like a customs union, and even a common currency.
EON: The Amero?
TC: Yeah, something of that nature. That very well may happen; and of course, once you do that, that's almost the last straw of national sovereignty, when you actually pool everything into a common currency. Notice how long it took the European Union to reach that point. Once that happens, then that is the last straw, I think, in regards to national sovereignty.
So, once again, it's one of those issues that's a sort of hot and heavy issue that the elites don't want to raise right now, nor do they want to raise the issue of water exports between Canada and the United States, simply because those are flash points that will stir up a great deal of popular resistance and they don't want that to happen. There's kind of an unwritten agreement among the elite to keep certain issues below the radar screen and to make sure they don't become hot public issues or hot button issues. And one of them is a common currency.
EON: So, what is your strategy? How are you organizing to educate the public of all three countries and present a united grassroots front?
TC: Well I think, even Canadians have become somewhat complacent on this. This is not where we were in 1987 and 1988 when we were able to amass an enormous amount of public opinion in opposition to the first free trade agreement. And what's happened is, it's like the old story, you know, of the frog. If you put a frog in hot water, it'll jump out real quick; but if you put a frog in warm or lukewarm water and just heat it up gradually, it gets used to it…and eventually gets cooked.
The problem is that over the last 15 years or so we have become increasingly - or actually 20 years because it's been 20 years since the free trade debate really began in Canada - that over that period of time especially over the last 15 years there's been a fair amount of complacency that's set in. And, so, to get this thing on the political radar screen as far as citizens are concerned as a part of public discussion and debate, we're up against more challenges than we used to be.
Before, you were dealing with the treaty [NAFTA], a deal that was in front of you. It was going to go before the legislatures of all the countries. The political process was there to be able to follow it. It's not the case this time. This is why there is the real danger that a very anti-democratic process is underway to push this plan below the radar screen so that the bureaucrats are in charge of it, and nobody really knows publicly what's going and there's very little public discussion or debate in any of the three countries.
So, the problem is how to stir this up again, how to really get it going again, and how do you help people understand what's happening? So, my feeling is there's two ways of doing this and both have to happen.
One is that you take the issues apart piece by piece and you start to address them. So you look for the hot button issues that exist for all three countries -- something like energy, for example -- and build a campaign and strategy around the energy debate. So, one of the things we're trying to do with the tar sands issue or the Alberta tar sands is to make that a major issue and to get that out front and get people aware of what is happening and put it in the context of the Security and Prosperity Initiative.
The same is happening around issues dealing with homeland security and the larger security perimeter that's taking place. Other parts are being dealt with around the jobs and the gutting of our manufacturing sector in Canada and what that really means for the future and things like this.
So we're beginning to find and pick away the issues around which there can be some mobilizations. Another set of issues and concern is obviously the military and armed forces and the relationship between them across the board. So that's happening.
But the second thing is we have to eventually bring this together for people to see that this is all part of the a common agenda, that even though you break it apart and break it down into manageable chunks for people - all of which is important for mobilizing people - it's also important for people to see the whole and the direction in which things are going.
And so there is going to be a big conference the Council of Canadians is organizing and other groups are organizing in Canada which will take place at the end of March and early part of April. [ For more information, please see below. ]
And then on top of that there's also going to be the next meeting of what we call Three Amigos which is the meeting of President Bush, Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, and Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico. And that will take place [this summer] in Kananaskis in Alberta. And so once again there will be actions that will take place at that time as well. [For more information on this visit: http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/ ]
TONY CLARKE can be reached at the Polaris Institute, Suite 500 - 180 Metcalfe St. Ottawa, ON Canada K2P 1P5
Tel: 613-237-1717 Email: tclarke@polarisinstituite.org
Visit the Council of Canadians website: http://www.canadians.org/
General information: inquiries@canadians.org Tel: (613) 233-2773 or 1-800-387-7177
Media: meera@canadians.org
Inquiries from journalists Tel: (613) 233-4487, ext. 234
The Council of Canadians recently held a Teach-In on the SPP. Entitled “Integrate This! Challenging the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” it was a chance to discuss an important issue our government wants to keep under wraps: continental economic and security integration. The gathering was held March 31 to April 1, 2007, sponsored by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadian Labour Congress.
Integrate This! brought together activists, academics, workers, politicians and journalists from Canada, Mexico and the United States to challenge the big-business vision of North American integration contained in the Security and Prosperity Partnership - a vision that had yet to be debated anywhere but which will have major impacts on citizens across the continent. For more information: http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/
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Interviewers Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle are Co-Directors of EON, the Ecological Options Network - www.EON3.net They can be reached at Info@EON3.net .