1.1 Executive Summary:
The North American Forum on a People-Centered Approach to Trade Summary Report will highlight key messages from the collective perspectives of North American progressive legislators and civil society actors in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.
Participants of the Forum worked to build an inventory of the North American actions which affect the way trade has been managed under NAFTA and to examine the Security and Prosperity Partnership Initiative (SPP), two components of the broader neo-liberal market-driven agenda, a legal bill of rights for transnational corporations. NAFTA and NAFTA Plus serve to prevent our respective governments from doing anything that would interfere with corporations' freedom - even when their activities are detrimental to peoples' economic, social and environmental well-being.
The Summary Report aims to document central ideas coming out of the Forum and to raise awareness of solutions that are available to improve and anticipate emerging priorities/actions items which will serve as guidelines for future efforts relating to sectoral strategies, alternatives, parliamentary agendas and research
1.2 Background:
North American legislators and civil society actors met in Ottawa on June 5 2006 to formulate people-centred alternatives to the deep-integration agenda. The session extended the work of the first Tri-National Forum held May 4-5, 2005, in Washington.
Participants included:
Participating civil society networks have documented growing gaps between rich and poor under NAFTA, arguing that social programs and protections have been sacrificed for narrow economic gain for the wealthy. One recent analysis shows that 60 per cent of Canadian families are now worse off under the deal and the Free Trade Agreement that preceded it.
For their part, progressive legislators have voiced concerns about NAFTA promoting a "race to the bottom" rather than equitable development in all three countries. The spark for this North American process is the refusal by all three governments to conduct open reviews of NAFTA's effects on people, communities and regions.
Instead, the three heads of state continue to meet behind closed doors to extend a little-known Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agreement. Press releases promote this retooling of some 300 policy and program areas as benign "efficiency" measures meriting no legislative or public input. Many forum participants contest the secrecy.
Participants continue to examine SPP measures as possible wedges for deeper integration. Indeed, the leaders' discussions have already ranged to an energy pact and the harmonization of migration and security policies. These themes are a slippery slope toward "NAFTA-plus" - a general melding of national policies to eliminate what the multinational-corporate lobby refers to as profit-limiting "incompatibilities."
The year's forum is especially timely for Canadians. The federal government's surrender on the softwood lumber issue underlines what Canada sacrificed for a NAFTA agreement that is failing to protect our national interest.
This year's forum aimed to harness participants' well-developed opposition for positive proposition. Participants shared knowledge and explored progressive approaches to social and economic relations in North America. The goal for June 5: a North American work plan toward a people-centred trade model with quality-of-life, democratic rights, social and labour standards and environmental protection as first principles.