[antiwar-van] TODAY! Updated - Confront PNWER Summit

[Harsha]

* CUPE BC newsrelease:
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2008/18/c5990.html

* Updated endorsers and background info below *

- please forward widely. EMERGENCY ACTION -

CONFRONT THEIR ECONOMIC REGION:
Demonstration Opposing the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER)

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Sunday July 20th 5 pm
Westin Bayshore Hotel
1601 Bayshore Drive
(two blocks east of Denman and one block north of West Georgia)
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>From Sunday July 20th to Friday July 25th, the Pacific NorthWest Economic
Region (PNWER) Summit will be meeting in Vancouver. (check out
www.pnwer.org).

Some 'keynote hightlights' include Premier Gordon Campbell, Minister
Stockwell Day, US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, Minister of Natural
Resources Gary Lunn, and talks from CEO's of the various corporate
sponsors - who also sit on PNWER's 'Private Sector Council'- including GE
Canada, Merck Frosst, Exxon Mobile, bp, Teckcominco, and others.

The PNWER is a northwest US-Canada forum to "encourage global economic
competitiveness" and like other current regional and national free trade
frameworks like NAFTA, SPP, and TILMA, it is all about furthering an
agenda of corporate free trade, border militarization, privatization and
theft of indigenous land and resources, ecological destruction, repression
in the name of national security, impoverishment and displacement, and
cooperation in war and occupation.

Specifically the 2008 agenda highlights border security, oil/gas mining,
and 2010 Olympics. In the words of Minister Stockwell Day, “[PNWER] has
had a profound impact on policymaking.” In PNWER’s own words, it serves as
a “cross-border forum for unfiltered dialogue that capitalizes upon the
synergies between business leaders and elected officials.”

PNWER reinforces the idea of "Fortress North America", whereby the rich
and privileged live in gated communities and gentrified cities, protected
by police and security, with easy movement for capital between borders;
for the rest, there's border fences, reserves, ghettos, factory assembly
lines, prisons, surveillance, increased precarity, and empty rhetoric
about democracy and human rights.

In the next few years, so-called British Columbia (unceded Indigenous
territories) will be at centre of a commercial and resource boom, with
unprecedented expansion in: the tourist and recreational sector leading to
the 2010 Olympics; pilot projects for border surveillance and US-Canadian
military training cooperation under the SPP; mineral and gas mining in the
interior and North; resource extraction and privatization including water
and forestry products; and infrastructure development for resource
transportation including tarsands pipelines.

We do not believe in lobbying the PNWER leaders and we encourage actions
over the four days to raise awareness about, reject, protest, creatively
resist and/or disrupt this agenda of colonial and capitalist pillage.

"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker."
- Malcolm X

Organized and supported by No One Is Illegal, La Surda Latin American
Collective, Council of Canadians BC/Yukon Office, Anti Poverty Committee,
Olympics Resistance Network, Komagatamaru Heritage Foundation, Canadian
Arab Federation, Siraat Collective, Latin America Connexions Collective,
Building Bridges Human Rights Project- Vancouver, Stopwar.ca,
International Iranian Federation of Refugees, Siraat Collective, Cafe
Rebelde Coordinating Committee, Bolivia Solidarity Committee, Vancouver
Socialist Forum, Vancouver and District Labour Council (VDLC), CUPE Local
1004, Grassroots Women.

For more information call 778 885 0040.


*** TEXT OF LEAFLET ***
WHY WE OPPOSE THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION SUMMIT

Members of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) are meeting at
their annual summit in Vancouver. This cross-border trade and security
organization brings together large corporations with North West states,
provinces, territories in U.S. and Canada.

PNWER describes itself as “a statutory public/private partnership..” In
the words of Minister Stockwell Day, “[PNWER] has had a profound impact on
policymaking.” According to PNWER, it serves as a “cross-border forum for
unfiltered dialogue that capitalizes upon the synergies between business
leaders and elected officials.”

Despite the importance of PNWER, few people even now about this
organization as it has quietly escaped significant public scrutiny.
Increasingly agreements such as PNWER, Security and Prosperity Partnership
(SPP), and Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) are
being discussed and negotiated in a veil of secrecy despite having real
and profound impacts on our society: furthering an agenda of corporate
free trade, border militarization, privatization of indigenous land and
resources, ecological destruction, repression in the name of national
security, impoverishment, and cooperation in war.

Not everyone is left out of these cozy meetings- corporate participation
in PNWER is strong. High level sponsors include BP, Teck Cominco, Conoco
Philips, Terasen Gas, Merk Frosst, ExxonMobil, Plutonic Power, the
Business Council of BC, and Trans Canada Pipelines. In fact, the ongoing
governance of PNWER is overseen by a “Private Sector Board” of major
corporations.

==> PNWER, SPP, TAR SANDS, AND OLYMPICS: WHAT IS THE CONNECTION?

In the next few years, BC will be at centre of a commercial and resource
boom, with unprecedented expansion in: the tourist, real estate, and
recreational sector leading to the 2010 Olympics; pilot projects for
border surveillance and US-Canadian military training cooperation under
the SPP; mineral and gas mining in the interior and North; resource
extraction and privatization including water and forestry products; and
infrastructure development for resource transportation including
BC-Alberta tarsands pipelines.

PNWER is closely linked with the Security and Prosperity Partnership – the
NAFTA plus Homeland Security model- being pushed by the government and
corporate leaders of Canada, Mexico and USA.

The SPP combines the destructive neo-liberal policies of the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of resource extraction, corporate
tax breaks, privatization measures, and weakening of labour standards with
the fear and paranoia of post 9-11 "Homeland Security" policies that has
resulted in immigrant raids, border militarization, criminalization of
resistance, foreign troop occupations, and repression of civil liberties.

In brief, the SPP calls for maximization of North American economic
competitiveness in the face of growing exports from India and China;
expedited means of resource (oil, natural gas, water, forest products)
extraction; secure borders against “organized crime, international
terrorism, and illegal migration”; standardized regulatory regimes for
health, food safety, and the environment;  integrated energy supply
through a comprehensive resource and energy security pact (primarily about
ensuring that the US receives guaranteed flows of oil particularly from
the Alberta tar sands in; and coordination amongst defence forces.

The 2008 PNWER Summit agenda focuses on three critical issues:

• The 2010 Winter Olympics which is already having devastating impacts:
expansion of sport tourism on indigenous lands; corporate subsidies from
tax-payer money; unbridled real estate speculation; homelessness and
gentrification of poor neighbourhoods; increasing privatization of public
services; union-busting through imposed contracts; exploitative conditions
for workers especially temporary migrant labour; the fortification of a
security apparatus estimated at $175 million; and destruction of
mountains, old growth forests, streams, hunting and fishing grounds, and
delicate ecosystems.

• Planning for fundamental energy issues like the tar sands, private
electricity, ocean energy, and biofuels. The Alberta tar sands (“oil
sands”) are already the largest contributor to Canada's increase in
greenhouse gas emissions and environmental organizations are calling for a
moratorium on growth of the mines. Yet PNWER and the SPP aim to increase
tar sands production by five-fold to 3 million barrels a day by 2015. 
Companies exploiting the tar sands are calling for the expansion of the
temporary foreign worker program to secure exploitable labour that will
ensure higher profits, while surrounding indigenous communities have
documented incredibly high cancer rates and irreversible damage to the
land.

• Under the heading of “homeland security,” PNWER will review cross-border
information sharing, border security, and cross-border trade. PNWER aims
to ease travel for business, while making the border more difficult for
most people, particularly increasing border harassment against migrants
and refugees. Despite the rhetoric of making ‘us more safe’, the expansion
of security initiatives and infrastructure comes with little security for
our society; instead creating greater insecurity for immigrants, refugees,
indigenous people, and people of colour, while reaping great profits for
the private sector.

Within this context PNWER will reinforce a capitalist and colonial idea of
"Fortress North America", whereby the rich and privileged live in gated,
gentrified, and militarized communities with easy movement for capital
between borders. For the rest, there are border fences, reserves, ghettos,
low-wage work, surveillance, and empty rhetoric about democracy and human
rights.