[van-announce] Target the NACC and Security Prosperity Partnership Agreement!

[Harsha]

In support of the continental calls for resistance to the SPP, No One is
Illegal- Vancouver has recently began a campaign to target the membership
of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) and it's involvement
in the SPP.

We encourage those interested to get in touch and join us in organizing
various forms of resistance to the NACC and also to organize autonomous
actions as part of a broad movement to oppose the destructive plans of the
SPP. To attend organizing meetings or to get more information on how to be
involved, please do get in touch at noii-van at resist.ca or call
778-885-0040.

More background information on the SPP can be found at:
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?page_id=102

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TARGET THE CANADIAN MEMBERSHIP OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS COUNCIL

The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was launched as part of
the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in June 2006. It is the only
formal advisory board to the SPP and is made up of 30 corporate leaders
from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with ten advisors from each of the SPP
signatory states. A September 13, 2006 story in Maclean's magazine
describes NACC as a “cherrypicked group of executives who were whisked to
Cancun in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and asked
to come up with a plan for taking North American integration beyond
NAFTA.”

The NACC has become the concrete reality emerging from proposals by
corporate think-tanks such the Canadian Council of Chief Executives
(CCCE), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Consejo Mexicano De
Asuntos Internacionels (COMEXI) to have a trilateral corporate body which
would advise the three governments on issues ranging from military
integration to securing energy resources to controlling migration. In
Canada, for example, in January 2003, the CCCE (a CEO organization whose
corporations administer in excess of C$2.1 trillion in assets and is the
leading force in the Canadian private sector behind NAFTA) launched its
North American Security and Prosperity Initiative with initiatives to
increase investment and capital flows, integrate security agreements and
military defence, and expedited means of resource (oil, natural gas,
water, forest products) extraction. This has essentially become the
template for the SPP.

In short, the NACC, representing private corporate interests, has been
“institutionalized” as a policy-making body, thus formalizing and
deepening the existing patterns of influence that corporations already have.

Harper appointed the Canadian membership of the NACC in June 2006: Dominic
D’Alessandro (Manulife Financial); Paul Desmarais, Jr. (Power Corporation
of Canada); David Ganong (Ganong Bros. Limited); Richard George (Suncor
Energy Inc.); Hunter Harrison (CN); Linda Hasenfratz (Linamar
Corporation); Michael Sabia (Bell Canada Enterprises); Jim Shepherd
(Canfor Corporation); Annette Verschuren (The Home Depot); and Rick Waugh
(Scotiabank).


==> THE HOME DEPOT:

"It was an intimate discussion. It was a lot of fun, there were no
reporters, just a freewheeling discussion on the things that drive you
crazy," recalls Annette Verschuren, the president of Home Depot Canada,
who flew in on Harper's jet and said the PM was "very engaged."
- A September 13, 2006 story in Maclean's magazine about a SPP meeting.

Founded in 1978, The Home Depot, Inc. is the world's largest home
improvement specialty retailer and the second largest retailer in the
United States selling building materials, home improvement and lawn and
garden products in addition to providing various services related to home
improvement. In fiscal year 2006, this Delaware-based company’s sales were
$90.8 billion and earnings, $5.8 billion. In recent years, Home Depot has
come under fire from environmentalists as North America's largest lumber
retailer. In June 2007, Home Depot and other big home-improvement stores
lobbied US Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia to amend the Senate
immigration bill so they would be free from having to provide shelter for
day laborers.


==> CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY (CN Rail):

In 1992 a new management team led by ex-federal government bureaucrats,
Paul Tellier and Michael Sabia (Current President of Bell Canada), started
preparing CN, a crown corporation at that point, for privatization by
emphasizing increased productivity. This was eventually achieved in 1995.

The benefits of agreements such as the SPP to transportation companies
such as CN are no mystery. One of the anticipated developments with the
creation of such “open trade zones” are immense trading corridors
consisting of large highways and railway lines to facilitate the transport
of materials either generated within the continent or to facilitate the
movement of goods in a manner that bypasses the restrictions on shipping
to particular areas. This includes transportation through the new Port of
Prince Rupert container terminal, a new North American gateway for
products and commodities moving to Asia. CN is also investing to transport
resources from the oil sands in Alberta. In Western Canada alone, CN in
2007 plans to invest nearly C$350 million in track infrastructure.

Historically and currently, CN Rail has been the target of various
indigenous blockades. CN is currently suing three activists from the
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory for over $ 100 million Their lawsuit is about
intimidating and marginalizing effective indigenous organizers, who are
active in the legitimate defence of their land and livelihood against the
project of Canada’s ‘nation-building’ and resource extraction. CN, for
example, is the largest rail carrier of forest products in North America,
a vast majority of which is extracted from traditional indigenous
territories.


==> MANULIFE FINANCIAL:

Manulife Financial is a Canadian-based financial services group and the
largest life insurance company in Canada. It is the 2nd largest public
company in Canada, and the 6th largest life insurance company in the world
based on a market capitalization of approximately $60 billion. It is
operating as ‘Manulife Financial’ in Canada and Asia, and primarily
through ‘John Hancock’ in the United States. Funds under management by
Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were Cdn$414 billion (US$355
billion) as at December 31, 2006. In March 2007, Manulife CEO D'Alessandro
spoke against a tax measure aimed to prevent companies from writing off
the costs incurred to finance overseas expansion, which was designed to
close a loophole affecting offshore tax havens.


==> POWER CORPORATION OF CANADA:

Incorporated in 1925, Power Corporation of Canada is a diversified
international management and holding company with interests in companies
that are active in the financial services, communications and other
business sectors. Power controls some of Canada’s biggest blue-chip
companies, including the Investors Group, the country’s largest mutual
fund dealer, and investment firm Mackenzie Financial. It owns insurers
Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life and London Life. Together with its
subsidiaries, London Life and Canada Life, Great-West sells insurance to
more than 12 million Canadians. Power Technology Investment Corporation is
a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corporation which invests in the
biotechnology and technology sectors. In addition to its investments in
Neurochem Inc. and Adaltis Inc., two public companies based in Montréal.
Power owns several Quebec newspapers, including La Presse. It also holds
substantial positions in Chinese airlines and telecom firms and has large
stakes in the world’s leading entertainment company, Bertelsmann, as well
as a big piece of one of Europe’s largest oil producers. In 2003, Power
Corp. reported annual revenues of $16 billion.

Power Corporation of Canada made headlines in 2005 when it was revealed
that the man handpicked by the UN secretary general to probe the UN’s
scandalized Oil-for-Food program, Paul Volcker, had not disclosed to the
UN that he was a paid adviser to Power Corporation. This was a clear
conflict of interest as Power Corporation had ties to the French oil
giant, Total, which was being investigated under the Iraq Oil-for-Food
program for lucrative contracts to develop and exploit the Majnoon and
Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq.Most currently, Total is building a
pipeline in Eastern Burma that has caused the violent relocation of
thousands of people and is being built using forced labor.  The
Total/UNOCAL Yadana natural gas pipeline is one of the largest sources of
revenue for Burma’s despotic regime.

Former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin has served as an Executive to
Power Corporation and former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
was Power’s “labour-relations” lawyer. The son of family head Paul
Desmarais Sr., Andre Desmarais is married to the daughter of Jean
Chrétien.  John Rae (brother of Bob Rae) is a Senior Power Corp. executive
who organized two out of three of Jean Chretien’s successful election
bids.


==> GANONG BROTHERS LIMITED:

Ganong Bros. Limited is Canada's oldest candy company; founded in 1873.
With its head office located in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, the
corporation also has offices in Moncton, Toronto and Vancouver. Its
largest sales volume is from boxed chocolates and it currently exports to
the USA and United Kingdom. Ganong employs about 400 people.


==> SUNCOR ENERGY CORP.:

Suncor is an integrated energy company, with corporate headquarters in
Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The company explores for, acquires, develops,
produces and markets crude oil and natural gas, transports and refines
crude oil and markets petroleum and petrochemical products. Besides
Suncor’s Oil Sands business, their Natural Gas business, based in Calgary,
Alberta, explores for, acquires, develops and produces natural gas and
natural gas liquids from reserves in Western Alberta and Northeastern
British Columbia. In addition, Suncor’s indirectly wholly-owned U.S.
subsidiary, Suncor Energy (Natural Gas) America Inc., acquires land and
explores for coal bed methane in the United States. Suncor’s third
business, Energy Marketing and Refining - Canada, headquartered in
Toronto, Ontario, refines crude oil at Suncor’s refinery in Sarnia,
Ontario. Suncor’s fourth business is Refining and Marketing – U.S.A.,
headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Richard George is the president and chief executive officer of Suncor
Energy Inc. Mr. George is also a director of the U.S. offshore and onshore
drilling company GlobalSantaFe Corporation. He served as chairman of the
Canadian Council of Chief Executives from 2003 to 2006. In addition to a
base salary of $1,117,077, Mr. George received an annual incentive of
$2,000,000 for 2006. Moreover, compared to other energy producing nations,
Canada has the lowest taxes on oil in the world—-just 23 cents per
barrel—-which guarantees that most of the money earned goes in the pockets
of overpaid CEOs, corporations and shareholders.

The company is focused on developing one of the world’s largest petroleum
resource basins – the Athabasca oil sands. Oil sand operations currently
produce around one million barrels a day. For Suncor, that means gross
revenue from oil sands of nearly $6 million a day. By 2015, according to
industry forecasts, the oil sands will account for at least one-fourth of
North America's oil production, expected to produce 3 million barrels a
day by 2015.

The oil sands mines have become the largest contributor to Canada's
increase in greenhouse gas emissions and environmental organizations are
calling for a moratorium on the growth of the mines. Alberta accounts for
about 40% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. Six of the top 10 emitters
in the country are based in Calgary, including TransAlta, Syncrude Canada
Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc. and Petro-Canada. Yet the SPP calls for a
fivefold increase in tar sands production in Alberta and an alternative to
the Kyoto Protocol since the oil sands are a clear violation of Kyoto
commitments. Furthermore, the oil sand mines are being carved out of
Canada's vast Boreal forest, a continental swath of timber and wetlands
that ecologists say helps reduce global warming.

Suncor and other companies exploiting the tar sands are calling for the
expansion of the temporary foreign worker program as a means of securing
hyper-exploitable labour that will ensure higher profits. Foreign worker
programs across North America have documented widespread abuse, including
being tied to the employer who “imports” them; facing deportation if they
assert their rights; and exploitative working conditions including low
wages and long hours with no overtime pay. In April 2007, for example, two
migrants workers died and four others critically injured at an oil sands
project run by run by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. The Alberta
Federation of Labour reported that the workers who called to report the
accident to the union subsequently had their cellphones confiscated.

Indigenous communities around the tarsands, including the Lubicon, Dene,
Mikisew Cree, have been actively opposing the projects. The Dehcho First
Nations has been opposing the 1,200-kilometre Mackenzie Valley pipeline
and industrial development on their unceded traditional territories. The
Lubicon Nation has also seen their traditional lands overrun by massive
oil and gas exploitation which has destroyed traditional lands and ways of
life. The Lubicon Nation has been seeking a land rights settlement with
the federal and provincial governments for years, yet corporate
development has continued unabated. The Lubicon Nation estimates that over
$13 billion in oil and gas resources have been taken from Lubicon
Traditional Territory since oil and gas exploitation began 26 years ago.
Native residents of Fort Chipewyan, a village of 1,200 on the shores of
Lake Athabasca, have experienced abnormally high rates of rare cancers.
Recently, the alarming levels of toxic chemicals in the air, water and
soil near Sarnia were exposed when it was found that these chemicals were
likely contributing to the skewed gender balance in the Aamjiwnaang First
Nations reserve near Sarnia.


==> LINAMAR CORPORATION:

Linamar is a diversified global manufacturing company of highly engineered
products, especially of autoparts. The Company conducts its operations in
five geographic areas, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Asia Pacific and
Europe. Linamar’s four largest customers in 2006, as measured by
consolidated sales, were the General Motors group of companies (“GM”),
DaimlerChrysler AG ("Chrysler"), Caterpillar Inc. (“CAT”) and Ford Motor
Company ("Ford"). The Company’s Canadian segment accounted for
approximately 74% of total revenues. Linamar generated sales of close to
$2.3 billion in 2006. Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar, is a strong
supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and supports
“unregulated free trade”. Linamar is aiming to expand to Asia, expecting
300 million to $500 million in annuals sales in Asia within five to seven
years with plants in China and South Korea.


==> BELL CANADA ENTERPRISES:

As at December 31, 2006, total assets of BCE were $42.9 million of which
$42.6 million, or 99.3%, were in the form of cash and cash equivalents and
temporary investments as well as accrued interest. Only approximately 46%
of BCE employees are represented by unions and are covered by collective
agreements. According to BCE, Cost reductions from efficiency-related
process improvements in the past year were driven primarily by: “workforce
reductions stemming from greater use of outsourcing and other productivity
initiatives” among other methods.

Michael J. Sabia is President and Chief Executive Officer of BCE Inc. and
Chief Executive Officer of Bell Canada. He is also Chairman of the Board
of Bell Aliant Regional Communications, as well as director of BCE Inc.,
Bell Canada and The Thomson Corporation. Before joining BCI, Sabia was an
executive of Canadian National Railway Company where he had a major role
in privatizing the company. Prior to that he held a number of senior
positions in the Canadian federal government, including Director-General
of Tax Policy in the Department of Finance and Deputy Secretary to the
Cabinet (Plans) in the Privy Council Office.


==> CANFOR CORPORATION:

Canfor is a Canadian forest products company based in Vancouver, British
Columbia, involved primarily in the lumber and panels business, with
production facilities in British Columbia, Alberta, Québec and the United
States. Canfor is the largest spruce-pine-fir (“SPF”) lumber producer in
the world. Softwood lumber production facilities are located in British
Columbia, Alberta, Québec and the United States. Canfor also holds
approximately 10.9 million cubic metres of annual harvesting rights under
its forest tenures.

As an industry, forestry and logging has been never been sustainable.
Currently, more than 80% of the BC timber harvest continues to be derived
from primaeval frontier forests, including future logging within the 20
million acre tract of endangered temperate Great Bear Rainforest.
Furthermore, despite the fact that over 97% of British Columbia land is
unceded Indigenous territory, Canfor maintains that the province of
British Columbia owns approximately 95% of all timberlands in the province
and is empowered to “grant various forms of tenure and to regulate
forestry operations”. Canfor has also been a strong proponent of the
US-Canada Softwood Lumber Deal.

Former Liberal and now Conservative Cabinet Minister David Emerson is a
former Canfor CEO. Mr. Shepherd is the current C.E.O. of Canfor and also
sits as a Director on the Council of Forest Industries, B.C. Progress
Board, Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance Incorporated, Vancouver Board of
Trade, The Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies, Canadian
Council of Chief Executives, University of Northern British Columbia, and
is Chairman of the Forest Products Association of Canada.


==> SCOTIABANK:

The Bank, and its affiliates, have almost 12 million customers in some 50
countries, which provide a wide range of banking and financial services,
either directly or through subsidiary and associated banks, trust
companies and other financial institutions. In the fiscal year ended
October 31, 2006, the Bank’s net income available to common shareholders
was a record $3,549 million, an increase of $365 million or 12% higher
than 2005. The Bank’s International Banking business line operates in more
than 40 countries and includes operations in the following geographic
regions: the Caribbean and Central America, Mexico, Latin America, and
Asia. In Mexico, Grupo Financiero Scotiabank Inverlat, S.A. de C.V. is the
sixth-largest financial group in the Mexican banking system.