Please help end Canada's slavery to the United States by saying NO TO NAFTA. Just simply cut and paste this sample letter and send it to Barack Obama by going to the “Obama ‘08” website at http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2 or by e-mailing info@barackobama.com. To send your message to Hillary Clinton, go to the “Hillary for President” website at http://www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact/ or e-mail comments@hillaryclinton.com. If you go to their websites, it only takes a few moments to fill in the required fields and you can leave the “state” field empty.
Sample letter:
Dear Senator Obama / Clinton,
I join with the Council of Canadians in thanking you for your recent statements in support of the renegotiation or abrogation of NAFTA.
As reported in one of our national newspapers, the Globe and Mail, “Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement within six months after becoming president, unless the agreement were completely renegotiated...Ms. Clinton said she would demand new environmental and labour provisions, and a new dispute-resolution mechanism, and would eliminate the right of outsiders to sue the United States for enacting measures to protect jobs."
While your critics have stated that your comments were not genuine, we trust that you have made a sincere commitment to address the failings of NAFTA if you were to become president on January 20, 2009.
While we have raised the same criticisms as you about NAFTA with our prime minister, he has disregarded our concerns. In fact, when he was last in the United States he told an audience in New York City that, “Now I know NAFTA has become somewhat of a whipping boy to some in the United States, just as it is to some in Mexico and even to some in Canada. But the fact is that NAFTA has been unequivocally good for all of our countries. In spite of the naysayers and the doomsdayers, I could recite a litany of economic statistics to demonstrate its success – which is why virtually nobody, not even the critics, dares suggest to rip it up."
Your comments this week suggest that our prime minister might want to reconsider his statement to your citizenry.
Our prime minister has suggested that if you were to open NAFTA to renegotiation, he would have his own list of concessions to discuss. While he has not shared this list with the Canadian public, we hope that it would include at least these two areas:
WATER: In June 2007, our House of Commons voted 134 to 108 to open NAFTA talks to make sure bulk water exports are excluded. This motion called for a formal letter of agreement with the United States and Mexico to make sure bulk water will never be defined as a good or service under NAFTA.
ENERGY: Canada exported 1.86 million barrels of oil a day to your country in 2007. That same year, we had to import 851,000 barrels of oil per day for our own needs from countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It is doubtless time that our prime minister considers our own energy security as much as your country recognizes the importance of its own energy needs.
We would also like to draw special attention to recent comments about the Security and Prosperity Partnership summits. Senator Obama wrote in the Dallas Morning News, "Starting my first year in office, I will convene annual meetings with Mr. Calderon and the prime minister of Canada. Unlike similar summits under President Bush, these will be conducted with a level of transparency that represents the close ties among our three countries. We will seek the active and open involvement of citizens, labor, the private sector and non-governmental organizations in setting the agenda and making progress."
We have repeatedly made the demand to our prime minister that the Security and Prosperity Partnership should be brought before the legislatures of all three countries involved, and subject to the democratic scrutiny of public hearings, debate and votes. Our prime minister has rejected these calls – as well as demands that the SPP process be opened to civil society - and has insisted on singularly pursuing the input of the North American Competitiveness Council, an exclusive corporate-only advisory board.
In closing, you should also know that Canadians overwhelmingly hope that a Democrat will win the White House. On January 7, Canadian Press reported that, "A new (Canadian Press/ Harris Decima) poll suggests Canadians would root en masse for whichever leading Democrat winds up facing the Republicans in this year’s U.S. presidential election...The survey, provided exclusively to The Canadian Press, said 49 per cent of Canadians expressed a fondness for the Democrats while only 12 per cent did the same for Republicans."
The Council of Canadians believes that public debate is at the heart of any democracy, and we are dismayed that our prime minister seems to rule debate on NAFTA and the SPP as out of order. We believe that change and renewal are key aspects of any thriving nation, and as such reject our prime minister’s statements that the 15-year old NAFTA is somehow sacrosanct and should never be renegotiated for the betterment of the people, environment and democracies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
Again, we thank you for your stated commitments on NAFTA and the SPP that suggest to us that change is possible.
Sincerely,
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