A purely private partnership

Berlynn catches an important story from the Council of Canadians which all too predictably went unreported in the media, as the North American Forum (linked to the Security and Prosperity Partnership) held another summit last month. But while the subject matter doesn't seem to have changed, the spin about the ever-more-secretive process is getting even less plausible as time goes by:

The North American Forum, a high-profile sister organization to the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is co-chaired by George Schultz, Peter Lougheed and Pedro Aspe, who are quite proud of how discrete these meetings are. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day attended the 2006 summit in Banff and to date refuses to disclose the contents of his speech.

According to a CanWest article from March 23, 2007: "A 'media management plan' for the event in Banff last fall imposed a gag order on all participants, except the head of the Calgary-based media consulting firm, Corpen Group, John Larsen. Participants were directed 'to avoid direct media engagement where feasible,' say the notes... But Mr. Larsen said 'the conference wasn't secret. ... It was private, and that's an entirely different thing from being secret.'"...

"The Co-Chairs do not intend to make public pronouncements advocating specific policy approaches on the NAF's behalf," says the forum's website. "Rather the outputs of the NAF will be ideas and approaches that are individually pursued by participants at their own initiative and in their own name."

At least when the SPP met at Montebello, the participants were willing to admit to some influence over the jelly bean industry.

But apparently even that's seen as too much disclosure within the NAF - leaving citizens of all three countries unable to do more than guess as to what policies are being influenced by the privileged few invited to participate. And it seems like a safe bet that the summit wouldn't be so meticulously hidden from view if its results could bear public scrutiny.