"NAFTA Superhighway" confirmed by Manitoba government

On November 20, 2007, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Manitoba, Canada (John Harvard) opened the session with his Speech from the Throne (gov.mb.ca/throne.html, cached), and in it he confirmed the existence of what he called a "Mid-Continent Trade Corridor". The only difference between that and the "NAFTA Superhighway" appears to be the name:
...In addition, Manitoba has been working with the Canadian government and state governments in the U.S. to protect and enhance our access to key trade markets. In response to U.S. border security measures, Manitoba will begin offering an enhanced driver’s licence as an affordable and secure form of identification for travelers. The new licence will be available in the fall of 2008.

Manitoba is also taking a major role in the development of a Mid-Continent Trade Corridor, connecting our northern Port of Churchill with trade markets throughout the central United States and Mexico. To advance the concept, an alliance has been built with business leaders and state and city governments spanning the entire length of the Corridor. When fully developed, the trade route will incorporate an "in-land port" in Winnipeg with pre-clearance for international shipping...
I wonder exactly what the NAU/NSH apologists will say now; will they pretend it's just an "interplanetary" conspiracy theory as Stephen Harper and George Bush did at the recent SPP summit?

The video here contains the part of the speech above, and juxtaposes it with excerpts from the SPP meeting.

12/08/07 UPDATE: Jerome Corsi picks up on this with "Canada openly proclaims NAFTA Superhighway/Readers bombard Newsweek with evidence after adverse story on Ron Paul":
A Destination-Winnipeg trade group website [destinationwinnipeg.ca/98] identifies the Mid-Continent Trade Corridor as "the northern gateway of this vast Corridor, a network of highways and railways linking the business community with cities to the south, through the U.S. and into Mexico."

The Canadian government's Canada Transport website [wd.gc.ca/mediacentre/1999/mar05-1a_e.asp] describes the Mid-Continent International Trade Corridor as a rail and highway network which stretches from Manitoba to Mexico...

"We have had that map with the NAFTA Superhighway on our website for 5 years or more," Jerry Bellikka, director of communications for the Alberta Ministry of Infrastructure and Transportation told WND in a telephone interview...

"No," Bellinkka answered directly [when asked whether they're going to get rid of the map on their site]. "We have no plan to change the designation of NAFTA Superhighway on our website."
Also see infratrans.gov.ab.ca/2760.htm and infratrans.gov.ab.ca/2766.htm

Comments

They have an argument stronger than denial. It's called a gulag. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

What is Michael Medved gonna say as this all becomes an ever more open conspiracy? What an insult to compare this and SPP/NACC to 'truthers'. Pastor is pretty open in his goals--he just plays word games with 'union'. I never listen to Medved's radio show but happened to catch a couple minutes and he was scolding a caller who asked about the NAU type stuff. I swear, this was his proof it could never happen. He said that because no one in the country supports it and thus it could never happen. He misses the fundamental point that these corporatists are trying to hijack democracy from the people. The whole thing is OUTSIDE our constitutional system!

What's your point? This has been planned for well over a decade. And yes, it was going by both names - "Mid-Continent Trade Corridor" and "NAFTA Superhighway" from the beginning. It's just what both names claim it to be: a NAFTA trade corridor. There's no secret conspiracy theory - it's been public and in the papers all along. It has nothing to do with any EU-style "North American Union" scheme or common currency from the tinfoil hat crowd. Nor does it involve any "10-lane-wide super-highway". Yeah, there's something like that planned in Texas, but only Texas. No possible amount of trade to and from Manitoba (let alone anywhere else in Canada) would need such a highway.

Below is a link to a story in _The Nation_ debunking the NAFTA Superhighway.It's quoted all over the web. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/hayes I don't get it. Roger tells us it's been called the NAFTA Superhighway "from the beginning"... yet it's a myth. Actually, Roger has a point. We've already surrendered much of our sovereignty via NAFTA and the WTO, so getting excited about the highway is a case of struggling to close the barn door after the horse has already fled to the next county.

And here's CNN's Jeffery Toobin also calling the NAFTA Superhighway a "...figment of (Ron Paul's) imagination". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSe8_1U7ryk&feature=related

It's not a case of real or not; it's a case of the real thing being misrepresented by the tinfoil hat crowd. One "NAFTA Superhighway" is real - the trade corridor one, serving the trade agreements that's already in place. There's no secrecy to it. Another is real - the planned megahighway in Texas, and only Texas. And one is an irrational paranoid fantasy - the 10-lane uber-highway from Mexico to Manitoba serving an EU-style North American Union. It's a lie wrapped around the other two.

So the argument is over the number of lanes(north of Texas)?

No, the arguement is over: a) Whether any new roads will be built at all (as opposed to simply declaring existing roads to be a trade corridor, as planned). b) The nature of those roads: Either the official line, (that its to support the existing NAFTA agreement), or the conspiracy theory that this blog implies (that it's for an EU-style North American Union.) All the evidence supports the former.

b) The nature of those roads: Either the official line, (that its to support the existing NAFTA agreement), or the conspiracy theory that this blog implies (that it's for an EU-style North American Union.) Why either? These aren't mutually exclusive goals. Why not to support the existing NAFTA agreements while moving forward incrementally with the NAU? As for conspiracy theories, if you'd told me 20 years ago that the federal government, the MSM, the biz interests, and the ethnic/"civil rights" lobbies would have so derailed our immigration enforcement laws that we now resemble a failed nation in our inability or rather unwillingness to protect our borders, I would have called you a conspiracy theorist. Yet here we are in that very condition.

Look at it from Canada's point of view: The US has been piling record deficit after record deficit on it's debt. It just shafted the foreign investors who held it's debt, it's major banks having converted the sub-prime lending mess into an investment scam. The country resembles a cartoon character having run off a cliff, still running in mid-air for a second before falling. Canada on the other hand has had budget surpluses for years, and has been paying down it's debt. It's joblessness rate is at a 35-year low. It's had to cut interest rates to lower it's doller from an all-time high. Canada isn't going to tie itself to a sinking ship. Nor could an EU-style union work in North America at the best of times: The EU has several large countries and a larger number of smaller ones who can form alliances. No one country can dominate the rest. An NAU on the other hand would be dominated by the US population and economy. To avoid being dominated, Canada could only join the NAU as an equal partner with an equal say in policy. But this would be unfair to the US with it's larger population. It ain't gonna happen. So, we expand trade agreements, and the occasional security agreement covering terrorism and virus outbreaks that ignore borders. The NAU is a wet dream for some, but it's no more than that.

The elites for whom the NAU is a "wet dream" couldn't care less what Canada thinks, if by Canada you mean the average Joe in Canada, any more than they care that the average Joe in the US wants the the immigration laws enforced. The problem is that we have to win every time. They only have to win once.

Canada is still a democracy. We don't have the US two-party-only problem, with a small number of people deciding who chose who gets nominated to run, and who gets party funding. We have powerful 3rd and 4th parties. The last ruling party to think they were above what the people wanted, all but ceased to exist in the next election. Another party took it's place. And so our politicians back what the majority wants, elites and illuminatti (and alas, sometimes common sense) be damned. If the US "elites" wants an NAU, they'll be doing it without Canada.

No problem, Roger! The EU didn't start out with 100% of the countries currently in it, now did it? In fact, it might even be easier to drive US wages down to third world levels with only Mexico to deal with at first. The affected US workers won't have the option of moving to Canada unless it accepts them. Good thinking, Roger!

First: The EU was attractive to other countries because they'd be joining an economy with a higher standard of living. Of course, they had to clean up their own economies before they could join. For Canada, an NAU would offer the exact opposite conditions. Not only would we have to accept a lower standard of living, but as YOU say, we'd have to lower it even further to accomidate Mexico. In other words, Canada wouldn't join. Second: With no country dominant in the EU, even small countries have their fair share of the power. With the US obviously dominant in any NAU, Canada would have little if any control over monetary or political policy. It would be giving up power in a way that no EU country has had to do. In other words, Canada wouldn't join. Third: The countries that joined later did so only AFTER seeing that the EU worked, and that it lived up to it's promise of a better standard of living. So, if an NAU DID give you a better standard of living, why would you be opposed to it? Or if it DIDN'T offer a better standard of living, why would Canada join it later?

The NAU wouldn't give the average person in either Canada or the US a better stndard of living but it would enrich the elites further and make income inequality even greater here in the US. The key is free flow of goods, services, and people. Hope you're right about Canada, but even if you are, it doesn't save the US.

It wouldn't merely not improve the standard of living - it would make it worse. Which is just one reason why it won't happen. As for the "free flow of goods, services, and people", that's what NAFTA is for. There's no need for the NAU on that score, any more than there's a need for a 10-lane highway where 4 lanes already do the job. So we still have no reason for Canada to join, and two or three overwhelming reasons for it not to join.

if you don't stand up and say no with guns in your hands you will just become one more third world monkey.