The timing of The Shock Doctrine's release in Canada is very relevant here because it just hosted a summit with George Bush and Mexican President Calderon to meet with Prime Minister Steven Harper to talk about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) which is basically like NAFTA-plus -- NAFTA plus security issues. The SPP is an example of the shock doctrine I outline in the sense that this was an agenda that would have been unspeakable in terms of integration with the United States before 9/11, and in the panic after -- in that shock -- the SPP agenda moved forward in technocratic circles, and it was presented as a done deal.
Once Canadians began learning about the SPP, they started rejecting it, and then they had this summit, where it was announced that, "Don't worry, nothing's going to happen here." But they said in the final press conference at the summit in Montebello, Quebec, at the end of August that the one exception that they would push for the SPP to be pushed through is if there's a disaster -- if there's an avian flu outbreak or a terrorist attack or a natural disaster -- then they would implement tightened integration between security forces in all these countries.
In Canada this was front-page news -- in the U.S., it wasn't reported on. When my book came out a week later people saw the connections immediately. They realized that what the Canadian government was saying was, the next time there's a disaster, we will use it as a moment of opportunity to push through these policies that you're rejecting where there isn't a disaster going on. It's incredibly naked.
