ARTICLE

HOMELESSNESS IN VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

A huge amount of homeless people are taking refuge in the city of Vancouver, ranging from the age of 12 to over 70 years of age.

Many of the homeless are women.

We often hear our elected officials comparing the city of Vancouver to some big cities in the United States, but the municipality of Vancouver is different from our neighbour to the South.

More importantly, the amount of homeless people living on the Street of Vancouver is ten times more, when one considers the population of the city to others.

The filth in the city has always been visible to tourists and visitors, but at present not only is the filth visible, the city with its million dollar sky scrapers and apartment buildings is showing the greed of our City and Provincial Officials.

Justice4you's frequent visitor to the site has written the following on the recent serial slasher, who thus far has stabbed four homeless people at different times, on subsequent days in the city of Vancouver:

PIPER

So far four homeless people have been cruelly attacked by Vancouver's serial slasher.

This is of course a heinous crime. But the streets of Vancouver have long carried harshly punitive consequences for the poorest of the poor.

A couple of years ago gangs were riding through ghetto alleys on bicycles, beating and robbing the poor. Convicted serial killer Jordan and charged serial killer Pickton frequented these streets to find their victims.

Homeless people on the streets are differentially victimized by such extreme punishment as no other class in society suffers as much from street-crime so the homeless are not accorded Charter equality rights.

How would you describe the punitive consequences of homelessness? Try out the following descriptors and see which fit: extreme, cruel, unusual, destructive, noxious, hazardous, health-destroying, life-destroying. What does the Criminal Code of Canada say about administering something which is destructive and noxious?

Those who suffer from physical and mental disabilities suffer even more than other homeless people. How does one reconcile this with Charter "fundamental justice"?

Is it fundamental justice to evict people with physical and mental disabilities into the street from shelters of last resort, knowing (as anyone with common sense knows) that the punitive consequences may constitute effectively, corporal and capital punishment? Corporal and capital punishment without so much as a jay-walking violation is administered daily by Mayor Sullivan and Council.

There is no fair and public hearing or other due process of law as guaranteed by the Charter. The municipal and other levels of government do not honour any Charter S.36 commitment to provide the services essential for health and safety and life to this class of people.

Homeless people are then a new PARIAH CLASS in Canada, bereft of the constitutional protections enjoyed by other citizens.

Nobody has a right to sleep on the street. Nobody is required to sleep on the street.

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As Kim Kerr from DERA just said through BCTV news, "they're homeless; they're dying". People don't "live" on the street. They die on the street. It is not a normal, natural way to live.

It is, prima facie, "unusual" and it is effectively a form of punishment. It is certainly cruel and becoming more so as BCTV points out that a gruesome "quasi snuff film" industry has developed with a market for videos showing abuse of the homeless.

Opportunities in that deathly industry grow daily as BCTV also tells us GVRD now has > 2,174 homeless vs. 1,121 in 2002.

Advocacy organizations for the physically and mentally disabled remain silent as the wonderful "right" of property managers to evict even the sick and handicapped from shelters of last resort becomes more and more entrenched.

DERA for the poor

Following is a book for anyone who need to get back on track and realize that Loving God is Loving Others and maybe a copy of such book should be given to the Mayor of the city of Vancouver, as inspiration and love is what is needed.

under the overpass

Welcome to the City of Vancouver.

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The Attorney General of British Columbia Wally Oppal has shown one more time that his office under his authority are not serious about crimes.

The following article, by Michael Smyth, from the Province, makes the case that the AG is only helping Blackmore to continue exploiting young woman of 14 and 15 years old.

Polygamy Charges May Backfire on AG Oppal

By Michael Smyth, The Province

January 9, 2009

Somewhere, right now, Winston Blackmore is probably smiling. The self-styled "Bishop of Bountiful" Canada's most high profile polygamist leader, is being handed a show-trial platform to prove what he's been saying for years: Taking multiple wives is a religious right and freedom, protected by the Charter.

As counter-intuitive as that may sound to people, he will have a very strong case. In fact, he will probably win, delivering the polygamist leaders in Bountiful a huge moral and legal victory.

Attorney-General Wally Oppal's heart is in the right place. He cares about the women and children of Bountiful and believes they are being exploited. He's trying to protect them. But by bringing such a weak case against Blackmore and co-accused James Oler, Oppal's efforts seem bound to backfire.

Blackmore's lawyers will argue the fundamentalist practice of polygamy goes back more than 150 years in North America. They'll point out polygamy is practised widely and openly around the world, including in places like Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying to preserve freedoms in that country.

They'll argue the traditional interpretation of marriage between one man and one woman has been thrown open to wide liberal interpretation now that same-sex marriage has been legalized in Canada. And they'll be right on every count.

I'm not saying I support polygamy, because I don't. I'm just pointing out the reality: There's a reason nobody has been charged with polygamy in this country for more than a century. It's because the lawyers themselves know the charges won't stick. The experts in Oppal's own ministry have said for years the criminal code section outlawing polygamy is outdated and unenforceable.

"It is in direct conflict with the freedom of religion guarantees in Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," concluded one legal opinion sought by the B.C. Attorney-General's office. Several others said the same thing.

A 2005 study done for the federal justice department recommended the law against polygamy be repealed and the practice decriminalized, noting a conviction would result only in a "light penal sentence" anyway.

In other words, even if they buck the odds and the Crown can prove polygamy is still illegal in Canada, Blackmore would probably get a slap on the wrist. And the whole legal circus will cost taxpayers a fortune. So what's the point here?

Oppal should have followed the example set by the American authorities who took down polygamist "prophet" Warren Jeffs on more serious charges like sexual exploitation. That's the kind of charge that can be proven and stick in a court of law.

Instead, Oppal is proceeding with the flimsiest case possible. And the ramifications of losing are serious.

Consider this: If the polygamists win in Bountiful, what will be the reaction of Canadian Muslims? Many Muslim countries allow polygamy, though Canada currently does not allow Muslim immigrants to bring multiple wives into the country.

But if polygamy is recognized as a constitutional right in Canada, there's nothing to stop Muslim groups from demanding recognition of their polygamist marriages and suing to have their multiple wives and children allowed into the country.

Is that what Canadians want? Will that stop the exploitation of women and kids? Wally Oppal should be careful what he wishes for.

[email protected]

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The Following Article shows that the Agenda for the Law Makers in Canada and around the world, is to make every sexual act legitimate and legal, including having sex with children.

In effect in the event Polygamy becomes legal, men and women will be allowed to commit adultery and have has many lovers as they wish and have has many children with different partners as they wish.

To date Canada has made same sex marriage legal and the Supreme Court of Canada made it legal for people to operate swingers club.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Defence to Invoke Gay Marriage as Polygamy Trial Begins in B.C.

GLORIA GALLOWAY AND ROBERT MATAS

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

January 21, 2009 at 3:16 AM EST

OTTAWA, VANCOUVER Same-sex marriage, they said, would be the slippery slope to polygamy.

Just a few short years after Canadians engaged in a caustic debate over whether two men, or two women, should be allowed to marry, the prognosticators will find out if they are vindicated - however unhappily.

The lawyer for Winston Blackmore, the man with 19 wives in the B.C. religious community of Bountiful who is to appear in court today on polygamy charges, says he will cite Canada's gay-marriage laws as part of his defence.

It's an argument that people on both sides of the same-sex marriage fight were expecting: If same-sex marriage is justified under Charter rights to equality, then polygamy is justified under the Charter's protection of religious freedom.

In February, 2005, Vic Toews, who was then Justice critic for the opposition Conservatives, said changing the definition of marriage would open the door to court challenges from people who wanted polygamous unions.

But even those who argued in favour of expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples say they anticipated this sort of legal manoeuvre.

David Rayside, a political science professor at the University of Toronto who studied the same-sex debate, said yesterday he is not at all surprised that the defence is being attempted in a polygamy case.

But he doesn't think it will fly.

"The claims by same-sex couples were, in some respects, very conventional," he said. "In fact, there has been no significant change in the direction of moving beyond two people."

Daphne Gilbert, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said the argument promised by Mr. Blackmore's lawyer is predictable but without merit. The monogamous aspects of formal same-sex relationships are "actually in keeping with our view on marriage," Prof. Gilbert said.

Polygamy, on the other hand, has a completely different dynamic, she said.

"First of all, it's not a one-on-one partnership. Secondly, the dynamics of polygamous relationships in Bountiful certainly involved serious harms around the age of the women getting married, whether or not they are truly consenting to the marriage, the extent to which parental involvement is a coercive part of those marriages, and the patriarchy of how those marriages operate."

And even if a lawyer could prove that a ban on polygamous marriage is a violation of the Charter, the government is entitled to defend the ban on the basis of greater societal good, Prof. Gilbert said.

Don Hutchinson, the legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said there have been several court decisions around same-sex marriage that could be used to defend polygamy. But he is counting on Parliament's current definition of marriage, which prevents multiple spouses, to douse the polygamy debate, he said.

"I am hopeful that where the courts will land is where they landed in the same-sex reference case in 2004," said Mr. Hutchinson, "that they will say, 'You know what, marriage [is] defined by Parliament and we're going to stick with that.' "

Salt Lake City lawyer Rodney Parker, who has represented members of the polygamous religious community in the United States, said yesterday the legalization of gay marriage in Canada will allow the court to focus directly on the defendants' constitutional rights in a way that U.S. courts could not.

With the Supreme Court of Canada decision legalizing gay marriage, Canada is "further down the path" than the U.S. on marriage issues, he said.

"It is a defence we've argued for in the states," Mr. Parker said in a phone interview from his office. The arguments, however, were ineffective because U.S. prosecutors went after sexual crimes, not polygamy. "The cases we had down here so far involved minors. Oler's case does not involve a minor."

Jim Oler, a rival leader from a different faction within the religious community in B.C., has also been charged with polygamy, for allegedly having two wives. Mr. Oler is aligned with those in the U.S. who have been represented by Mr. Parker. The Salt Lake City lawyer was the spokesman for the church after the raid last spring on the group's Yearning for Zion compound in Texas.

Mr. Oler's lawyer, Robert Wickett, declined to comment yesterday, saying the prosecution has not yet disclosed the case against Mr. Oler.

Blair Suffredine, who is Mr. Blackmore's lawyer, said the two men have separate legal representation and may have separate trials. Although they were charged on the same day with the same crime, he saw no reason for one trial. Obviously the case against each man is different, Mr. Suffredine said.

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The following article can also be applied to Canada. In fact, while Canada does not have the death penalty, the legal system is as corrupt if not more than the USA. The more one becomes aware of the system and the clearer it becomes that people from within are either bribed ot else are members of organized crime.

The Tragic Reality of the World's Biggest Corrupt Legal System

By Journalist Les Sachs - ([email protected])

Bio Dr. Les Sachs

The following is an excerpt by an anti-corruption journalist and former US citizen who received political asylum in Europe. From his refuge in Europe, this author wrote a free online resource book for victims, the 'FAQ on US Judicial and Legal Corruption.' Dr Les Sachs names U.S. judges as 'criminals and terrorists' involved in threats of political murder. Below are excerpts from just one of his articles. While the author gives a very truthful account of the American justice system, he fails by attacking only the US legal system when in fact Canada is exactly the same as in the USA and other countries like South America, Mexico, China and many others are faced with the same kind of corruption.

US Corrupt Legal System

Excerpts:

The tragic reality of the world's biggest corrupt legal system

America's rigged courts, bribed judges, fake and phony trials, extortion by lawyers, and over 2.2 million prisoners in the USA gulag.

Right now, about 1 out of every 45 working age males in the US are BEHIND BARS inside the US empire - Many of those millions of US prisoners are innocent.

The corrupt USA legal system, is a danger to every traveler, visitor, and guest worker from overseas, and to every individual who takes the risky step of entering upon American territory.

The reality is that the United States of America has the most dishonest, dangerous and crooked legal system of any developed nation. Legal corruption is covering America like a blanket.

The corruption of the USA legal system is well-known, but also well-hidden, by the news services of America's corporate-owned media.

America has the largest prison gulag in the entire world - The starting point for understanding anything about the USA, is to digest the fact that just this one country, the United States of America, has twenty-five percent of ALL of the prisoners in the entire world.

More than 2.2 million prisoners - more than 1 out of every 150 people in America - are behind bars in the American gulag. American "justice" is especially focused on jailing people who US government thinks might organize into opposition to the government.

No one imprisons people as casually as America, tossing innocent people into prison. The USA jailing of more than 2 million people is also a revival of slavery and slave labour. The expanding system of USA prison slave labour is not only a major source of business profit, but also a wedge to drive down the wages of workers outside the prison walls.

This culture of mass prisons and slave labour is sold to US citizens by creating a psychology of fear. This climate of fear is nourished in the USA by both the media and the government, who work together with the judges and lawyers to maintain the whole crooked game.

Before you set foot in America, you should have a clear picture of the terror of America's legal system - the judges and lawyers and money and bribery, that have made this system of fear so pervasive.

The situation is so bad, that a social explosion is beginning inside America. You can read some news stories - about people murdering judges, or attacking the families of judges, or people setting fire to courthouses in the USA - and see the pattern that is emerging, even though the news media are afraid to connect the dots and suggest what might be behind all these events.

American prisons are often horrible, with lots of torment of prisoners, like you would expect in some petty dictatorship. Rape and beatings are common, and there is little help for abused inmates. In addition to the many official USA executions, numerous people are also illegally killed in jail cells, "mysteriously" found hanged or stabbed to death.

In the regular functioning of the USA courts, America's domestic lawyers and judges, threaten people with illegal jailing, and rape, torture and murder in jail.

Theoretically, torture and abuse is totally outlawed by America's Constitution, but some of the nice words in America's Constitution hold little power anymore, despite how often people quote them.

America's Bill of Rights and Constitution are nearly dead, not just because the judges will no longer enforce them, but even more because America's lawyers will not even fight for them. The two American "political parties" are not fighting for them, either, and America's news media are also very passive. This means that America's legal system has become largely a tool of government terror, and of bribery for the rich and the powerful.

The words of the law don't protect you in the USA, because American judges and lawyers have no scruples about bending them to mean the opposite of what they say.

America's lawyers are controlled by the judges, and don't really work for you - that's why they sell you out to the government, or to the big companies that pay bribes.

Even if you are paying an American lawyer huge amounts of money, he or she doesn't really work for you, and may sell you down the river to the jailhouse.

American lawyers are directly under the thumb of the judges and the government. Lawyers, just like any other victim, can be instantly jailed by an American judge on flimsy pretexts, and American lawyers can be quickly stripped of their right to practice law. Lawyers who try to fight the system can find themselves dis-barred, criminally charged and jailed.

American lawyers are afraid to do things in court, that the judges don't want them to do. America's nearly 1 million lawyers, are almost totally under the control of a few thousand judges, with their entrenched culture of bribery and miscarriage of justice.

That means that any time you hire an American lawyer, he already is in a conflict of interest. He has to make the judge happy first. And if the judge wants to make the government happy, or make some corporation happy who is paying a big bribe, then guess what? You are destroyed. It doesn't matter what you paid the lawyer. He works for the judge, first and foremost.

People accused of serious crimes have the "right" to a lawyer, but this may only provide a crooked lawyer who is stage-managing the victim to help the government and prosecutors. If the lawyer does not betray the victim to help the government, he can be put out of work.

This legal fraud is the core of the danger to those who visit America. A lawyer who is "representing" you in the USA, whether the government is paying him, or even if you are paying him yourself, may just be a stooge who is helping the prosecutors to put you in jail, even though you are innocent.

The judges of America gave every accused criminal the "right" to a lawyer, because it helps stage-manage the victim, with a lawyer who has to do things the judge's way. In America, such government-appointed lawyers are the means by which hundreds of thousands of poor people are railroaded into prison.

Most American court cases never go to trial, never see a jury; it is the job of the victim's lawyer to "sell the deal" that the judge has decided will happen, or else. This is how people accept a "plea bargain" so they accept going to jail for 3 years even though they are innocent, instead of going to trial before a jury: The victim is warned: you accept a "bargain" of a few years in jail, or you go to jail the rest of your life.

Often, both "sides" of lawyers are actually working together for the government, or for the big corporation or rich person who is bribing the judge.

In the American legal system, you essentially have no recourse against wrongdoing by your own lawyer. A lawyer can sell you out, betray you, steal your money, engage in malpractice, help out the other side, hide the evidence that proved you were right, or commit felony crimes against you, and there is almost nothing you can do about it.

Part of the reason America has so much crime, even with more than 2.2 million people in prison, is because the people who actually committed the crimes were never arrested.

Any innocent person can get railroaded to death in America.

Multi-millionaires and big corporations, vs. everybody else

The only people who really can expect some fairness in American courts are multi-millionaires and big corporations who pay political contributions and bribery money, and who protect the interests of other rich people. Nobody else really matters to American judges and lawyers.

There is a huge amount of bribery in America. Rich people pay huge amounts of money to law firms with connections, the lawyers walk around with a certain amount of cash in their jacket, and they pass it to the judges in their quiet moments together. Mostly all cash of course.

As an average person, there's no real way to out-bribe a big corporation, regardless of what your lawyer promised you. That's why big companies win most of the time.

Judges set up a trial in all sorts of ways, giving orders that all sorts of evidence be hidden from a jury, for example. The judge may declare, for example, that the evidence that proves you are innocent or right, will not be allowed at the trial.

Jury trials are actually very rare in America, unlike what you see in the movies. Most cases are "settled" through some deal or extortion or intimidation. If there is a jury trial, they tend to stack the jury with un-educated idiots who will tend to believe whatever lies they are told by the judge and the government.

Yes, there are "appeals" courts, but these are just more judges, who are usually friends with the lower court judge who originally sold you out.

Americans love to talk about "taking it all the way to the Supreme Court!", but this is a nearly empty hope for real people. The U.S. Supreme Court simply refuses to consider most cases that are presented to it.

If you are a little helpless nobody, the appeals judges often barely reply to you, and sometimes don't reply at all. Sometimes people have been strapped to a table and given the lethal poison and put to death in America, with the victim's appeal never even answered by the judges.

The Hollywood image, versus the grim reality

Around the world, people derive an image of America, and its legal system, from these fictional creations on film. America's propaganda about having "the greatest legal system in the world" is one of those phony stories that Hollywood is helping to sell.

In the Hollywood version, the judges in American courts are like kind uncles, smiling and being wise and calmly dispensing justice. But in reality, American judges sometimes scream at people like disturbed perverts, and show off their bribed corruption right there in the courtroom.

In the Hollywood version, there are brave lawyers who will fight for your rights, to win justice for you in the American courts. In reality, you can't find an American lawyer brave enough to fight judicial corruption, even if you are innocent and the judge's friends have threatened to murder you, or threatened to send you to jail for the rest of your life.

In the Hollywood version, the average person is also helped by the "brave investigative reporter" at some newspaper or television station, who shows great courage in exposing the truth, and bringing powerful wrongdoing to face justice. However, the brave "investigative reporter" in America is now as fictional and non-existent as the "brave lawyer" who will fight for your rights.

In America today, reporters are little timid people who are afraid of getting fired, and who almost never write a story on government corruption, unless some other part of the government is officially investigating or prosecuting. That goes triple when judges or lawyers are involved. The owners of the newspapers and television stations are afraid of revenge by the judges if they have to go to court.

No recourse against crime and fraud by judges and lawyers in America

In reality, there is almost nothing you can do against misconduct, and even open felony crime, committed against you by American judges and lawyers. All of the official complaint procedures you find on the internet, or at the courthouse or in the law books, turn out to be a joke, a farce and a fraud.

Complaints about lawyers in America, usually go to the "Bar", which is itself run by the judges who are involved in bribery with the lawyers. And complaints about judges go to other judges, their friends.

Nearly all the complaints about lawyers and judges, tens of thousands of them, are kept secret. Nearly all are dismissed or ignored. They are generally only used if the judges or politicians want to specially destroy someone. Otherwise, criminal acts by lawyers and judges get a smiling cover-up.

The police and FBI almost certainly will not help you, either. They all know the bribery game, and they rely on the same crooked judges to help send innocent people to prison.

The newspapers and television and media won't help you. They hear stories like yours all the time. The USA media are afraid to help you, afraid of revenge if they expose judicial corruption.

America's politicians will not help you. You can also forget about most of America's human rights and civil liberties groups. Many are just money-raising groups which don't help victims. They are all scared of the legal system, too.

The growing American nightmare

It can't go on like this forever, but it may get a lot worse first. Perhaps, it will not be until after America has had a major economic or social cataclysm, that the big American machine of legal corruption finally comes to be reformed, after a complete revolution in American life has swept away the old order.

American lawyers have become both the mafia and the Gestapo of American life.

American freedom is already largely lost. Americans who imagine they are still "free" are the ones who have not yet seen the lawyers and judges who smirk and laugh as they deny victims the most basic human rights. The truth is that, inside America, a nightmare has begun.

The author Dr Les Sachs, can be reached in Europe at Dr-Les-Sachs(at)Laposte.net.

For the complete original article, or to access Dr Sachs free online book, the FAQ on US Judicial & Legal corruption, www(dot)tinyurl(dot)com/5f9v6m There you will also find a link to the free online FAQ on US Judicial and Legal Corruption.

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What Dr. Sachs is saying, is no different in Canada. In fact there are many different stories that clearly shows that organized crime has infiltrated itself in the judicial and legal profession.

For example, it was reported in 2007 that Glen Hehn, a full patch member of the elite Nomads of the Hells Angels in British Columbia, had been charged with trafficking wherein one-kilo cocaine bricks worth a total of $1.5 million were seized from his vehicle and his storage locker.

The case went before Justice Peter Leask, a former criminal lawyer and former special prosecutor for the Attorney General of the province of British Columbia.

It became evident to any reasonable person that last year Justice Leask was an advocate for Mr. Hehn on the bench when he engaged in impermissible conjecture and speculation during cross-examination of the Crowns expert witness and again during submissions. Mr. Hehn was naturally acquitted by Justice Leask and the Crown appealed his decision.

On April 28, 2008, the B.C. Court of Appeal -- the old stumping grounds of Wally Oppal, the present Attorney General of British Columbia, who was appointed by the provincial government in 2005 -- the panel, which consisted of, The Honourable Madam Justice Huddart, The Honourable Mr. Justice Mackenzie, The Honourable Madam Justice Kirkpatrick, unanimously upheld the decision of Justice Peter Leask. The Crown claimed in its submissions that there were no error revealed in the trial judges reasons for judgment and naturally the Appeal Court of B.C. agreed with the Crown and dismissed its appeal.

It is not unreasonable to conclude that the Crown deliberately made the case against itself in order to upheld the decision of Justice Leask who failed to show absolute neutrality with respect to Mr. Glen Hehn and therefore he no longer was impartial but rather became an advocate behind the bench for Mr. Hehn. In effect, it is blatant in Canada that the Crown and the bench assists each other to either obtain a conviction or acquittal.

Subsequently, we would suspect that the B.C. Attorney General, Wally Oppal, former justice of the Court of Appeal, is not enforcing its laws regarding criminal organization and marijuana grow operations because he has a serious conflict of interest, as evident with his brother Harry Oppal who was under investigation by a special prosecutor appointed by Wally Oppal. The investigation of course turned in favour of his brother Harry Oppal on the basis that the special prosecutor claimed that the witnesses against Harry were not credible.

Consider that Stephen Easton, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University was quoted to say in the May 19th, 2008 issue of the Macleans magazine that, ""There's been no indication Canadian police have been compromised or that politicians or judges have been bought, but it's hard to imagine these kinds of flows of money without that happening".

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The following article also indicates how how the elites are managing with their agenda for globalization -- create another 9-1-1 and Canada, Mexico and the USA will become North America

Friday, December 15, 2006

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

North American Union leader says merger just crisis away Leading intellectual force behind effort toward EU-style unity looks at future

Posted: December 15, 2006

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi

2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Robert Pastor, a leading intellectual force in the move to create an EU-style North American Community, told WND he believes a new 9/11 crisis could be the catalyst to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Pastor, a professor at American University, says that in such a case the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or

SPP

launched in 2005 by the heads of the three countries at a summit in Waco, Texas could be developed into a continental union, complete with a new currency, the amero, that would replace the U.S. dollar just as the euro has replaced the national currencies of Europe.

In May 2005, Pastor was co-chairman the Council on Foreign Relations task force that produced a report entitled "Toward a North American Community," which he has claimed is the blueprint

North American Approach to Security

behind the SSP declared by President Bush, Mexico's then-President Vicente Fox, and Canada's then-Prime Minister Paul Martin.

At American University in Washington, D.C., Pastor directs the Center for North American Studies where he teaches a course entitled "North America: A Union, A Community, or Just Three Nations?"

American and Canadian Education

As WND previously has reported,

Previous Article WND

Pastor is on the board of the North American Forum on Integration, the NAFI, a non-profit organization that annually holds a mock trilateral parliament for 100 selected students drawn from 10 universities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Pastor had published an interview in Spanish in the Oct. 24 issue of Poder y Negocios

Interview with Negocros

He told the magazine crises can force decisions that otherwise would not be made.

"The 9/11 crisis made Canada and the United States redefine the protection of their borders," Pastor explained. "The debt crisis in Mexico forced the government to adapt a new economic model. The crises oblige the governments to make difficult decisions."

This was the first time WND had found a major intellectual leader behind the push to integrate North America suggesting that a crisis of 9-11 proportions might be just what was needed to advance the process toward establishing a North American Union and the amero. WND reached Pastor in his office at American University and conducted a telephone interview to make sure the Spanish publication accurately reflected his views.

He affirmed the Spanish interview represents his thinking.

"What I'm saying is that a crisis is an event which can force democratic governments to make difficult decisions like those that will be required to create a North American Community," he said. "It's not that I want another 9/11 crisis, but having a crisis would force decisions that otherwise might not get made."

Pastor noted, for example that "Europeans, facing the crisis of two World Wars, turned to the European Community as a means to prevent war and advance their economic interests."

"The United States turned to the Marshall Plan when faced with the crisis of Western Europe falling into the hands of communism," he said. "So, I'm not advocating, or encouraging, or wanting a crisis, I'm only saying that in order to take important initiatives, sometimes one manner in which this occurs is when there is a crisis to which leaders need to respond."

Pastor told WND he lamented that the leadership of the three North American countries is not positioned to make the type of tough decisions needed to advance a North American Community agenda.

In his interview with Poder y Negocios, he argued, "Canada has a minority government and Mexico will soon have a minority government that will be confronted with what amounts to an uprising that we hope will be peaceful. The United States has a lame duck president whose principle preoccupation is the war in Iraq and instability in the Middle East."

Pastor further told WND Mexico's Fox made a tactical mistake by laying out an overly ambitious agenda to integrate with the United States.

"President Bush then took on the issue of illegal immigration, and it proved to be much more difficult than anticipated," he said. In the absence of strong North American leadership, is a crisis the way greater North American integration can be expected to happen?

"There are alternatives to a crisis for getting a major decision adopted by the president and by the congress," Pastor responded. "But what I am saying is that we lack the kind of North American leadership we need. Our founding fathers created a system of governance that was not designed to be efficient but was designed to protect freedom. Therefore, you created checks and balances that did protect freedom but also made it difficult to move forward on important issues."

Pastor was asked what North American leaders would need to do to move toward integration.

"We need to form a customs union to move North American integration to a new level," Pastor argued. "A customs union would eliminate rules of origin on the border and agree to a common external tariff. This would not be easy but not as difficult as NAFTA was, and it would lead to efficiencies in our economies and in the end contribute to a better standard of living for all parties."

Pastor also called for a North American Investment Fund to invest in Mexico's infrastructure.

"If we had a North American Investment Fund," Pastor explained, "over the long term, you would narrow the income gap between Mexico and the U.S."

WND previously reported Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, dropped his support for legislation (S. 3622) he introduced in the 109th Congress to create a North American Investment Fund after WND pointed out the proposed law would advance an important part of Pastor's agenda to create a North American Community.

Pastor was careful to distinguish that his proposals were designed to create a North American Community and that he never has proposed to create a North American Union as an EU-style regional government.

"What I am recommending is a series of functional steps that are more than incremental," Pastor admitted. "Each of the proposals I have laid out represent more than just small steps. But it doesn't represent a leap toward a North American Union, or even to some confederation of any kind. I don't think either is plausible, necessary, or even helpful to contemplate at this stage."

The idea seems to be to put new structures in place that change the look of the landscape. WND pointed out to Pastor that this step-by-step approach is the same approach taken to create the European Union. The memoirs of Jean Monnet, regarded as the architect of European unity, finally disclosed he had used a strategy of deceit, knowing his plan to form a European Union would never succeed if it were openly disclosed.

Pastor was asked if he thought a North American Union was a bad idea.

"No," he replied. "I don't think a political union of North America is an inherently bad idea, nor do I think it is a good idea for North America right now. I teach a course at American University in which I look at the different options for political integration of North America, and I put the options before the students."

Then why is a North American Union a bad idea right now?

"The reason the political integration is not a good idea at this stage now, perhaps never, is because of people like yourself who immediately begin to fear that their sense of America could disappear," Pastor responded. "Somehow, if you're fearful that America's sovereignty will disappear, you won't even take small steps forward. You just get mired in the status quo. The problem is that the world is moving very rapidly, and you can't stay competitive if you don't move."

Pastor did not reject the idea that a North American Union could form, but only after further continental economic integration and the development of a North American Community in which people are able to think as citizens of North America.

Is China the winner in the NAFTA super-corridors being planned for North America?

"If you define trade in zero-sum terms, China may be the winner in the transportation corridors," Pastor conceded. "But even in zero-sum terms, consumers benefit from the increasing imports that give them more choice and give them more quality. In the final analysis, we are all consumers." Pastor affirmed he favors globalism.

"I believe," he explained to WND, "that globalization is a net plus for the world economy, for the middle class, and for all people."