By Garry Leech

The Atlantica Initiative is the next step on the regional level intended to further integrate Atlantic Canada into the global economy. Consequently, its full impact cannot be understood without viewing it through the lens of the neoliberal, or free trade, globalization process being pushed by the United States. While corporate-driven agendas such as the Atlantica Initiative emphasize economic integration with the United States, this objective cannot be achieved without also acquiescing to a significant degree of political and military integration. The inevitable result, as we are already seeing, is a shift in Canada’s international role from peacekeeper and mediator to a close-ally of US imperialism.

One of the principal goals of the Atlantica Initiative, according to its leading proponent the Halifax-based neo-conservative think tank Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), is to “encourage inter-provincial and international trade through the removal of barriers and harmonization of regulations.” In other words, the objective is to move beyond NAFTA to an intensification of free trade on the regional level by encouraging provincial and state governments in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States to apply similar economic and social policies, including regulations that govern labor and the environment.

Ultimately, the objective is to increase trade and investment—and corporate profits—by implementing the same neoliberal economic policies that have been applied in Latin America over the past 20 years. The weakening of labor and environmental regulations in Latin America has indeed succeeded in attracting foreign investment and has led to high levels of economic growth. However, most Latin Americans have not benefited from this growth, which has failed to alleviate poverty and inequality while making cheap labour and resources available to multinational corporations. The aim of the Atlantica Initiative is to create a similar business-friendly environment in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States. Put in simple business terms, the so-called Atlantica region has to become more competitive with nations of the Caribbean, Latin America and other parts of the global South. If it doesn’t, so the argument goes, why would corporations want to invest in Atlantic Canada?

Clearly, the goal of the Atlantica Initiative is to further the neoliberal process initiated by the 1989 Free Trade Agreement with the United States and continued under NAFTA. Such a neoliberal agenda will only bring about the same consequences for Canada as it has for much of Latin America: An undermining of cultural integrity and economic sovereignty. The failure of neoliberalism to alleviate poverty and inequality in Latin America, however, has led to a political backlash throughout the region, resulting in the rise of anti-free trade leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia in search of alternative economic models.

The negative consequences of neoliberal globalization are not limited to Latin America and the rest of the global South; they are also already evident in Atlantic Canada. If we look at income distribution in Nova Scotia, for example, 80 percent of Nova Scotians have seen both their real income and disposable income decline during the free trade era. On the other hand, the wealthiest 20 percent have experienced an increase during the same period, according to the Halifax-based non-profit organization GPI Atlantic. This growing income inequality contrasts sharply with the decade prior to the introduction of free trade when disposable income increased for all income sectors among Nova Scotians during the 1980s.

But free trade is not only hurting the standard of living of Atlantic Canadians, it is also diminishing the country’s sovereignty—a process that the Atlantica Initiative and other similar cross-border initiatives currently being discussed from coast to coast will only intensify. The more we eradicate the significance of the US-Canadian border through economic policies, then the more we are going to have to eradicate the political significance of the border. As the cross-border economic integration between the United States and Canada intensifies it becomes increasingly difficult for each government to establish an effective security perimeter between the two nations. Consequently, the security perimeter will have to be shifted and re-established around the perimeter of both countries. As a result, Canada will become inextricably linked to US military and defense policies, including the air defense pact known as NORAD and the Bush administration’s controversial Missile Defense System. In fact, the Harper government has already agreed to extend Canada’s commitment to NORAD indefinitely.

The result of increasingly close political and military ties to the United States will lead to more and more people throughout the world viewing Canada the same way they now look at Britain: As an imperialist ally of the United States. This is already occurring in Latin American nations where Canadian corporations, particularly mining companies, are benefiting from neoliberal policies at the expense of rural communities and the environment. Another example of this process can be seen in business decisions by Nova Scotia Power and New Brunswick Power to import Colombian coal, which is cheaper than domestic coal due in part to gross violations of human rights perpetrated against labour leaders and local communities in Colombia. Meanwhile, decent paying mining jobs in the Maritimes have been replaced with low-paying, non-unionized jobs in call centers—an example of the type of economic growth sought by the Atlantica Initiative.

Closer ties with the United States has also led to a shifting of Canada’s international military role from traditional peacekeeping to supporting US efforts at regime change around the world. Unbeknownst to many Canadians, Canadian troops played a significant role in the US-led military overthrow of Haiti’s democratically-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. The coup was primarily motivated by Aristide’s anti-neoliberal stance in a country where US and Canadian companies, such as the Montreal-based Gildan Activewear, are major players. And more recently, Canada dramatically escalated its military cooperation with the United States by deploying 2,300 troops to engage in combat operations in Afghanistan in an attempt to help defend that country’s new US-backed regime.

An October 2005 survey conducted by Ipsos Reid shows that Canadians are at odds with the Canadian government’s increasing political and military cooperation with the United States. Eighty-one percent of respondents believe that being a mediator in international conflicts should be one of Canada’s foreign policy priorities. Furthermore, 83 percent of Canadians are willing to risk tensions with the United States in order to implement an independent foreign policy. However, the reality of Canadian foreign policy is very different, which has led to the global perception of Canada as a neutral nation becoming seriously tarnished due to Ottawa’s support of US military interventions in countries like Haiti and Afghanistan.

Any attempts to forge the independent foreign policy that an overwhelming majority of Canadians desire will become increasingly difficult the more closely integrated the United States and Canada become economically. As noted earlier, economic integration does not occur in a vacuum. In the 12 years since NAFTA was enacted, Canada’s political and military role on the global stage has changed dramatically. Canada’s increasing foreign policy alignment with the United States has occurred despite the fact that public opinion polls have shown that almost half of Canadians hold an unfavorable view of the United States. Naturally, such numbers raise an obvious question: With such a significant percentage of Canadians viewing the United States unfavorably, why would the Canadian government want to become more integrated with that nation?

The answer lies in the cozy relationship that exists between big business and government. This relationship allows proponents of the Atlantica Initiative and other like-minded initiatives to intensify the integration between Canada and the United States, not only economically, but also politically and militarily. While this process may well serve the interests of big business, it also further establishes the conditions that will result in an intensification of Canada’s new role as an imperialist ally of the United States. For these reasons, the Atlantica Initiative cannot be seen as distinct from the political and economic process that is occurring under NAFTA, neoliberal globalization and related militaristic endeavors; it is another piece of the same imperialist puzzle.

The majority of Atlantic Canadians will not benefit from Canada’s increasingly imperialistic international role; prosperity under neoliberalism will remain the domain of the wealthiest 20 percent of the population. And it is not by accident that representatives of this wealthiest 20 percent are the only ones who have been invited—or can afford—to participate in the Reaching Atlantica Conference to discuss the implementation of the Atlantica Initiative.

So where does this leave the rest of civil society? Firstly, it leaves them on the streets outside the conference to voice their objections as best they can. Secondly, it forces them to seek alternative answers to the region’s economic malaise. And like the proponents of the Atlantica Initiative, opponents might also want to look to the south in their search for alternative ideas. However, Atlantic Canadians would do well to look far beyond the United States to South America for possible alternatives to neoliberalism that would benefit society as a whole, not just big business.

Garry Leech teaches political science at Cape Breton University and is a member of the Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN). He is also author of Crude Interventions: The United States, Oil and the New World (Dis)Order (Zed Books, June 2006).