ATTN Atlantic Canadians: the cons of "Atlantica"

Atlantica tide should be kept at bay
Chronicle Herald - May 15, 2007

By DAVE RON

In response to Charles Cirtwill's May 8 column, "Like it or not, Atlantica does exist, thankfully": I cannot recall a more rhetorical piece of propaganda ever gracing the pages of this newspaper.

Seeing as how Cirtwill spent the majority of his word count championing some false notion of inter-regional communion, erecting straw-man arguments, and speaking to what Atlantica doesn't represent, I thought it wise to elaborate on what Atlantica does, in earnest, represent.

To avoid any further confusion, Atlantica is not "the name that has been attached to the northeastern corner of the United States and the eastern portion of Canada." Atlantica is the abbreviated name for what's formally known as the Atlantic Northeast Economic Region (AINER), a cross-border trade concept spanning the Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland, southern Quebec, and the New England states (i.e. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and upstate New York).

Its main proponent and originator is a right-wing think-tank group called AIMS, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, of which Cirtwill is not-so-coincidentally president. The Atlantica tag line is "business without borders," which has a double meaning: business unhampered by the international border, but also unbound from social protections such as minimum wages, social program spending, environmental regulation, public ownership and unionization.

Contrary to the belief that Atlantica is concerned with increasing trade ties in the northeast region, it is actually about two very different things: First, developing a conduit to channel Asian goods to the United States through the Atlantic provinces. Massive container ships called "post-Panamax" are too large to pass through the Panama Canal and Halifax is the closest North American port for ships from Asia via the Suez Canal.

Second, Atlantica is about increasing exports of unprocessed resources, like energy and water, from Canada to the United States. The intent is to export oil and gas from the Atlantic offshore as quickly as possible on terms that favour industry and leave decisions regarding exports to deregulated markets rather than through direct public participation.

Sure, as Cirtwill remarks, "Atlantica is delivering benefits on the ground today" insofar as it primarily profits elite interests and foreign investors. For example, Atlantica prioritizes U.S. energy needs over Atlantic Canadian energy security.

Atlantic Canada currently exports 75 per cent, and rising, of gas to the U.S., without even meeting the energy needs of everyone in the Maritimes; under NAFTA's proportionality clause, Canada must supply the U.S. with the same proportion or more of total exports as it has within the previous three years.

A central flaw in the Atlantica scheme is in its being predicated on historical inaccuracies. Contrary to its claims of past inter-regional prosperity, the Atlantic provinces have not gained much at all, in the past, from integration with the U.S. According to a 2006 Micro-Economic Analysis completed by Statistics Canada, for example, the manufacturing sector benefited least in terms of output, productivity, employment and wages.

The environmental and health concerns we have to look forward to include the bulk of massive expansion in container traffic shipped onwards by "truck trains," resulting in increased greenhouse gas emissions, higher fatal-crash rates per mile, as well as the likely expansion of superhighways through communities, wilderness, and farmland.

Also, with increased pressure to deliver finite oil and gas reserves to the U.S., there is no regard given to the advantages of using cleaner-burning natural gas as a stepping stone to a more renewable energy future for the region.

And yes, Atlantica has caught the ear of labour unions; but what working individual wouldn't raise an eyebrow at Atlantica's flippant use of beguiling buzzwords, like "poor quality public policies" and "economic distress factors," to describe minimum wage and union density, claiming that their extremely low rates in the region are already too high.

Cirtwill's vilification of labour unions as a means of thwarting opposition to Atlantica doesn't account for the growing number of citizens' groups, environmental organizations, non-profit associations, and others in the region who are directly opposed to the undemocratic and destructive nature of this radical experiment in free-market fundamentalism.

Atlantica is rooted in a framework which aims to attract corporate interests to the Atlantic region by threatening to axe our minimum wage (which is already below poverty levels), our environmental regulations, our social programs, our public services and our workers' rights to unionize – things they refer to as "policy distress factors." This kind of language is eerily familiar to that of NAFTA and the FTAA, stemming from a neo-liberal agenda that aims to dismantle "trade barriers" such as social and public programs, environmental regulations and workers' rights.

Like it or not, Charles, Atlantica doesn't yet exist, thankfully. It's the public's role, however, and not just labour's, to ensure we keep it that way for the vitality of our children, our environment, and our energy security.

Dave Ron is executive director for the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group, a non-partisan policy think-tank based at Dalhousie University with 16,000 student members.