GOVERNMENT SELLING OUT

Sovereignty Put In Danger As The Government Moves Towards North American
Unionization

Why is it that the Canadian government is enforcing American border and
legal policies? Is our government forfeiting our sovereignty in exchange
for American ideologies regarding war and censorship?

Recent examples highlight the unconstitutional harmonization of policies
that are just the tip of the iceberg of a union between the USA, Mexico and
Canada known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

Three times in the past four months, while trying to enter Canada to attend
anti-SPP and anti-war rallies, Ann Wright (a former US state department
official and now an anti-war activist) has been held by border officials or
denied entrance into Canada.

The most recent incident occurred even though she had been invited to speak
by members of parliament.

She was denied entrance to Canada because her name came up on an FBI
database (National Criminal Information Center), though she has only ever
been arrested for non-violent protest.

Two years before this, three Canadian activists were arrested in Halifax by
the RCMP at the request of the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
These three now face extradition to the US and life imprisonment in its
overstuffed prison system.

One of the three could also face the death penalty. In Canada, no legal
action was taken against two of the activists and fines totaling $5000 were
given to the other. Not one of them has a criminal record.

The Americans considered one of these individuals, Marc Scott Emery, to be
one of the most wanted drug kingpins in the world - responsible for 1.1
million pounds of marijuana (slightly less than 500,000 kilograms) worth
over three billion dollars. The Americans consider one seed to equal one
plant to equal one kilogram.

Canada considered him harmless and accepted over half a million in income
taxes from 1995-2005 with "marijuana seed vendor" listed as his occupation.
Emery's profits were used to fund the anti-prohibition movement in Canada
and the US.

Every time Emery was featured in a positive light in American popular
media, such as in stories by CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post,
The Wall Street Journal and two features on 60 minutes, the DEA had
Canadian authorities raid his shops and arrest him. Charges were dropped,
fines were paid (if any fines were laid) and Emery went back to selling seeds.

After his July 29, 2005 arrest, the head of the DEA, Karen Tandy, released
a memo indicating that the arrest "is a significant blow not only to the
marijuana trafficking trade in the US and Canada, but also [to] the
marijuana legalization movement."

The DEA wanted Emery for his political activity and his "propagandist"
magazine, Cannabis Culture.

Emery's extradition hearing is scheduled to begin on January 21, 2008. If
he is extradited, we will have proof that our government is promoting a US
policy that we don't officially ascribe to (yet, at least). We will be
handing over Canadians to die in the US for actions that we do not even
consider to be crimes here.

Michelle Rainey, one of Emery's co-accused, is a medical marijuana advocate
and uses the plant to manage her late-stage Crohn's disease. In American
jails, she will be forced to use dangerous and ineffective pharmaceuticals.

The other accused, Greg Williams, could quite possibly die of old age in
prison, giving the term "life sentence" extra gravity. These people may
lose their lives in the US, while in Canada they operated in a legal grey
zone and were allowed to continue with tacit approval of authorities and
the government.

In Canada, we can sell paraphernalia with which to consume marijuana as
well as books about it without fear of prosecution. We can legally grow
hemp crops for nutrition, building supplies and textiles. We can pay taxes
on the profits made from selling seeds.

If we can do all of these things legally, how can Canadians face possible
extradition to the US and life imprisonment there for mailing, through
Canada Post, any of these items to America?

Our government is trying to bring the war on drugs to Canada, along with
prohibitionist American policies.

For the sake of Canadian sovereignty, I hope that our courts and our
government will resist lowest common denominator harmonization with
American policies, which have not worked since their introduction and have
lead to, according to the FBI, over 17 million marijuana-related arrests
since 1965. Just this year, they may make one million arrests.

The American war on drugs is a war on the environment, a war on social
rights, a war on freedom and a war on common sense, but it carries on
blindly and with disastrous results.

By importing the US war on drugs to Canada, Stephan Harper is continuing
his Lewinsky-style action with Bush. Unfortunately, the only stain will be
on Canadian sovereignty regarding policy and policing.