On August 14th 2007, a group calling themselves NAFTA-ade attempted to establish a NAFTA free-trade zone in downtown Vancouver’s Westin Bayshore Hotel. The free-trade zone, which involved setting up a lemonade business, was setup inside the Westin Bayshore Hotel, where the NAFTA Trade Minister’s were meeting. At the Lemonade Stand NAFTA-ade attempted to establish a market for their new brand of lemonade, which boasts the “bitter taste of free-trade.”

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NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION TO TARGET THE SPP! AUGUST 10TH- AUGUST 16TH

VANCOUVER- DISRUPT THE NAFTA TRADE MINISTERS MEETING!
TUESDAY AUGUST 14TH AT 11:30 AM
1601 Bayshore Drive, cross street is 1 block east of Denman (Cordova St.
West and Georgia St. West both turn into Bayshore Drive)

Map: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/area/directions.html?propertyID=1080&EPS_Directions_WI_1080_CAN

Canadian International Trade Minister David Emerson, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, and Mexico’s Secretary of the Economy Eduardo Sojo will be having a meeting of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission in Vancouver this week. NAFTA has become a symbol of the devastation, poverty, and repression created by neoliberal free trade agreements. This meeting comes just days before the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello Quebec, where Bush, Harper, and Calderon will be negotiating a NAFTA 2.0-plus-Homeland-Security agenda.

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There is a wide variety of educational materials available including factsheets, zines, slideshow presentations on the SPP that have been developed. We strongly encourage folks to get in touch if they would like to access these materials and to share this information with your friends, family, and groups. We are also happy to setup mini-information sessions for interested groups, networks, and unions on the hugely significant impacts of the SPP. There is also ongoing organizing against the SPP- including outreach; a series of creative resistance direct actions facilitated by newworld theatre; coordinated actions across various cities; educational forums and community meetings and more.If you are interested in getting involved, there are weekly meetings on Tuesdays and lots more going on, so please do not hesitate to get in touch. We continue to build a diverse movement in resistance to the SPP and strongly encourage folks to get in touch. Contact information: scrapspp@gmail.com or call 778 885 0040

EVENING TO RESIST THE SPP
Thursday August 16th at 7 pm. Rhizome Cafe 317 East Broadway

* Kat Norris: Coast Salish Indigenous Action Movement on corporate colonization of indigenous land and resources.
* Fred Muzin: President of Hospital Employees Union on impacts of neoliberal economic policies such as privatization on working people.
* Erika Del Carmen Fuchs: member of La Otra Campagna (The Other Campaign)-Vancouver on impacts of neoliberal globalization in Mexico.
* Garth Mullins: doctoral candidate working on communities intervening in capitalist globalization.
* Cecily Nicholson: member of No one Is Illegal Vancouver on border militarization and national security regulations.
* Member of Siklab-BC on expansion of temporary foreign worker programs.

CLOG THE LINES OF BELL CANADA! MASSIVE CALL-IN CAMPAIGN TO OPPOSE THE SECURITY AND PROSPERITY PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT!

THURSDAY AUGUST 9 – SATURDAY AUGUST 11 2007

Join us as we phone it to disrupt the economic profiteering of Bell Canada, one of the corporations that forms part of the North American Competitivenss Council (NACC). The NACC was launched as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in June 2006. It is the only formal advisory board to the SPP and is made up of 30 corporate leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with ten advisors from each of the SPP signatory states. The Canadian corporate membership of the NACC was appointed by Harper in 2006. The SPP is a NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model that has been negotiated in complete secrecy by Harper, Bush, and Calderon and their corporate supporters.

TAKE 5-30 MINS TO MAKE THIS CALL!

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