http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/pu ... 4267.shtml

Secret North American Forum Meeting in Banff, Canada (by Larry Greenley)
by Larry Greenley
October 14, 2006


A secret meeting was held in Banff, Alberta, Canada, in mid-September where North American elites, including several Bush administration officials, planned for further integration of North America.

To show just how high-level this meeting was, George Shultz (secretary of state under Reagan, George W. Bush mentor, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) was on hand to co-chair it.

According to CBC News, Mel Hurtig, noted Canadian author and politician, was one of the Banff meeting participants. Hurtig made public the agenda and attendee list for the September 12-14 forum revealing that the gathering was called “Continental Prosperity in the New Security Environment.” Scheduled participants from the United States included Carla Hills, Trilateral Commission member and former U.S. Trade Representative; Dr. Robert A. Pastor, CFR member and godfather of the North American Union (NAU); Dr. Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; and Donald R. Rumsfeld, former CFR member and current secretary of defense. Rumsfeld was slated to be a keynote speaker. Topics on the agenda included North American energy strategy and security cooperation.

According to Hurtig: “We’re talking about such an important thing, we’re talking about the integration of Canada into the United States. For them to hold this meeting in secret and to make every effort to avoid anybody learning about it, right away you’ve got to be hugely concerned.”

Thomas Shannon, who attended the Banff meeting, made very clear what the Banff meeting was about in his remarks at a meeting in Ottawa, Canada on September 14, which are posted on the U.S. Department of State’s official website, usinfo.state.gov:

I also had a chance to go out to Banff, where yesterday and today actually, Canada, the United States and Mexico held the second session of the North American Forum.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the North American Forum, it sprang up as a parallel structure to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. It was originally an effort to … begin to create a vision for North America and an understanding of what North America is as an entity.