"A lot of it isn't very interesting."

So says Harper about the SPP.

Well then you wouldn't mind putting it on CPAC, now would you? Honestly, its summer, there's no QP in the House and no committee spectaculars to broadcast.

Despite the fact that all the country's corporate media and the CBC seem to be focussed on the "food-colour dyes" aspect of the agreement, these people think its interesting enough to get out into the streets for on a Monday.

So maybe we are just seeing the usual left-wing freakshow, the same kind that told us that the WTO would result in unfair penalties on developing economies, that occupying Afghanistan would drag us into an endless war of attrition, and that the invasion of Iraq was downright evil.

Even so, the question remains, why the combination of fanfare and secrecy? And why does the Canadian Council of Chief Executives get a seat at the table?

If it is just niggling bureacratic details, those don't require tripartite discussion between heads of state. Customs and DFAIT officials deal with such changes on a day-to-day basis, not requiring even so much as a rubber-stamp from the PM.

On the other hand, who exactly voted for Stephen Harper on the SPP agenda? I don't remember this having been an issue, do you? And yet it's important enough for Filipe Calderon, whose election experiences eerily resemble Bush's 2000 win, to head to Montebello Quebec right before a Category 5 Hurricane hits his country.

Whatever was decided in Montebello, the decision did not involve the will or interests of the Canadian people. If it had, someone would have asked us. The PMO issued a statement yesterday, arguing that since the SPP is not a treaty or agreement, but a "dialogue," parliamentary discussion and input are not required.

This is yet another Bush administration tactic borrowed by Harper - the unilateral declaration that ones decisions are not constitutionally required to be put under oversight from any branch of government. The gap between Western governments and their publics is growing.

I predict that it will get wider.