SECURITY AND PROSPERITY PARTNERSHIP OF NORTH AMERICA: NEXT STEPS

We, the leaders of North America, have asked our ministers to pursue the following priority activities and ask them to report to us on their progress in one year:

Enhancing the Global Competitiveness of North America

Global markets are changing, with dynamic new players becoming more competitive and innovative. More and more firms are relying on inputs from a wide range of international sources for their manufacturing and production processes. In this highly competitive environment, compatible regulations and standards enable us to protect health, safety and the environment, as well as to facilitate trade in goods and services across our borders. Strong copyright and piracy protection also encourage entrepreneurship and protect our citizens. Over the coming year, we ask our ministers to strengthen North America as a platform for global success and to achieve progress on regulatory cooperation and the protection of intellectual property. In particular, we ask our ministers to implement:

The Regulatory Cooperation Framework announced today by:

•  strengthening regulatory cooperation, streamlining regulations and processes, encouraging compatibility of regulations and eliminating redundant testing and certification requirements while maintaining high standards of health, safety and environmental protection;

•  considering measures and initiatives in areas such as the chemical, automotive, transportation, and information and communication technology sectors; and

•  undertaking trilateral cooperation to accelerate and strengthen our national and regional risk-based chemical assessment and management efforts.

The Intellectual Property Action Strategy released today by:

•  developing collaborative measures to improve the detection and deterrence of counterfeiting and piracy, expanding public awareness of the importance of intellectual property to our economies and for consumer health and safety, and better measuring the scope and magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy in North America; and

•  taking steps such as developing best practices for enforcement and sharing information and intelligence on border enforcement techniques.

We also endorse our ministers' plans to

•  develop an economic work plan to respond to the ever increasing pressures on North American competitiveness and to facilitate trade in specific sectors to foster stronger North American value chains; and

•  conduct an analysis of the free trade agreements that each country has negotiated subsequent to the NAFTA, beginning with those in the western hemisphere, including opportunities for innovative provisions on rules of origin.

Safe Food and Products

In order to promote the safety of imported products that enter North America and to facilitate trade, we ask ministers to:

•  strengthen existing mechanisms within the region and the exchange information on import-safety issues, with the objective of enhancing the safety of food and products before they enter our countries; and

•  identify and share with their SPP counterparts the best practices used by importing companies in each country to secure their supply chains and ensure that quality and safety are built into products before they are exported.

Sustainable Energy and the Environment

Balancing our energy requirements with the stewardship of our environment is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We need to enhance our research into new and clean technologies, facilitate the deployment of these technologies to the market, and improve our energy efficiency. We ask our ministers to advance work over the next year to:

•  identify and pursue cooperative energy science and technology activities under the newly signed Trilateral Agreement for Cooperation in Energy and Science Technology;

•  reduce barriers to the deployment of new and clean technologies;

•  continue with efforts to align energy efficiency standards in key products and standby power consumption;

•  cooperate for our mutual benefit in the development of biofuels, vehicle fuel efficiency technologies and technologies to reduce emissions; and

•  share information and experience and cooperate in efforts to achieve comparable emission measurement, reporting and verification, in order to develop publicly available national emissions inventories. This exchange would include sharing of emissions information on, for example, NO_x, SO_x, CO₂, VOC_s, NH₃, Hg and particulates.

Smart and Secure Borders

Our three countries have a long history of cooperative border management, predicated on the understanding that our prosperity and security depend on borders that operate efficiently and effectively under all circumstances. In some cases, the best time to screen travellers and commerce is before they enter North America. Coordinated, mutually acceptable procedures for detecting threats far from our borders are a means to do this. Recognizing differences in legal frameworks and policies, and noting the positive effect on our common security of current information sharing initiatives, we will seek to enhance our cooperation in this respect.

We ask ministers to continue to pursue measures to facilitate the safe and secure movement of trade and travellers across our borders and, in particular, to:

•  expedite air transportation through the development of comparable protocols and procedures to eliminate duplicate screening for baggage placed on a connecting flight in North America, and for inbound and outbound air cargo shipments;

•  develop mutually acceptable approaches to screening for radiological and other similar threats, to include general aviation pathways, and to continue to undertake cooperative or joint research to manage such threats;

•  develop mutually acceptable approaches to screening people during a pandemic;

•  pursue, according to our respective laws, new, innovative and interoperable law enforcement models that promote seamless operations at the border, such as the Canada-US International Maritime Security Operations, to better protect our citizens from criminal and terrorist threats;

•  improve and expand existing radio communications available to law enforcement agencies working on border security and cross-border law enforcement;

•  work with stakeholders to identify ways to further enhance benefits of trusted traveller programs (NEXUS, FAST and SENTRI), including through expanding and streamlining application processing, further program integration and coordinated infrastructure investments;

•  alleviate bottlenecks at the US-Mexico border, facilitate the legitimate flow of trade and people, and increase border security to address specific border issues related to congestion, current and future infrastructure needs, customs cooperation, stakeholder outreach and technology; and

•  Canada and the US will maintain a high priority on the development of enhanced capacity of the border crossing infrastructure in the Detroit-Windsor region, the world's busiest land crossing.

Emergency Management and Preparedness

Neighbours help each other in times of distress. Our governments have worked together to address how we might better prevent, prepare for, and respond to disasters--either natural or man-made--by developing a common approach to all aspects of emergency management. We ask our ministers to continue this work and specifically to:

•  define, develop and coordinate appropriate responses to catastrophic incidents in North America; and

•  develop bilateral and trilateral protocols and procedures through the Canada-Mexico-United States Emergency Management Council to manage the movement of goods and people, including emergency responders, across our shared borders during and following an emergency, and to improve communications among governments and between governments and industry, particularly during times of increased threat.