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This May the Canadian city of Montreal will host the annual North American mock parliament called “the triumvirate.” Organized by the North American Forum on Integration, the event will bring together students, academics and members of the business community to explore commercial integration between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. For some, this regional gathering is seen as a dress rehearsal for a “North American Union” along the lines of the European Union, that includes the creation of an actual North American Parliament, a non-elected regional government, non-existent borders, and a common currency. But such a union is no where close to being a reality and yet has become an imagined conspiracy in the minds of millions of Americans. The North American Union conspiracy theory has websites and popular documentaries devoted to it, and has even entered the mainstream with best-selling author and CNN pundit Lou Dobbs, and presidential candidate Ron Paul raising the specter of a borderless region from Canada to Mexico. Even some on the left believe the theory, with the chief protagonists being shadowy, all-powerful elites. According to analyst Laura Carlsen, the theory taps into deep rooted xenophobic trends in the United States to obfuscate real challenges posed by corporate globalization. It confuses real debates over existing agreements like the “Security and Prosperity Partnership.” <\/p>\n![\"NAU\"](\"\/home\/graphics\/nau.JPG\")
GUEST: Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for two decades<\/em><\/p>\n