June 21, 2011
An Agenda for the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region
Regions will be just as important as nation-states in ensuring the well-being of communities in the coming decades. The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region (GLSLR)—made up of the eight states and two provinces (Quebec and Ontario) that surround these great waters—has everything necessary to succeed in this new world.
Executive Summary
Regions will be just as important as nation-states in ensuring the well-being of communities in the coming decades. The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region (GLSLR)—made up of the eight states and two provinces (Quebec and Ontario) that surround these great waters—has everything necessary to succeed in this new world.
Regions are becoming more important because capital and talent tend to cluster geographically so that employers have easy access to potential partners and employees. Clusters emerge in regions that possess natural, cultural, and place-defining attributes that make them attractive places to live and work. They also emerge near centres of public and private research and education.
The conventional narrative about the region has been of a “rust belt” and the decline of heavy industry. Many communities in the region have not fared well during the past three decades as globalized patterns of production and trade fundamentally restructured whole industries, including autos, steel, chemicals, machine tools, electronics, paper, and durable goods manufacturing.
However, this storyline ignores the fact that the production and trade models of the 20th century generated the wealth and infrastructure on which a new economy is being built. The capital, talent, and innovation produced in the 20th century has been deployed in the past two decades and has produced clusters of new industries in the financial services, health services, food processing, energy, aerospace, ICT, transportation, and pharmaceutical sectors, among many others.
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These realities can, if leveraged, turn the conventional narrative on its head. But to do so requires that we recognize our common regional history and interdependence, and think more consistently, and act much more purposefully, like a cross-border region with common interests.
One obstacle to achieving this vision is an inability to imagine our shared future. Other cross-border regions are beginning to act and think collectively, transcending national boundaries to address shared problems, manage shared resources, and take advantage of new economic opportunities.
A second obstacle is the thickening of the border, which has caused hardship for communities and businesses on both sides. Federal governments are taking action. The Beyond the Border Working Group and the Regulatory Cooperation Council are working on harmonization and easing border traffic without undermining security or sovereignty.
At the same time, other actors—provincial, state, and municipal governments, the private sector, civic organizations, and research institutions—are not sitting back waiting for the outcomes of these federal processes. There are things that all of us can do to strengthen the cross-border region.
This white paper is intended to facilitate the discussion about what we can do to strengthen the region. This paper outlines the shared challenges and opportunities facing the cross-border region. It also outlines a series of initiatives for government, business, and civil society that have been proposed to deepen cross-border collaboration. A final paper will be published in fall 2011.
Communities across the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region share common challenges. They are also rich with the assets needed to succeed in the global economy. Overcoming these challenges and leveraging those assets won’t be easy. This paper is built around a basic premise—we can achieve more by working together than alone.
Authors
Allison Bramwell, Kelly Hinton, Josh Hjartarson & Matthew Mendelsohn
Release Date
June 21, 2011
ISBN
978-1-927350-04-1
Mowat Publication
No. 21