CASCADIA: What is the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region

CASCADIA: What is the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region

Postby Oscar » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:41 pm

CASCADIA: What is the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region

It is the Pacific Northwest Economic Region: http://www.pnwer.org/

The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) is a regional U.S.-Canadian forum dedicated to encouraging global economic competitiveness and preserving our world-class natural environment. This forum is made up of delegates from Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia and Alberta. PNWER currently has various Councils and Committees as well as nine Working Groups interested in: Agriculture, Environmental Technology, Forest Products, Government Procurement, Recycling, Telecommunications, Tourism, Trade & Finance, and Transportation.

See Organizational Chart at bottom of page at: http://www.pnwer.org/AboutUs/Background ... fault.aspx

SPONSORSHIP

PNWER, (1999), initially funded by US Economic Development Administration (EDA), has a long list of sponsors such as ENBRIDGE, EPCOR, ENCANA, Microsoft, Telus, CN Rail, University of Lethbridge, IBM, Consulate General of Canada, Alaska Railroad, Capital Health Edmonton area, Johnson & Johnson, Alberta Environment, Canadian Western Bank Group, etc. and etc.

http://411designstreet.ultimahosts.net/ ... fault.aspx

PNWER MISSION STATEMENT

To increase the economic well-being and quality of life for all citizens of the region.
To coordinate provincial and state policies throughout the region; to identify and promote “models of success;” and to serve as a conduit to exchange information.

PNWER Mission Statement Goals

- Promote greater regional collaboration
- Enhance the competitiveness of the region in both domestic and international markets
- Leverage regional influence in Ottawa and Washington D.C.
- Achieve continued economic growth while maintaining the region’s natural beauty and environment

PNWER Working Groups at:

http://www.pnwer.org/ProgramAreas/Worki ... fault.aspx

- Tourism - Olympics 2010 - The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) is dedicated to increasing regional economic development in the race for 2010 Winter Olympics. With a mission of introducing the world to opportunity in the Pacific Northwest, PNWER created the 2010 Coordinating Council to develop coordination of efforts between Pacific Northwest states/provinces, and relevant organizations to develop and execute a regional business plan for the 2010 Olympics and other relevant tourism initiatives.

Major Program Initiatives: TerraNW Regional Promotion Program

TerraNW is an economic development, sports and tourism program built around winter sports. With a mission of introducing the world to opportunity in the Canadian and US Pacific Northwest, TerraNW aims to connect national teams and elite athletes with sustainable training, competition and marketing opportunity as they prepare for international events, including the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Under the guidance of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, TerraNW partners include the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and the U.S. States of Idaho, Oregon and Washington);

- Agriculture (Active on livestock health issues, such as animal identification and the sharing of best practices);

- Border Issues (Focuses on ensuring greater security and mobility for goods and services across the Canada-US border);

- Energy I and II (With funding from the US Department of Energy, Alberta Ministry of Energy, and BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, brings together key industry leaders from both countries to examine supply and demand issues, transmission, permitting across multiple jurisdictions, and many issues that must be dealt with to secure efficient, reliable, low cost and environmentally safe energy supply for our future; Energy II identifies emerging and renewable energy technologies and addresses related policy issues);

- Environment (Promotes coordinated research,development and marketing of environmental technologies and services. Also active on marine air pollution issues);

- Forestry (Has looked at sustainable forest practices in each jurisdiction, has worked on developing cross-border mutual aid agreements for firefighting. In 2005 PNWER’s Forestry Working Group met jointly with the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force);

- Health Care (With private sector support, is preparing the first bi-annual regional healthcare update to serve as a reference regarding health care innovations policies and best practices. Focused on methods for states and provinces to increase access and effective care while reducing healthcare costs. Has also addressed drug importation issues);

- High Tech (With funding from the Economic Development Administration (US Dep’t of Commerce), has initiated a new forum for researchers, businesses and students to work collaboratively in the exchange and commercialization of research and ideas - providing a platform to develop the innovation, collaboration and capital needed for future wealth creation and growth opportunities);

- Homeland Security (With funding from a wide range of public and private sector sources, has brought together hundreds of public and private sector leaders in a series of infrastructure interdependencies exercises called Blue Cascades (focused on cyber security, pandemic preparedness and natural disasters) designed to make this region more disaster resilient. Canada’s Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada and the US Department of Homeland Security have recognized PNWER for its leadership role in this effort. PNWER recently launched the Center for Disaster Resilience);

- Invasive Species (Has been working to encourage the development of Invasive Species Councils in each jurisdiction and to foster greater collaboration throughout the region. Washington state established the Washington Invasive Species Council in 2006, based in part on model legislation developed by PNWER);

- Sustainable Development (Identifies best practices for environmental sustainability to improve the quality of life in the region as well as foster sustainable economic development. Is addressing the mountain pine beetle infestation and developing a sustainability showcase for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver);

- Telecommunications (Identifies potential multi-jurisdictional uses of new technologies in the area of emergency communications. Held an alternate resilient communications workshop in October 2006);

- Trade & Economic Development (Has encouraged the promotion of regional clusters, and the importance of collaboration across borders. Is exploring the possibility of expanding the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labor Mobility Agreement concept throughout the PNWER region. Many of the states and provinces are each other’s largest trading partners);

- Transportation (Focuses on the infrastructure of our major corridors and gateways, with a special interest on border infrastructure. Brings together public and private, state/provincial and federal officials to address key issues of transportation management, including new technologies to address the increased flow of goods and services through our ports and across our borders);

- Water Policy (Is beginning a dialogue to address important regional water issues such as the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty);

- Workforce Development (Is identifying the 1) barriers to addressing labor shortages, 2) the key stakeholders, and 3) specific actions that can be implemented to alleviate these shortages. How can we train and retrain the skilled workforce that will be needed to fuel the growth of tomorrow? Where are the best practices of industry/government cooperation? How can we ensure greater professional mobility in terms of licensing requirements, as many projects cross multiple jurisdictions?).[/b]
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…keeping his eye on the ball!

Postby Oscar » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:44 pm

Sent for publishing on June 29, 2007

Dear Editor

…keeping his eye on the ball!

Don’t be fooled by Sask Party’s sudden about-face on signing TILMA, the backroom deal that supposedly will bring Saskatchewan all sorts of prosperity.

Party Leader, Brad Wall is simply going for gold in the big league!

In the June 28, 2007 Sask Party’s Press Release, Mr. Wall stated that he prefers “other modes of western economic cooperation including Saskatchewan’s involvement in the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) and he has already indicated that a Saskatchewan party government would hold joint cabinet meetings with other western provinces to explore opportunities to cooperate in areas such as health care equipment and pharmaceutical purchaces.”

The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) (http://www.pnwer.org/) covers nearly one-quarter of the US land mass and is home to approximately 11 million people. It is a collection of state and provincal delegates from Alberta, BC, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho arranged into Executive Committees and Councils. It also includes the Seattle Office of the Consulate General of Canada (http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/s ... g_update=1 ).

PNWER also has nine Working Groups focussed on such issues as Olympics 2010, Energy (translate ‘Canadian oil’), Health Care “innovations policies and best practices . . . to increase access and effective care while reducing health care costs as well as drug importation issues” (is that the same as private for-profit health care championed by Brian Day who becomes the new President of the Canadian Medical Association in August, 2007?), a Water Policy to “address important regional water issues such as the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty” (as in bulk water exports?), and to explore “the possibility of expanding the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labor Mobility Agreement concept throughout the PNWER region” - TILMA!

PNWER enjoys sponsorship from many big league multinationals such as ENBRIDGE, Telus, CN Rail, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Capital Health Edmonton Area, Canadian Western Bank Group, and many others. And, since PNWER’s mission is “to increase the economic well-being and quality of life for all citizens of the region” - in other words, to make more money for corporations – Mr. Wall’s letting go of Saskatchewan’s signing of the controversial TILMA is no big deal when his ultimate goal is to play ball in the big league.

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill, SK

================================

Sask Party rejects TILMA - Friday, June 29, 2007

http://larryhubich.blogspot.com/2007/06 ... tilma.html

On Thursday, June 28, 2006, the Sask. Party announced they would not sign the B.C./Alberta Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) in it's current form. They acknowledged the agreement raises significant concerns and many unanswered questions.

You can thank the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, Council of Canadians, Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives, many Unions and numerous other individuals and groups for shedding enough light on the terrible TILMA scheme that it's flaws were sufficiently exposed for all to see.

This, inspite of a blatant and continuing media bias in favour of this anti-democratic corporate bill of rights. Joe Kuchta over at the "Owls and Roosters Blog" has done a great critique of a recent article which appeared in the National Post.

KNOW TILMA!

===============================================

Saskatchewan Party Responds to TILMA Report
Wall Says He Would Not Sign Agreement in Its Present Form


http://www.skcaucus.com/newsroom.html?p ... 189EBB71FF

Thursday - June 28, 2007

REGINA-Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall today said a Saskatchewan Party government would work to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers through negotiations with BC, Alberta and other provinces, but would not sign the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) in its present form.

Wall was responding to the recent release of a report by an all-party legislative committee examining TILMA.

“The Saskatchewan Party strongly supports the reduction of inter-provincial trade barriers as a means to grow Saskatchewan’s economy and create new jobs,” Wall said. “It is very unfortunate that Saskatchewan’s NDP government did not take part in the original TILMA negotiations with BC and Alberta.

“As a result, the Saskatchewan Party would not sign TILMA in its present form since our province had no part in negotiating its terms.”

Wall said the Opposition’s own research and the TILMA hearings raised specific concerns about three areas which are not clearly addressed in the current TILMA agreement:

1. The protection of Crown Corporations;
2. The exemption of provincial new growth tax incentives; and
3. The potential loss of new growth tax incentives at the municipal level.

Wall said he was also concerned about the lack of formal input from Saskatchewan cities, who are awaiting a TILMA assessment report scheduled for the end of this year.

“Our Enterprise Saskatchewan plan for the economy involves direct input from stakeholders including the municipal sector,” Wall said. “How could we enter into a major trade and investment agreement without their formal input and assessment?

“Our goal would be to negotiate trade agreements with BC, Alberta and other provinces that reduce trade barriers while protecting these three important areas,” Wall said. “We know that Alberta and BC officials have indicated that having Saskatchewan sign on without any revisiting of the agreement would not make sense for those two provinces either.”

Wall said he prefers other modes of western economic cooperation including Saskatchewan’s involvement in the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) and he has already indicated that a Saskatchewan Party government would hold joint cabinet meetings with other western provinces to explore opportunities to cooperate in areas such as health care equipment and pharmaceutical purchases.

-30-

For further information: Saskatchewan Party Caucus, Regina, 787-4300
Last edited by Oscar on Sun May 25, 2008 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CASCADIA - more than a dream

Postby Oscar » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:16 pm

Cascadia: More than a dream

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... c5ea89&p=1

The notion that the continent's west forms a natural bloc has deep roots -- now powerful forces are joining to make it true

Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun - Published: Saturday, April 14, 2007

It's always been more a state of mind than a tangible place on a map. Yet the empire of Cascadia, what some dreamers have long believed the westernmost states and provinces of North America might one day be called if they ever banded together, may not be quite the fantasy it once seemed.

Cascadia will never involve the loopy idea of provinces or states splitting off from their countries, as some western separatists once hoped. There won't ever be a seat for Cascadians at the United Nations. Cascadia won't ever be on a map any time soon.

Where you will find Cascadia, though, is in the mindset of the millions of people who live on the continent's western edge. For them it's a concept, an increasingly real regional abstraction -- one backed by some rich and influential people, including Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates who has supported a think-tank that tries to breathe life into an idea that goes back from the time Europeans explored the continent's western wilderness.

Cascadia's guiding principle today isn't nationhood but what might be best called regionhood -- the sense that Alaska, the Yukon, B.C., Alberta and the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho -- often share similar regional goals and ambitions. Cascadians may be in separate countries, states and provinces. They often have different national agendas. But, the thinking goes, in an age when centralized governments are often devolving their powers, they often share similar agendas. In Cascadia, these range from environmental issues, a heightened sense that their collective futures are tied to the Asia-Pacific and a desire for more autonomy from federal governments that are thousands of kilometres to the east, in Ottawa and Washington, D.C., and often out of touch with the big questions to the west.

In fact, when taken as a whole, Cascadia has evolved into a powerful economic entity with clout its members alone can never hope to wield.

If you add up the states' and provinces' individual GDPs and populations, Cascadia is a significant geographic area and market: It comprises a market of more than 20 million people and what would be the world's eighth-richest nation, with a GDP of about $848 billion US, according to the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, the entity that was formed in 1991 by the legislators of Cascadia's provinces and states. Those same leaders will be in Anchorage, Alaska, from July 22 to 26, to continue their work to foster regional cooperation and the idea of an economic bloc.

Some, however, even look at Cascadia as bigger than that. If you add California to the concept, as Premier Gordon Campbell was wont to do in a recent interview when he discussed Cascadia, you would get an entity that would include about 60 million people and a GDP of more than $2 trillion, about the size of China.

"I think there is a very strong, natural pull of the region called Cascadia," he said.

Campbell isn't suggesting that there could ever be a full integration of the region, one that could ever challenge the sovereignty of either Canada's or the United States' federal governments. That is the pipe dream of a small band of separatists who hijacked the name years ago. But on issues such as climate change, Campbell suggests, looking at the region as a whole makes good political and economic sense.

Shortly after meeting with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Campbell said they both agreed the region could push their respective national leaders to take aggressive approaches on fighting climate change. "I think the fact of the matter is that, as the governor said, sometimes you can't wait for the rest of the continent to catch up."

Here's one way, Campbell believes, Cascadia might lead the way.

The premier is touting the creation of a Cascadia-wide carbon market. The U.S. western states have already signed initiatives to join in the creation of a carbon trading market involving the western states. But B.C.'s premier also sees his province, and perhaps Alberta and others, as natural members of such a market. Campbell promised as much in the latest throne speech, which borrowed much of California's climate-change agenda.

"We think there's a real potential for a regional carbon market," Campbell said after his meeting with Schwarzenegger. "We [Schwarzenegger and Campbell] also both agree that the larger the market the better it is. From California's perspective, B.C. offers some real opportunities to help them meet their goals [to reduce greenhouse gas emissions]. I think there's some real synergy that California and B.C. offers. I think the Pacific Coast can set an example that will grab both the imagination and inspire the rest of the continent."

To make that idea happen, Campbell is doing something never before tried by a B.C. premier. He is trying to meet with the governors of Alaska, Oregon and Washington to create a consensus on tackling climate change, and perhaps eventually a summit of the region's leaders in British Columbia.

"I'm going to be meeting the governors of Washington and Oregon and the governor of Alaska in the last half of April," he says. "There's lots of room for cooperation."

Cascadia is hardly new as a concept. U.S. president Thomas Jefferson initially thought the region, still unmapped by explorers about two centuries ago, as potentially a separate country. He even called it -- what might be described as the land west of the Louisiana Purchase -- the Republic of the Pacific.

That was never to be, of course. But the idea of Cascadia as a distinct region has had remarkable staying power. It's been called Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach's fanciful name for part of the region in a novel that imagines northern California, Oregon and Washington breaking away from the U.S. to form an environmentally integrated country.

Cascadia was further defined in a more continentalist way by Joel Garreau, whose book The Nine Nations of North America saw the region's common traits as based in market and lifestyle. The idea seemed to take on more concreteness in the early 1990s, when the region's leaders even formed PNWER. That is not unlike some international regional blocs, such as APEC, except that it exists within a continent.

Cascadia, however, has never really caught on as a mainstream concept. Its states and provinces don't always share the same agendas or the same national interest. They compete for Asian trade, they exist within different nation states. Yet, there are undeniably increasing examples where there is cooperation. Consider a few of them:

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, B.C. teamed up with Washington and Oregon to press the U.S. government to loosen its demands for passports when crossing the Canadian border. That fight is continuing, but both Ottawa and Washington have taken note and contemplated ways to shift border policy.

Alberta and B.C. have recently teamed up with an unprecedented agreement to create a common market by 2009, one that essentially eliminates economic barriers. Called the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility agreement, it seeks to create an integrated regional economy within Canada, a first that some say will accelerate the Canadian West's power in Confederation.

There are attempts underway to create a unified ports strategy on the West Coast to ensure similar standards and equipment for handling shipping. While the plan does not eliminate competition for Asian shipping between U.S. and Canadian ports, it is meant to ensure North America's West Coast -- that is Cascadia -- can be a seamless destination for Pacific Rim trade.

Efforts are underway to create a viable carbon market, for clean industries to sell their "carbon credits" to those that are polluters. California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and Arizona have already signed a deal to create that regional market and B.C. is expected to try and join that new "carbon bloc."

There are plans for the West Coast to create an integrated "hydrogen highway" from California to Whistler to prove the possibility of using hydrogen fuel-cell technology in cars. There are also plans to increase rail traffic between Washington state and B.C., a promise that has been made for years but is now happening with recent rail upgrades.

And community leaders and Seattle and Vancouver have even put forward the idea of Seattle and Vancouver cooperating on a joint bid to hold future international events such as a Summer Olympics, a World Cup or a World's Fair.

"I think at long last the idea of Cascadia is beginning to get some real traction," said Bruce Agnew, who heads the Cascadia Center for Regional Development, a Seattle-based think-tank that counts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as one of its benefactors. "It was the people in Ottawa, who said it was just a western separatist thing, part of that old Ecotopia thing. But Cascadia is an idea that has staying power. In terms of trade, regional transportation, tourism, climate change and alternative energy, there are common interests in this region that make Cascadia a real thing."

PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION

In economic terms Cascadia would be the world's eighth-richest nation, with a GDP of $848 billion US

PNWER Region (GDP/Pop.)

State/Prov. GDP* Population Alberta 180,300 3,413,464 B.C. 139,377 4,327,431 Yukon 1,255 31,151 Alaska 39,314 670,053 Idaho 47,189 1,466,465 Montana 29,885 944,632 Oregon 144,278 3,700,758 Wash. 267,308 6,395,798 Total 848,906 20,949,752

If PNWER were a separate country, it would rank ninth in total GDP, just ahead of Canada.

Country GDP*

1. US 11,927,094 2. Japan 4,505,912 3. Germany 2,781,900 4. China 2,228,862 5. U.K. 2,192,553 6. France 2,110,185 7. Italy 1,723,044 8. Spain 1,123,691 9. PNWER 848,906 10. Canada 794,260 11. Brazil 794,098

Source: PNWER/Urban Futures

CASCADIA ODD AND ENDS:

B.C.: Capital: Victoria Official flower: Pacific Dogwood Official animal: Spirit Bear Motto: Splendor without diminishmnent Notweorthy Company: Electronic Arts, Jim Pattison Group Home-grown celebrities: Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Steve Nash, Pamela Anderson

ALBERTA: Edmonton Wild Rose Big horn sheep Strong and free
Petro-Canada Michael J. Fox, k.d. Lang, Arthur Hiller, Rae Dawn Chong

YUKON: Whitehorse Fireweed Raven No motto Minto Copper Mines
Pierre Berton

OREGON: Salem Oregon Grape Beaver She Flies with her own wings
Nike Michael Cassidy, Margaux Hemingway

WASHINGTON: Olympia Coast Rhododendron Willow Goldfinch Alki "by and by" Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks Bill Gates, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain

ALASKA: Anchorage, Forget-me-not Moose North to the future Arco Alaska, Alaska Airlines Jewel

© The Vancouver Sun 2007
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CASCADIA: Rosenburg Reply - April 17.07

Postby Oscar » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:21 pm

Reply to: "Cascadia: More Than A Dream" Matt Rosenberg April 17, 2007

http://www.cascadiaprospectus.org/2007/ ... ore_th.php

Miro Cernetig of the Vancouver Sun takes a in-depth look at the economic and environmental firmament of North America's upper lefthand corner, in an article titled, "Cascadia - More Than A Dream."

Where you will find Cascadia...is in the mindset of the millions of people who live on the continent's western edge...Cascadia's guiding principle today isn't nationhood but what might be best called regionhood -- the sense that Alaska, the Yukon, B.C., Alberta and the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho -- often share similar regional goals and ambitions....these range from environmental issues, a heightened sense that their collective futures are tied to the Asia-Pacific and a desire for more autonomy from federal governments that are thousands of kilometres to the east, in Ottawa and Washington, D.C., and often out of touch with the big questions to the west.

In fact, when taken as a whole, Cascadia has evolved into a powerful economic entity with clout its members alone can never hope to wield. If you add up the states' and provinces' individual GDPs and populations, Cascadia is a significant geographic area and market: It comprises a market of more than 20 million people and what would be the world's eighth-richest nation, with a GDP of about $848 billion US, according to the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, the entity that was formed in 1991 by the legislators of Cascadia's provinces and states. Those same leaders will be in Anchorage, Alaska, from July 22 to 26, to continue their work to foster regional cooperation and the idea of an economic bloc.

Cernetig notes B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell sees joint efforts to control global warming as a unifying principle in Cascadia, and that Campbell believes California is more and more part of the region, in part due to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's leadership role in forging alliances to address climate change. One example is an emerging Western states policy allowing clean and polluting industries to trade capped carbon emission allotments.

Other threads tie together Cascadia, writes Cernetig. These include agreement to shape a unified strategy making West Coast ports more seamless for Asia-Pacific shippers; an ongoing push to boost U.S.-Canada passenger rail; emphasis on developing shared strategies to advance alternative vehicle fuel technologies; and the evolving possibility of a joint Seattle-Vancouver bid for hosting the Olympics or World Cup. A "two-nation vacation" is glimpsed above right, looking down upon B.C.'s Harrison Lake, Harrison Hot Springs, the Fraser River and south to Washington's Mount Baker.

"I think at long last the idea of Cascadia is beginning to get some real traction," said Bruce Agnew, who heads the Cascadia Center For Regional Development, a Seattle-based think-tank that counts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as one of its benefactors. "It was the people in Ottawa, who said it was just a western separatist thing, part of that old Ecotopia thing. But Cascadia is an idea that has staying power. In terms of trade, regional transportation, tourism, climate change and alternative energy, there are common interests in this region that make Cascadia a real thing."

For more insight on Cascadia, a good source is "The Character of Non-Governmental Transborder Organizations In The Cascadia Region of North America:

http://www.amec.com.mx/revista/num_2_20 ... wrence.htm
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THE CHARACTER OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL TRANSBORDER ORGANIZATIONS

Postby Oscar » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:29 pm

THE CHARACTER OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL TRANSBORDER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CASCADIA REGION OF NORTH AMERICA

http://www.amec.com.mx/revista/num_2_20 ... wrence.htm

Lawrence Douglas Taylor Hansen Abstract June 22, 2004

© Copyright 2003 - 2004. Asociación Mexicana de Estudios sobre Canadá, A.C.

The article examines non-governmental organizational approaches to establishing cooperative transborder links in that region of northwestern North America which has come to be known as “Cascadia”. It presents an analysis of the three leading transborder organizations in this region – the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), the Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council (PACE), and the Cascadia Task Force – considering not only their background and organizational structures, but also their projects and goals, as well as the degree of success which they have had realizing these objectives.

The western portion of the Canada-U.S. border, which forms a part of the northwestern area of the North American continent that has come to be known as Cascadia, has had, as in the case of the Canada-U.S. border region in general, a long history of binational ties.

Over the last 15 years or so, the Cascadia region has experienced a great upsurge in transborder regionalism. To a certain extent, this great increase has coincided with the growing acceptation among theorists and policy experts of the concept of the integrated region in order to cope successfully with economic trends and environmental problems caused by industrialization and urban sprawl.[1] It also coincided with the negotiations and signing of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement of 1988 and that of NAFTA in 1992. Both the FTA and NAFTA, which were a part of economic liberalization trends in the 1980s, greatly stimulated north-south relations n the continent. Certain non-economic developments such as the Environmental Cooperation Agreement of 1992 signed between the governments of British Columbia and the State of Washington, also furthered this upsurge in transborder ties. Although some transborder organizations originated prior to the free trade agreements, many others date their origins to this period.
Transborder regional linkages in the Cascadia region are largely economically-driven. This is not surprising considering the enormous volumes of trade between Canada and the U.S., as well as the fact that much of the process of regional integration in North America in the last few decades has been of an economic nature. The emphasis on the need to exploit existing and potential opportunities in the areas of trade, transport and tourism, as well as connections to global markets, are reflected among the concerns of many of the more prominent and active of the transboundary organizations in the Cascadia region.

This paper will examine the three principal transborder organizations in the region –The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), the Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council (Pace) and the Cascadia Task Force. It will consider not only their background and organizational structures but also their projects and goals, as well as the degree of success which they have had in realizing these objectives.

CASCADIA AND THE TRANSBORDER REGIONALISM

The U.S. and Canadian areas of the Pacific Northwest region have enjoyed a relatively peaceful history, common geography and interlocking economies. This, in turn, has produced similar ways of lifestyle and values. While Canadians resist being culturally identified as Americans, it is probable that the struggle for identity in Western Canada is less intense than it is in regions of Eastern Canada, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.[2]

This particular region has always had considerable cross-border interaction, which has greatly increased in recent decades. The relatively narrow belt of land between the inland sierra and the Pacific coast has experienced an explosive growth rate in terms of population and urban development over the last few decades. This factor has brought the principal metropolitan centers situated throughout the length of this strip –Vancouver, Seattle and Portland- not only closer together in a physical or spatial sense, but also in terms of cross-border contacts.

The British Columbia-Washington border region constitutes one of the heaviest border-crossing areas on the continent. The Peace Arch Border Crossing between White Rock, B.C., and Blaine, U.S., which registered approximately 8 million crossings in 1997, is the third busiest along the Canada-U.S. border, after those of Windsor-Detroit and Niagara Falls-Buffalo. Other ports of entry along the B.C.-Washington border also experience heavy cross-border traffic. As a group, the B.C.-Washington border ports of entry registered some 17 million crossing during the same period.[3]

The international border looms much larger in the consciousness of Canadians than it does in the case of Americans. Canada might almost be described, as Roger Gibbins has termed it, as a “borderlands society”.[4] Moreover, although the border has little direct impact on communities in the interior of the U.S., for inhabitants of communities lying on or near the border, the impact of the border is especially acute. In the case of the B.C.-Washington border, there is a great deal of cross-border interaction between pairs of border communities on both sides resulting from tourism. Examples of such pairs of communities are Osoyoos, British Columbia/Oroville, Washington, and White Rock, British Columbia/Blaine, Washington, There is also a large influx of Canadian cross-border shoppers, motivated by higher taxes and cost of living in Canada. The number of Canadian cross-border shoppers varies in intensity in accordance with the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar.[5] In many U.S. border communities, especially in Bellingham and the Whatcom County area in general, many Canadians have also bought property and homes.[6]

During the last 15 years or so, the much larger transborder of binational region in the Pacific Northwest, of which this border corridor region forms a part of, has come to be known as “Cascadia”, named for the waterfalls along the Columbia River.[7] The defining physical characteristic of the entire Cascadia region is its mountainous nature. Other, less common, names used to refer to the region are “The New Pacific,” “North Pacific West”, “Northeast Pacific Rim”, “Pacifica” or “Ectopia”.[8]

Within this much larger region, close regional ties between the U.S. and Canada have given rise to a number of emergent regionalisms. Although they are often collectively referred to as the Cascadia “movement” or “movements”, in reality these regional forces consist of several distinct groups and organizations that are dedicated to constructing a variety of different types of regional networks in the Pacific Northwest –economic, environmental, social and cultural- as well as fostering a sense of regional identity among its people.[9]

The spatial and perceptual boundaries or limits of the Cascadia region vary in accordance with the objectives and activities of these different groups and organizations.[10] The core of the region, as well as the focus for cooperative binational activities, is the coastal corridor extending north-south from Vancouver to Eugene, Oregon, and east-west from the Pacific to the Cascade, Coast and Rocky Mountain ranges. This coastal strip, which some regionalists have referred to as the “Cascadia Corridor” or “Main Street Cascadia”, has a population of more than six million, with the metropolitan centers of Vancouver, Seattle and Portland constituting its economic and demographic hub. A more ambitious conception of the region defines Cascadia as including the two western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, parts of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, as well as the U.S. states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.[11] The inclusion of Oregon, which is not a border state, in these conceptual “maps” signifies that Cascadia as a region is not limited to states or provinces contiguous to the international border.

Although Cascadia encompasses several political jurisdictions in two separate countries, it possesses a definite geographical unity. It also has a certain historical unity, given that its exploration and settlement by British and U.S. colonists dates back to the period of the former Oregon territory. The Treaty of Washington of 1846 subsequently divided this territory between British and U.S. control at the 49th parallel.[12]

Many of the writers on Cascadia have defined the region in terms of certain commonalities. Chief among these are the natural environment and its importance in the culture and mentality of its inhabitants, similar economic activities, trade and cultural ties with certain countries bordering the Pacific, as well as growing Asian communities. These perceptions of commonality have been reinforced by the traditional permeability of the border, which has become even more so, in the economic sense, with Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA.
Commonalities also exist in the political sense, as feelings of alienation and antipathy toward the national capitals exist in both western Canada and the north-western U.S.[13]

The fact that the region has made great and rapid economic strides over the last few decades has also been a driving force behind the idea of Cascadia. From being a region largely dependent on the exportation of raw materials up into the 1960s, it is now one of the principal centers in North America in terms of software and high-tech industries. It has often been pointed out hat, when Cascadia is defined to include much of the U.S. and Canadian northwest, it is much greater in extent than the European Community and has a total population of more than 16 million. It also has a combined GDP which would make the area tenth of eleventh in size among the world’s economies.[14]

It is also possible that there exists a sense of regional unity in the popular mind. In a survey conducted among first-year university students in Vancouver, for example, evidence was detected of a perceptual permeability of the border.[15] In addition, the inclusion of Oregon as part of the Cascadia region in many of its definitions implies that the cross-border regionalism is not just a matter of geographical contiguity, but also includes sub-national linkages and a perceived northwest “state of mind”, as authors Paul Schell and John Hamer expressed it in their essay “Cascadia: the North Pacific West.”[16]

This is not to say, of course, that the Canadian and U.S. residents of the region do not retain unique national characteristics. Nevertheless, many U.S. and Canadian residents of the region believe that they share certain similarities and that these are more significant and a more powerful force than the distinctions.[17] Thus, although the international border separates the two countries in a political sense, as well as their national identities, the residents of the Northwest feel that they have much in common. The notion of Cascadia, in acting as a catalyst for regional interests, creates a favorable political environment for trans-border cooperative efforts.[18]

Given the immense area involved, factors such as space and distance are of prime consideration for transborder organizations in the Cascadia region. The need for the several Cascadian entities to pull together to achieve common goals, to cooperate in order to do things, is the overriding concern of transborder organizations in the Northwest. “Regionalism builds the political base for change,” as expressed in one article written by proponents of the Cascadia idea concerning the need for wide-ranging transportation improvements in the region,[19] constitutes the central guiding motive behind much of what these organizations hope to accomplish. Within the political context of the Cascadia region, therefore, it is really more accurate to speak of “transborder regionalism” rather than merely cross-border interaction per se.

Such spatial considerations can also be seen in considering the relative importance of the international border, or even the area in which border communities lie, as opposed to the hinterland. With regards to the Cascadia region, the international border is not the principal focus; although border crossing issues are of concern for transborder organizations in the Cascadia region, they do not constitute the focal point concerning regional interaction.

This has its roots in the historical evolution of the international border in the region. During the 1830s and early 1840s, U.S. settlers in the region were initially concentrated in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, acting as a kind of counterpoise to the British Hudson’s Bay Company post on the lower Columbia River. In 1843 the Hudson’s Bay Company relocated its headquarters in the region at Fort Vancouver to a new base, Fort Victoria, established at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which, in 1850 was proclaimed a Crown Colony. With the Fraser River gold rush of 1858-1859 and that which followed in the Cariboo district of the upper Fraser in the early 1860s, the focus of British colonization efforts became centered on the mainland. In 1858 the Crown Colony of British Columbia was established, consisting of a garrison and settlement at the mouth of the Fraser. The settlement, called New Westminster, which grew up on the hills overlooking the garrison, became the capital of the mainland colony.
In 1868 the capital of the united colonies of the mainland and Vancouver Island (together with their dependencies in the Stikine and Queen Charlotte islands territorial districts) was transferred to Victoria, where it remained. As Vancouver and Seattle developed as ports and became linked by rail with their respective countries’ hinterlands in the 1880s, the focus for the region drew away from the border and gradually became centered in the major metropolitan centers that exist in the region today.[20]

The problem of distance and the fact that the major cities and capital of the region are relatively distant from the border act as impediments to the fostering of cross-border interaction or even cross-border inter-regional contacts in Cascadia. Even the major population centers along the corridor route in the Cascadia corridor zone –Portland, Seattle and Vancouver- are relatively distant from one another.

One result of these conditioning factors of space and distance, as well as the regionalism implicit in the notions concerning Cascadia, is that the transborder organizations which have formed in the Northwest consist for the most part of fairly loose associations or, in some cases, “federations” of institutions situated in widely separated localities.

CASCADIA TRANSBORDER ORGANIZATIONS

The most wide-ranging of the Cascadia transborder organizations, not only in terms of the area which it covers but also to a certain extent in terms of the interests and issues it deals with, is the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), based in Seattle.

PNWER developed out of an earlier association, the Pacific Northwest Legislative Forum, which held its first meeting in 1989. The new organization was formally established in 1991 by statutes in the political entities it then comprised: the U.S. states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and, on the Canadian side, the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta.[21]

PNWER is comprised of a mixture of both private sector and political components. It has a two part representative council: a Delegate Council (public sector) and, as of 1994, a Private Sector Council. The Delegate Council is composed of four members from each state and provincial legislature (in the case of the states, one from each caucus, and in the case of the provinces, two from the government party, and two from the opposition party). Since 1993, the governors and premiers of the states and provinces involved have also been members of the Delegate Council. The Private Sector Council is mostly made up of representatives from the major corporations and law firms of the region; membership, however, is rather open and also includes individuals, trade associations, subdivisions of state or provincial governments and quasi-governmental organizations. The dues paid by members are based on the size and sector of the organization. The Private Sector Council also has a Board of Directors consisting of four elected members from each state and province.

PNWER’s governing or Executive Committee is made up of seven legislators (one from each state and province), the chair of the Private Sector’s Board of Directors, and four governors and premiers or their designees. The executive Committee elects a President and two Vice-Presidents, of which at least one must be a U.S. citizen and one a Canadian. PNWER’s current president is Representative Max C. Black, from the Idaho House of Representatives, and the executive director is Matt Morrison. The organization is funded by dues from the member states and provinces, private contributions and contracts.[22]

PNWER’s productive work is carried out by a series of Working Groups, each of which has three co-chairs, one from the private sector and two from the public sector. The Working Groups vary from time to time in number as well as the issues dealt with. Currently there are nine working groups: trade and Finance, Tourism, Recycling, Forest Products (Value-Added Timber), Telecommunications, Transportation, Environmental Technology, Government Procurement and Agriculture. In July 1997 the Clean Washington Center was also transferred to PNWER by the State of Washington as a National Center for Recycling Technologies funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce.[23]

PNWER’s chief function is that of acting as a binational public-private partnership which serves to promote and advocate on behalf of the region’s economic and business interests. It is dedicated to fostering collaboration between government and business in order to increase the region’s domestic and international competitiveness. It also seeks to expand markets for products common to the region, such as timber salmon and tree fruits.[24]

The fact that the U.S. states of the Pacific and B.C. are economic competitors in many areas, in terms of the similarity of products produced as well as competition between ports, airports and railways as gateways for traffic, would seem to act as a force counteracting against the formation of cooperative transborder links. PNWER, as well as other Cascadia transborder organizations such as Pace and the Cascadia Task Force, which will be discussed further on, do not see the fact of their regions’ economic similarities as a problem. Instead, they stress the importance of the region in the modern economy and argue that regional cooperation and urban networking is necessary to resolve impediments that hinder the region’s competitive stance in world markets.[25]

Another organization which originated at approximately the same time as PNWER is the Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council (Pace). Formed originally in 1989 in response to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement signed the previous year, Pace is a non-profit private sector organization consisting of more than 200 owners and managers of small and medium size businesses in the Cascadia region. Pace’s aim is to stimulate cooperation among businesses in the region to promote economic prosperity and increase its competitive stance in the global economy. Believing that cross-border interaction can be best be furthered by private enterprise or the private sector, it seeks to promote public policy which will improve the free flow of goods, services, people and capital across international borders.

After NAFTA came into effect at the beginning of 1994, Pace was further expanded to promote freer trade along the entire western edge of North America from Alaska to Baja California. It also works in close collaboration with boards of trade and chambers of commerce throughout the Cascadia regional. Pace organizes seminars and workshops to help educate businesses concerning international commerce. It also holds seminars and conducts trade missions that bring together business leaders and government officials to discuss aspects of international trade. Pace has also established a number of committees on certain topics. Such as transportation and cross-border venture capital to assist the organization’s members in need of financing or wishing to expand. It also maintains a program for intern training among business schools in the colleges and universities of the region.[26]

In recent years, Cascadia has been increasingly defined more in terms of the “Cascadia Corridor” or “Main Street Cascadia”. This urban-based strip along the north Pacific Coast, with its high-tech economy, educated and skilled work force, as well as Asian trade and cultural links, has acquired a certain regional distinctiveness of its own. The rapid development of the area over the last few decades, however, has placed considerable stress on infrastructure and environment. The majority of the more than 12 million persons who live in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon inhabit a strip of land roughly 50 miles wide between the sierra region and the Pacific Ocean. It is expected that the population of this area will double within the next decade.[27]

The Cascadia Project, based on the idea of development sustainability for the region, was formed in 1993 in order to deal with this situation and realize the potential behind the Cascadia Corridor cncept. A Cascadia Task Force, led by the then Republican representative for Seattle John Miller, and Bruce Agnew, his executive assistant, was also established to bring together a coalition or alliance of federal, state and local government official, business leaders and policy specialists to promote regional cooperation in trade, transportation, tourism and technology and also to enhance the region’s competitiveness in the global marketplace. It would also tackle the need to maintain development sustainability throughout the region. The Cascadia Project is managed by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle public policy think-tank founded in 1990. The Discovery Institute also works on the project in conjunction with PNWER, as well as the Cascadia Institute and the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, in Vancouver.[28]

The Cascadia Project initially aimed at creating, by way of a formal agreement between the U.S. and Canada, a transborder administrative authority which would be empowered to undertake cooperative cross-border planning with regard to economic, transportation and natural resource policy areas. Just prior to Congressman Miller’s retirement from Congress in 1992, the latter approved his proposal to establish a Cascadia Corridor Commission, which would be composed of federal, state and provincial representatives, municipal, city and county officials, directors of port districts and regional planners.[29] The initiative and its funding became dormant, largely owing to opposition to the idea on the part of B.C.’s New Democratic Party Premier Michael Harcourt. It is probable that B.C. government believed that such an arrangement would be rather lopsided, involving as it would two states and only one province, and would also permit U.S. intervention in its affairs.[30] The proposed Commission’s mandate was later modified to that of merely being an advisory body to state and local governments on issues related to development. Although many Cascadia proponents, such as regional planner Alan Artibise and Bruce Chapman, the Discovery Institute’s president, have argued the need for such a commission, to date it has yet to be established.[31]

The Cascadia Task Force calls for, as Project Director Bruce Agnew has put it, “a seamless transportation system connecting the Interstate 5 and Northwest rail corridor, transit, ferries, marine and airports in this bi-state, bi-national region we call “Cascadia”.[32] Defined in its largest sense, Cascadia covers an area comparable to that of much of Europe. The twin factors of space and distance, as well as the regionalism implicit in the notions concerning Cascadia, help to explain the driving concern of Cascadia Transborder organizations for enhancing and improving transportation systems in the region. This quest to conquer distance is a goal which helps to define regionalism in the Cascadia area and which distinguishes the aims of its transborder organizations from their counterparts in the San diego-Tijuana corridor area.[33]

Cascadia Task Force planners also believe that Transportation improvements, once realized, will also facilitate collaboration in other areas.

A long-range goal consists in endowing Cascadia with an integral transportation network and easy border-crossing system which would rival those of Europe. Although much work needs to be done before such an objective is achieved, regional transborder organization have put forward certain proposals regarding transport improvements in the region.[34]

The Discovery Institute’s project initiative “Connecting the Gateways and Trade Corridors”, begun in 1997, recommends the creation of a north-south corridor system, which would also connect with east-west trade corridors. A key aspect of this scheme involves a multi-modal corridor extending from Vancouver to the Willamette Valley region in southern Oregon. The Connecting the Gateways project would make use of more innovative financing and management, technological advances (including telecommuting) to reduce traffic problems, as well as closer coordination in the use of the various regional modes of transportation: cars, trucks, buses, subways, trains, airplanes and ferries.[35]

The Discovery Institute is also working together with PNWER and the B.C. Washington Corridor Task Force (created in the summer of 1999) on an Inland Trade Corridors Project. This eastern corridor project, which would involve the expansion and improvement of Highways 395, 97 and 95, would reduce pressure on I-5, the other federally-designated NAFTA corridor in the region, and I-15, extending south from Alberta along the Rocky Mountains. It would also link the eastern portions of Cascadia with the western coastal regionss.[36]

A key aspect of the Cascadia Project’s transportation planning involves the development of high-speed rail systems for passenger service. To some extent, the drive for such systems was fueled in part by the Inter-modal Surface Transport Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, which placed an emphasis on the creation of transportation alternatives, environmental considerations, improved connections between various travel modes, local control and smart growth.[37] In 1994 Amtrak renewed passenger service between Seattle and Vancouver. Five years later, in 1999, the Cascadia Project, together with the Washington Association of Rail Passengers, persuaded the government of the state of Washington to provide funding for a second roundtrip of the Amtrak Cascades service as part of its $4 billion overall transportation budget for that year.[38] The Discovery Institute believes that the development of high-speed rail systems along the Cascadia corridor, in conjunction with a number of other intercity rail lines, would go a long way towards solving the traffic congestion problems of Interstate Highway 5, the principal existing transportation route in the region. They would also relieve pressure on the airports for passengers traveling to destinations within the region.[39] At some future date, the regional rail system could take advantage of the possibilities offered by High Speed Ground Transportation, which uses mag-lev technology at velocities superior to 200-mph. Though costly, an improved and advanced system could be financed in part by private enterprise and charging “user fees” or fares and tolls. The Discovery Institute has also proposed the establishment of a regional transportation development bank (Cascadia Corridor Development Bank) with U.S. and Canadian financing, which would respect “issues of sovereignty and independence of taxation…”[40]

Other corridors would be developed for the exclusive movement of freight. The drive for the creation of such trade corridors is partly owing to the competitive aggressiveness of other states or regions in the U.S., particularly California. For example, some 3 to 4 billion dollars are currently being invested in the Alameda Corridor project in California, with a portion of the corridor already in operation. The Cascadia Task Force considers the increase in freight mobility, especially at border-crossing points, to be one of its highest priorities as well as one of the region’s most vital transport issues. It particularly recommends the use of pre-clearances and expedited procedures to clear commercial cargo through customs more efficiently.[41]

Pace has also participated very actively in transport issues. For example, Pace’s Transportation Committee, one of its most active subgroups, has met with representatives from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Chamber of Commerce to discuss the feasibility of building a railroad linking northeastern Alaska with the rest of continental North America.[42]

A second major objective of the Cascadia Task Force consists in minimizing the effect of the international border in order to facilitate the movement of people and goods within the Cascadia region. Without the border as a barrier, Task Force planners believe that their region may begin to properly fulfill its destiny as an economic and commercial entity. As Bruce Agnew has stated, “The U.S.-Canada border needs to be not a barrier but a bi-national connector that reflects today’s regional reality”.[43]

As in the case of transportation the Task Force planners cite the case of Europe, where, in most of the continent, motorists are able to cross from one country to the next without having to stop at border inspection points.[44]

Though the U.S.-Canadian border is commonly regarded as one of the most freely transited international borders in the world, border inspection procedures can be irksome at times, especially for Canadians and U.S. citizens who cross fairly frequently.[45] The Canadian and U.S. federal governments often use the border as a political tool or manifestation of foreign policy. Canada’s relationship with Cuba and defiance of U.S. policy on this issue[46] has often been reflected at border crossings. A More recent example concerns the arrest in December 1999 by U.S. authorities of two Algerians who crossed over into the U.S. at Port Angeles, Washington, and Beecher Falls, Vermont, under suspicion of carrying explosive material in their cars. The two incidents resulted in a substantial increment in surveillance at all U.S. border crossing points, not only along the Canada-U.S. border, but also along the U.S.-Mexico border.[47]

In the case of the Cascadia region, traffic jams do not exist only at the international border crossings, but also at several points in the Cascadia Corridor area. There are, in reality, several borders or “transportation barriers” which create severe bottlenecks for north-south traffic. One of these is the international border itself, with its long wait-lines for cars and trucks. Another is that of downtown Seattle, which reputedly is one of the worst urban traffic congestion points in the continental U.S. A third area of congestion is the I-5 bridge crossing between Oregon and Washington.[48]
Be that as it may, facilitating the movement of people and goods across the international border itself is a prime issue for the Cascadia Task Force, PNWER and Pace. Their accomplishments in this respect have been noteworthy. From 1991-1995, for example PNWER represented western interests in the U.S. and Canada to the U.S. and Canadian governments in the bilateral negotiations on unrestricted air routes between the two countries, which resulted in the Joint Border or “Open Skies” agreement of June 1995. Following the March 1994 Cascadia Transportation and Trade Task Force Conference in Vancouver, the Cascadia project formed a Cascadia Border Working Group, co-chaired by the mayor of Blaine and Surrey. In February 1995 the U.S. and Canadian governments signed the “Accord on Our Shared Border”. They developed a plan of action designed to promote international trade, facilitate the movement of people across borders and reduce costs for governments and users. At the same time, more efficient methods would be employed to prevent illegal contraband and immigration.[49]

The Border Working Group has campaigned for government funding to provide for the improvement of approaches to the border-crossings, the construction of new commercial facilities and the adoption of technology for the pre-clearance of trucks with passes which can be read electronically. It has also urged that the respective governments increase the number of customs personnel on the border. Problems in relation to drugs and immigrant smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border have caused the INS to reinforce vigilance in that area by greatly increasing the number of agents, many of whom have been transferred from the U.S.-Canada border.[50]

In conjunction with PNWER and Pace, the Border Working Group also recommended an expansion of the Peace Arch Crossing Entry (PACE) program, which has been in operation for approximately a decade. For a $25 fee, frequent cross-border auto travelers are permitted to pass through the border on a pre-approved basis on certain lanes specified for that purpose. To date, there is only one PACE lane in operation in the B.C.-Washington border region, at the White Rock-Blaine border crossing. Nevertheless, the local International Mobility and Trade Corridors project received in mid-1999 a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transport to promote the PACE program and encourage its permanent establishment. As a result of the Shared Border accord, Revenue Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada developed the Canpass Highway Program which similarly allowed frequent crossers to enter the country without being detained by customs inspectors. The Canpass program was later extended to include other Canadian ports of entry on the B.C.-Washington border.[51] The Border Working Group, Pace and PNWER also opposed the proposed U.S. Border Crossing Fee, which was not implemented. They also worked towards the repeal of Section 110 of the new U.S. immigration law. Although Section 110 has not yet been repealed, its implementation has been delayed for at least two years (until March 2001).[52]

A third major thrust of the Cascadia Task Force concerns tourism. PNWER and Pace are also very active in this area. Tourism is B.C.’s third major industry (first in terms of growth and employment), while in the State of Washington it ranks fourth in importance.[53] One key promotional campaign involves the Two-nation Vacation Package or Cross Border Circle Tours. One of these involves a trip of two to three days duration which includes visits to Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. Other possibilities of this type of binational vacation package, such as the International Selkirk Loop in the eastern part of the region, are also being explored. Other promotional campaigns involve regional rail tours, certain specialized tours (such as visits to Indian tribal groups) and an inter-modal transportation pass. The Cascadia Task Force is also attempting to convince the U.S. federal government of the need to repeal or modify the antiquated Passenger Service Act of 1886, which allows only ships built in the U.S. or sailing under a U.S. flag to carry passengers between two U.S. ports. A modification in existing maritime legislation would permit Seattle to share in the profitable Alaska cruise trade.[54]

CONCLUSIONS

Cascadia has come to signify for many inhabitants of the northwest a sense of belonging to a much greater transborder region and of having common interests. Although much of the initiative and impetus behind the idea of Cascadia has originated in the State of Washington and is based or centered in Seattle, the sense of regionalism and regional identity is also strongly felt in B.C. and other regions on both sides of the border.
Both space and distance are conditioning factors in the case of the Cascadia region. The objectives of the principal Cascadia transborder organizations-PNWER, Pace, and the Cascadia Corridor group- consist in promoting integration and cooperation among the regions and major urban centers of the several political entities of the Northwest, rather than merely cross-border interaction.

The international border is not the principal focus for the Cascadia region. It is, however, seen to be a principal obstacle to the realization of the non-governmental organizations’ respective aims. As a result, much of the work of these organizations is directed towards facilitating the movement of people and goods across the border. The border and the need to overcome border barriers is an important issue area for transborder organizations in the Cascadia region. One important result of such work is the installation of the PACE and Canpass systems for frequent border crossers.

Transportation ranks as the highest in priorities for the Cascadia region, due to need to conquer distance as well as the conviction on the part of the Cascadia Corridor planners that it holds the key to solving many of the problems and difficulties in achieving integration in the Northwest. Promoting tourism, especially on a transborder, interregional level, is also a high priority for the Cascadia organizations.

A key question concerning the role of transborder institutions in the region deals with that concerning their ability to bring about changes that will result in a substantial increase in cross-border interaction and regional integration.

The formation of a transbroder council having authoritative power has been as yet unattainable in the Cascadia region. The Cascadia Project had as one of its objectives the creation of a Cascadia Corridor Commission, but it failed due to opposition from B.C.’s NDP government. Cascadia proponents have repeatedly argued the need for such a body, but to date it has not yet come into being.

In reality, the tactics for change employed by transborder organizations in the region are two-fold in nature. One approach, that might be called a kind of collaborative alliance, consists in identifying certain common objectives and then working through existing institutions and mechanisms on both sides of the border in order to fulfill them. As noted, some of the organizations described have a combination of political and private sector components in some form. This characteristic varies in accordance with the organization in question. In the case of PNWER, the governors, premiers and four members from each of the legislatures of the respective states and provinces in the Northwest form part of its Delegate and Executive Councils. The various private sector organizations involved in the Cascadia Project, such as PNWER, Pace and the Cascadia Task Force, have a certain chance for success in the use of this approach than other transborder organizations lacking such political clout or connections. Not all transborder organizations in Cascadia have this advantage. Those less likely to be successful in this endeavor are the many Cascadia environmental organizations which have not been discussed in this paper. These are less likely to obtain political support than those organizations which have trade and commerce as their principal areas of interest.
The second approach consists in making people aware of the opportunities and benefits of promoting cross-border interaction. This is more vertical in nature in that it involves working from a grass-roots level on upward and which hopefully will result in inducing government authorities to adopt the appropriate measures. This role of educating the public, or informing it concerning certain issues and having them debated in forums for that purpose, is high on the priorities for transborder NGOS in the Cascadia region and is considered to be every bit as important as the more concrete achievements.

NOTES

[1] Ohmae, 1993: 78-81; Elkins, 1995: 79-121; Ohmae, 1995: 79-100.
[2] Evenden and Turbeville, 1992: 52-53; Kresl, 1992: 65; Artibise, 1997: 5-6.
[3] MacQueen, 1997: B-1; Artibise, 1997: 15.
[4] Gibbins, 1989: 2.
[5] “Waves of Sewage”, 1991: 1-14; Evenden and Turbeville, 1992: 54-55.
[6] Laster, 2000; Pynn, 1998: B-4; Gibbins, 1989: 7.
[7] McCloskey, 1990: 3.
[8] Schell and Hamer, 1993: 11-12; Henkel, 1993: 113.
[9] Laster, 2000; Alper, 1996: 2.
[10] Alper, 1996: 4.
[11] Alper, 1996: 2-4; Artibise, 1997: 2-4.
[12] Sage, 1946: 349-367; Graebner 1955: 22-42, 103-107, 123-149; Galbraith, 1997: 219-250.
[13] Schell and Hamer, 1995: 143-145; Artibise, 1997: 11; Simpson; Evenden and Turbeville, 1992: 53.
[14] Alper, 1996: 4.
[15] Evenden and Turbeville, 1992: 53.
[16] Schell and Hamer, 1995: 8-10. See also Alper, 1996: 4.
[17] Artibise, 1997: 12. For an interesting and provocative study which attempts to define the many different ways in which U.S. and Canadian societies differ, see Lipset, 1990. See also DePalma, 1998: B-1; and DePalma, 1999: E-6.
[18] Alper, 1996: 2-4; Schell and Hamer, 1995: 7-8.
[19] Chapman, Pascall y Agnew, 1999.
[20] Johansen and Gates, 1957: 147-149, 246-267, 381-399; MacDonald, 1987: 8-43.
[21] PNWER, 1998; Bluechel, 1993: 27-29.
[22] Pacific North West Economic Region, Seattle, Wash., “Information Manual,” 2nd. Ed. (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER, 1998); Pacific North West Economic Region “Governance Structure”, (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER, N.D.); PNWER Leadership, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash.
[23] Pacific North West Economic Region, “Working Groups”, n.d.; PNWER Working Groups; Clean Water Center; Interview with Roger Bull, 1998; Bluechel, 1993: 27-29.
[24] PNWER Profile; PNWER Background and History, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash.
[25] For examples of such views, see Artibise, 1997: 13-14.
[26] E-mail and telephone interviews with Peter Fraser, 2000; Promotional Pamphlet, Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council (PACE).
[27] Hatfield, 1994: B-5; Pivo and Rose: 1-2; Edgington and Goldberg: 1-8; Agnew, 1998.
[28] “What Is the Cascadia Project?” and “Mission Statement”; Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 9.
[29] Hamer and Chapman, 1993: 28.
[30] Chapman, 1997: A-12.
[31] Chapman, 1997: A-12; Yaffe, 1999: A-3; Alper, 1996: 9. Chapman also suggested the possibility of creating a Cascadia Corridor Development Corporation, which could be modeled after the St. Lawrence Seaway. Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 6, 39.
[32] Agnew, 1998: 1. See also Anderson, 1997.
[33] Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 4; Chapman, Pascall and Agnew, 1999.
[34] Agnew, 1998; Trahane, 1999.
[35] Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 9-21.
[36] Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash., “PNWER-Cascadia Inland Trade Corridors Project,” (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER, n.d.); Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 22-23.
[37] Schiller, Agnew and Howell, 1997.
[38] Miller, 1994: A-15; “Cascadia Project Organizes Support for More Trains on Cascadia’s Mainstreet”, 1999: 4.
[39] Chapman, Pascall and Agnew, 1999.
[40] Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 38-41; Nagle, 1999: A-14.
[41] Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 18-22, 26-28.
[42] E-mail interview with Peter Fraser, 2000.
[43] Agnew, 1998.
[44] Agnew, 1998; Daniels, 1999: F-1.
[45] Bramham, 1997: I-21.
[46] For a succinct account of Canadian-U.S. foreign policy differences in regards to Cuba, see Falcoff, 1998: 43-49.
[47] “Americans Cautioned on Risk of Terrorism: Canada Border Arrest Stirs Bid for Vigilance”, 1999: A-1, A-15; “Algerian Arrested at Border Site”, 1999: A-11.
[48] Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 18-21.
[49] Artibise, 1997: 18-19.
[50] Artibise, 1997: 19.
[51] An airport CANPASS system was also established at Vancouver International Airport, as well as a CANPASS Marine clearance program. In July 1996, an improved system, the INS Passenger Accelerated Service (INPASS), became functional. Communication concerning CANPASS Highway Program sent to author from Theodore H. Cohn, August 2, 1999; Olson, 1999: 1-2; Aarsteinsen, 1998: H-1, 10; Agnew, Pascall and Chapman, 1999: 16.
[52] It was also urged that 75 percent of the PACE fees be used locally. “PNWER Accomplishments”; “U.S.-Canada Border Issues: Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act”, Pacific Northwest Economic Region. From 1997-1998 however, a slowdown in progress in the implementation of the Shared Border accord caused the Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance to issue a call to continue with the successful progress achieved during the first two years of the program. Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance, “The Canada-United States Accord on Our Shared Border- A Call to Action for 1999”, n.d.
[53] Hamer and Chapman, 1993: 32-34.
[54] Agnew and Robson; “History of Accomplishments”: 4; Buck and Solomon, 1996; Hamer and Chapman, 1993: 39-40.
REFERENCES
Aarsteinsen, Barbara. 1998. “U.S. Hastens Immigration Clearance at Airport”, The Vancouver Sun, September 18.
Agnew, Bruce. 1998a. “Connecting Cascadia’s Communities”, The Seattle Times, July 14, in http://archives.seattletimes.com.
_______, 1998b “Reflections at the Blaine Border Crossing”, Progress: A Publication of the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce (September).
_______, Glenn Pascall and Bruce Chapman. 1999, Connecting the Gateways and Trade Corridors. Phase 1 Report: An Initiative of the Cascadia Project at Discovery Institute, Seattle, Washington (Seattle, Wash.: Discovery Institute).
_______ and Marian Robson. N.d. “Moving Beyond the Rhetoric of Cooperation in Cascadia” (Seattle, Wash.: Discovery Institute/Cascadia Institute/International Centre for Sustainable Cities).
“Algerian Arrested at Border Site”. 1999. The San Diego Union-Tribune, December 22.
Alper, Donald K. 1996. “The Idea of Cascadia: Emergent Transborder Regionalisms in the Pacific Northwest-Western Canada”, Journal of Borderlands Studies, XI:2 (Fall).
“Americans Cautioned on Risk of Terrorism: Canada Border Arrest Stirs Bid for Vigilance”. 1999. The San Diego Union-Tribune, December 20.
Anderson, Ross. 1997. “A Seamless Network Urged for Northwest”, The Seattle Times, December 19, http://archives.seattletimes.com.
Artibise, Alan F.J. 1997.”Cascadian Adventures: Shared Visions, Strategic Alliances, and Ingrained Barriers in a Transborder Region” (Unpublished paper, April).
Bluechel, Alan. 1993. “The Pacific Northwest Economic Region: A Multi-state, Multi-province Regional Approach to Economic Development”, Economic Development Review 11 (Winter).
Bramham, Daphne. 1997. “U.S. Officials Cause Border Trip-ups”, The Vancouver Sun, December 6.
Buck , Richard and Christopher Solomon. 1996. “Pier Pressures”, The Seattle Times, September 29, http://archives.seattletimes.com.
Bull, Roger, ex-Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), Seattle, Wash. 1998. Interview conducted by Prof. Theodore H. Cohn, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B. C., January 29.
Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance, n.d. “The Canada-United States Accord on Our Shared Border – A Call to Action for 1999”, (New York: Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance).
“Cascadia Project Organizes Support for More Trains on Cascadia’s Mainstreet”. 1999. Cascadian 2, no. 1 (Summer).
Chapman, Bruce. 1997. “We’ve Made Little Progress Between Pig War and Fish War”, The San Diego Post-Intelligencer, July 25.
_______, Glenn Pascall and Bruce Agnew. 1999. “Looking Ahead 50 Years To Solve Washington’s Transit Problems”, The Seattle Times, July 25, in http://archives.seattletimes.com.
Daniels, Alan. 1999 “Seamless Canada-U.S. Border Crossing Urged”, The Vancouver Sun, February 19.
DePalma, Anthony. 1998. “Nine Nations See U.S. as a Threat to Their Cultures”, The New York Times, July 1.
_______, 1999 “Culture Wars: Trying to Stay Canadian Despite Giant to the South”, The San Diego Union-Tribune August 8.
Discovery Institute. ”What Is the Cascadia Project?” and “Mission Statement”, Seattle, Wash. In http://www.discovery.org
Edgington, David W. and Michael A. Goldberg, “Vancouver: Canada’s Gateway to the Rim”, in Blakerly and Stimson, New Cities of the Pacific Rim (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California at Berkeley, Institute of Urban and Regional Development).
Elkins, David J. 1995. Beyond Sovereignty: Territory and Political Economy in the Twenty-First Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press)
Evenden, Leonard J. and Daniel E. Turbeville III. 1992. “The Pacific Coast Borderland and Frontier”, in Donald G. Janelle (ed.), Geographical Snapshots of North America (New York: The Guildford Press)
Falcoff, Mark. 1998. “Northern Fidelity”, The American Spectator (October).
Fraser, Peter, President of Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council, 2000. (E-mail and telephone interviews (March 15, 17, 23).
Galbraith, John S. 1977. The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor, 1821-1869 (New York: Octagon Books).
Gibbins, Roger. 1989. Canada As a Borderlands Society (Orono, Me.: The Canadian-American Center, university of Maine).
Graebner, Norman A. 1955. Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion (New York: The Ronald Press Company).
Hamer, John and Bruce Chapman. 1993. “International Seattle: Creating a Globally Competitive Community” (Seattle: Disco very Institute).
Hatfield, Mark O. 1994. “Fulfilling the Promise of the Cascadia Region”, The Seattle Times, February 22.
Henkel, William B. 1993. “Cascadia: A State of (Various) Minds”, Chicago Review XXXIX, nos. 3-4 (Summer-Autumn).
“History of Accomplishments”, Pacific Northwest Economic Region.
Johansen, Dorothy O. and Charles M. Gates. 1957. Empire of the Columbia (New York: Harper & Brothers).
Kresl, Peter Karl. 1992 The Urban Economy and Regional Trade Liberalization (New York: Praeger).
Laster, Molly, Consultant. 2000. Discovery Institute, Seattle, Wash., Interview conducted by the author (March 20).
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1990. Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (New York: Routledge).
MacDonald, Norbert. 1987. Distant Neighbours: A Comparative History of Seattle and Vancouver (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press).
MacQueen, Ken. 1997. “Both Sides of the Border”, The Vancouver Sun, October 25.
McCloskey, David. 1990. “Cascadia: A Great Green Land on the Northeast Pacific Rim”, in http://tnews.com:80/text/mccloskey.html.CascadiaPlanet
Miller, John. 1994 “Riding the Cascadia Express”, The Vancouver Sun, August 18.
Nagle, Patrick. 1999. “Baseball Season in Seattle Sets off Cascadia Dreams”, The Vancouver Sun, August 3.
Ohmae, Kenichi. 1995. The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economics (New York: The Free Press).
_______, 1993. “The Rise of the Region State”, Foreign Affairs LXXII, no. 2 (Spring).
Olson, Meg. 1999. “INS Boss Says No Changes Planned for PACE”, The Northern Light, Blaine, Wash., July 15.
Pace, Promotional pamphlet, Pacific Corridor Enterprise Council.
Pivo, Gary and David C. Rose, “Seattle: Coping with Success”, in Edward J. Blakely and Robert J. Stimson (eds.), New Cities of the Pacific Rim (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California at Berkeley, Institute of Urban and Regional Development).
PNWER, “PNWER-Cascadia Inland Trade Corridors Project”, (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER).
_______, Background and History, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash. http://www.power.org
_______, Leadership, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash. http://www.pnwer.org
_______, Profile; PNWER Background and History, Pacific Northwest Economic Region, Seattle, Wash. http://www.pnwer.com.
_______, Working Groups, Clean Water Center http://www.pnwer.org.
_______, “Governance Structure” (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER).
_______, 1998. “Information Manual”, 2nd. Ed. (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER).
_______, “Working Groups” (Seattle, Wash.: PNWER).
Pynn, Larry. 1998. “Border-crossing Canucks Score Tax Savings”, The Vancouver Sun, February 23.
Quigley, Eileen V. 1990. “Cascadia”, The New Pacific, no. 2 (Winter-Spring).
Sage, Walter No. 1946. “The Oregon Treaty of 1846”, The Canadian Historical Review XXVII no. 4 (December).
Schell, Paul and John Hamer. 1993. “Cascadia: The North Pacific West.” Paper prepared for the North American Institute, April 3.
_______, 1995. “Cascadia: The New Binationalism of Western Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest”, in Robert L. Earle and John D. Wirth (eds.), Identities in North America: The Search for Community (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press).
Schiller, Preston, Bruce Agnew and Douglas Howell. 1997. “Why Settle for WEAKTEA? ISTEA Works”, The Seattle Times, June 27, in http://archives.seattletimes.com.
Simpson, David. “The Bioregional Basis of Forest Certification: Why Cascadia?” http://www.uidaho.edu/e-journal/ecofore ... 4-cas.html.
Trahane, Mark. 1999, “Cascadia: Borderless Solutions”, The Seattle Times, May 2, http://archives.seattletimes.com.
“U.S.-Canada Border Issues: Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act”, Pacific Northwest Economic Region http://www.pnwer.org.
“Waves of Sewage and Auto Traffic Sweep Down on U.S. from Canada”. 1991. The New York Times, May 19.
Yaffe, Barbara. 1999 “Cascadia is Sometimes a Great Notion, but It Falters on Practical Grounds”, The Vancouver Sun, August 16.
Fecha de publicación en red: 22/Junio/2004 Revista Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses.
Primavera 2002, nueva época, número 2.

© Copyright 2003 - 2004. Asociación Mexicana de Estudios sobre Canadá, A.C.

TECHNORATI TAGS: <>CASCADIA, PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION, TRADE, TOURISM, ENVIRONMENT
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION DELEGATION VISITS SASKATCH

Postby Oscar » Tue May 20, 2008 9:53 am

PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION DELEGATION VISITS SASKATCHEWAN

http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=63ebff ... 31d1546835

News Release - April 15, 2008

A delegation representing the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) is in Saskatchewan for two days of meetings with elected representatives and senior officials of the provincial government.

Established in 1991, PNWER is a public/private partnership made up of legislators, governments and businesses from across the U.S. and Canadian northwest with the aim of pursuing similar goals in the areas of regional co-operation and economic growth. Currently, PNWER consists of five U.S. states and three Canadian provinces or territories (British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon), representing more than 20 million people and more than $700 billion in gross national product.

While in Saskatchewan, the PNWER delegation will meet with a number of cabinet ministers and senior government officials to discuss a variety of topics.

"I look forward to learning more about how membership in the PNWER may benefit Saskatchewan," Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Bill Boyd said. "It is important for Saskatchewan to explore opportunities for greater collaboration within this region. The meetings over these two days will afford us this opportunity."

Cutknife-Turtleford MLA Michael Chisolm, in his capacity of Legislative Secretary to the Premier on Western Co-operation, invited the delegation to visit the province.

"The economic health of Saskatchewan is largely undisputed these days, but we also wanted to give the PNWER delegates a real sense of Saskatchewan's identity," Chisholm said.

-30-

For more information, contact:

Bonny Braden
Executive Council
Regina
Phone: 306-787-0906
Email: bonny.braden@gov.sk.ca
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Alaska Power and the Bleeding of the Northwest

Postby Oscar » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:37 am

Alaska Power and the Bleeding of the Northwest

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/02/18/AlaskaPower/
?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180211

Critics say plan to tie state to BC's power grid will enable shipping Canadian resources from US port.
By Christopher Pollon, February 18, 2011 TheTyee.ca
The source is the Alaska-B.C. intertie -- a scheme planned and feverishly promoted yesterday in Juneau, Alaska -- that would connect the Alaska Panhandle to the North American power grid through northern British Columbia. (See a map here and the sidebar to this story).
Positioned by Canadian and U.S. federal governments as a green infrastructure project to combat climate change, this Alaska-driven plan is paving the way for a new resource haul road through the Iskut River valley to Alaska tidewater.
Activists and at least four northern B.C. mayors have warned that Bradfield Road will one day provide a closer and more economical route to funnel B.C. minerals and timber through U.S. ports, shifting the axis of trade away from Stewart, Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
Nathan Cullen heard all about the Bradfield Road during his first year as the federal MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley in 2004. "Some Alaskans approached me and said, 'Here's the project, and we'll put this road in for free, and we'll ship all your goods as a nice courtesy,'" he says. "If anybody offers you anything for free, especially from Alaska, you should be worried. The idea of cutting off Canadian ports from being involved in the resource sector is not on, and we'll resist it."
But the Northwest Transmission Line (NTL), (see map here) when fully built out, will extend the North American grid to within 35 miles of the Alaska-B.C. border. Once the grid connection to Alaska is established, says Chris Zimmer, a Juneau Alaska-based campaign director for Rivers Without Borders, a resource haul road to Alaska is next.

MORE:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/02/18/AlaskaPower/
?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180211
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PNWER Conf/Tour - Saskatoon - July 15-19, 2012

Postby Oscar » Sun Apr 08, 2012 9:09 am

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR PNWER CONFERENCE AND TOURS

http://www.gov.sk.ca/
news?newsId=615bb8d7-c72f-4f8e-8a44-0c35c8cd4f01

News Release - April 5, 2012

Conference and policy tour registration is open for the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) 22nd Annual Summit, taking place in Saskatoon July 15-19.

The summit is expected to draw more than 500 key elected officials, legislators, government officials and business leaders from across the northwestern United States and Western Canada, where they will engage in discussion and offer solutions to major policy issues facing the region.

"We expect this will be a very timely conference with the release of the Beyond the Border Action Plan this past December - a plan to which PNWER was involved in providing comments and recommendations," PNWER Host Committee co-chair and Thunder Creek MLA Lyle Stewart said. "The summit is also an opportunity to engage in dialogue between public- and private-sector leaders on a variety of issues, including trade and economic development, energy and agriculture, to name a few."

Policy tours are open to registered delegates and will take place Wednesday, July 18, and Thursday, July 19. These tours offer delegates an opportunity to explore Saskatchewan's economic innovation, with visits to VIDO InterVac, the Canadian Light Source, and a journey to the depths of a potash mine as some of the many highlights.

The five-day conference will also include networking opportunities, business and professional development, and a host of keynote speakers including Premier Brad Wall; Senator Pamela Wallin; author and former Shell Oil president, John Hofmeister; and president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Dr. Brenda Kenny.

"We have put together a great line up of tours and keynotes and we look forward to adding even more in the coming weeks," Stewart said. "This is a great opportunity to profile Saskatchewan as an economic powerhouse and we look forward to hosting a strong delegation from both inside the province and around the region."

PNWER is the only partnership of its kind in North America and represents a regional combined GDP of $1 trillion. The partnership's mission is to promote greater regional collaboration, enhance competitiveness, achieve continued economic growth, and reduce trade and regulatory barriers.

PNWER encompasses Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada, and Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington in the United States.

To register for the summit and the policy tours, visit http://www.pnwer.org/2012annualsummit/Home.aspx.

-30-

For more information, contact:

Joanne Johnson
Enterprise Saskatchewan
Regina
Phone: 306-787-7967
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MAJOR ECONOMIC SUMMIT BEGINS IN SASKATOON

Postby Oscar » Mon Jul 16, 2012 5:02 pm

MAJOR ECONOMIC SUMMIT BEGINS IN SASKATOON

http://gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=a0931aa3-c ... 5682cc7fc3

News Release - July 16, 2012

More than 500 government and business leaders from across the Northwestern United States and Western Canada are gathered in Saskatoon for the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) 22nd Annual Summit. The first full-day of the summit kicked off this morning and runs through July 19.

This year's annual summit celebrates The Power of Partnerships and provides both the public and private sector a unique opportunity to engage in dialogue, seek solutions to regional policy issues, and network with regional counterparts.

"As Saskatchewan's export-driven economy grows and expands, the PNWER region will continue to play a critical role in the ability to get our products - potash, crops, oil, manufactured goods - to the global marketplace," Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said. "This province understands the importance of building strong partnerships and engaging our friends and neighbours. The PNWER annual summit is an ideal forum to build those relationships to the benefit of the collective economic region and everyone in this province."

A diverse list of keynote speakers will highlight the summit, including Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, Sun News Network TV Host Ezra Levant and Canadian Ambassador to the United States Gary Doer, amongst others.

Delegate tours will showcase Saskatchewan's key industries and sectors, and working group sessions will cover a range of major regional policy issues. These issues include trade and economic development; the Beyond the Border and Regulatory Cooperation Council action plans; agriculture; and energy security.

"This region represents the eleventh-largest economy in the world with a GDP of over $1 trillion," Chief Executive Officer of PNWER Matt Morrison said. "Many of the state legislators and business leaders from the states have never been to Saskatchewan and we are excited to be able to introduce them to all that Saskatchewan has to offer."

Formed in 1991, PNWER is a non-partisan, public-private partnership that includes the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories in Canada; and the states of Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana in the United States.

The partnership is committed to regional collaboration, enhanced competitiveness, economic growth, and the reduction of trade and regulatory barriers.

Saskatchewan joined PNWER in 2008. This is the first opportunity the province has had to host the annual summit.

For more information on the summit, including a full list of keynote speakers and events, visit www.pnwer.org/2012annualsummit. -30-

For more information, contact:

Shanna Schulhauser
Economy
Regina
Phone: 306-787-5582
Email: shanna.schulhauser@enterprisesask.ca
Cell: 306-531-9530

Gabrielle Nomura
PNWER
Seattle
Email: gabrielle.nomura@pnwer.org
Cell: 306-539-7039
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MINISTER LYLE STEWART THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE PNWER

Postby Oscar » Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:52 pm

MINISTER LYLE STEWART THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ECONOMIC REGION

http://www.gov.sk.ca/
news?newsId=39c033eb-659f-4568-aa33-8d72b313de55

News Release - July 18, 2012

The Honourable Lyle Stewart, Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture, was sworn in as the president of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) executive committee at the 2012 Annual Summit in Saskatoon this morning.

This will be the first time that a representative from Saskatchewan has been elected to this year-long position since the province joined PNWER in 2008. Prior to his promotion, Minister Stewart served as a PNWER vice-president.

"It is an honour to be taking up this new role as president," Minister Stewart said. "PNWER is instrumental in influencing policy decisions that ultimately affect our regional and provincial economic growth. As PNWER president, I will promote and represent the interests of the region; of course, one of these interests will be the important Canada-United States agriculture relationship. This role is an ideal opportunity to emphasize Saskatchewan's and the region's contribution to food security, energy security, and economic growth in both Canada and the United States."

"We are pleased to welcome Minister Stewart to his new role as president," Chief Executive Officer of PNWER Matt Morrison said. "Minister Stewart has contributed much to the organization over the past two years in his role as vice-president. We look forward to a year of significant achievements under his leadership, at a time when United States-Canada issues are extremely important and this region is being looked to for solutions."

The PNWER president heads the executive committee, which is the decision-making body of PNWER. The president also represents the organization in annual visits to Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and state and provincial capitals within the region. The PNWER president and vice-president must be elected officials. These two posts alternate annually between elected legislators from the United States and Canada.

Formed in 1991, PNWER is a non-partisan, public-private partnership that includes Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories in Canada; and Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana in the United States.

The partnership represents a regional combined GDP of $1 trillion and is committed to regional collaboration, enhanced competitiveness, economic growth, and the reduction of trade and regulatory barriers.

For more information on PNWER or the 2012 Annual Summit, visit the website at www.pnwer.org/2012annualsummit . -30-

For more information, contact:

Shanna Schulhauser
Economy
Regina
Phone: 306-787-5582
Email: shanna.schulhauser@enterprisesask.ca
Cell: 305-531-9530

Gabrielle Nomura
PNWER
Seattle
Email: Gabrielle.Nomura@pnwer.org
Cell: 306-539-7039
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