On June 13th 2011, the National Post published the first in a five-part series on the future of the Great Lakes region in advance of a North American summit on the subject. The Mowat Centre and Brookings Institution will hold the « Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region Summit » on June 21st-22nd in Windsor and in Detroit. Many speakers will be heard from all over the areas concerned, i.e. two provinces, Quebec and Ontario, and 8 American states. The point of holding this conference is that there is a growing awareness in the business and political communities that regions are becoming more and more important around the world because of geographical « clustering » of populations, capital, talent, education centers, private research centers, culture centers, etc, that go beyond official borders. Since a couple of years, new industries have come to replace traditional heavy industry in the region of the Great Lakes, which is a sign that it can only grow up again after a certain period of decrease in the last decades. Canadians and Americans share the area of the Great Lakes and St-Lawrence as a land mass to live on, to prosper, to do business, and basically to be happy and enjoy freedom and democracy. The authors of the article, Matthew Mendelsohn and John Austin, recall that in 2050, 1/3 of the world’s population will live with a short supply of water, which makes the Great Lakes and St-Lawrence region a little treasure to be cherished for the future of our children, and even for us. Skipping down in the article, they mention that apparently, we have « an inability to imagine our shared future » on both sides of the border. It is probably true.
I knew it was coming. In George Orwell’s 1984, whole continents are considered regions and the world is united in a totalitarian fascist-socialist regime. After the marriage of a bunch of european countries to form the European Union, now we can already see certain movements beginning the same process in North America. The summit that will be held this week is a good idea but I think it is the symptom of something else. A political event drew my attention recently. In three U.S. states that are concerned with the Great Lakes issue, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, moves have been made to attack the middle class and the unions, among other things. For example, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has made some questionable manoeuvres in the last weeks concerning the future of his state. The next paragraph is an extract of an earlier post, on the seastedding movement:
