Atlantica

Take a gigantic chalkboard eraser and wipe away the borders between Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States. That's what the creators of Atlantica want to do, especially when it comes to trade. They envision this zone, known as the International Northeast Economic Region, as the next major financial mecca. Read this piece from the Chronical Herald to learn more about how the Atlantica concept is gaining strength across the region.

In accordance with a 2001 US-Canada treaty, Halifax International Airport submitted an application to the U.S. government to allow travelers who originate in Nova Scotia to pre-clear U.S. Customs in Halifax instead of being required to do so in a U.S. airport. The community of Bangor has consistently opposed that application, until now. In this piece to the Bangor Daily News, Joseph M. Baldacci, a Bangor attorney, and chair of the Bangor Mayor’s Special Committee on Halifax-Pre-Clearance, discusses the importance of the agreement just reached that sees Bangor abandon its’ opposition to Halifax’s application, and what that agreement means for our two communities.

This article in The New York Times illustrates how the ports of Halifax and New York/New Jersey are actually complementary. Each can provide what the other can't, which is a significant opportunity for Atlantica.

No one was surprised when the United States responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by locking down security wherever people and commerce move. In an interview with Business Voice just after the attacks, Brian Lee Crowley, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, said “If there’s going to be a North American (security) perimeter, we must be on the inside.” Now, three years later, Business Voice returns to the Canada-U.S. relationship in this cover story and discovers that Canada is increasingly “inside the perimeter” and that things are not as gloomy as many think. Read this piece to see how the concepts underpinning Atlantica: geography, economic trends and trade patterns; common problems and experiences; and politics, are having a positive impact as this region copes with a new reality.

At a meeting in Saint John, New Brunswick, recently, several groups joined together with AIMS to form a new Atlantica Council to promote this cross-border region and its natural economic affinities. Among the groups represented at the meeting were the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce, Enterprise Saint John, the Eastern Maine Development Corporation, Progress Corp., the Maine International Trade Center and Enterprise Greater Moncton. AIMS took advantage of the occasion to launch its new Atlantica website: www.atlantica.org. This is further evidence of the growing momentum behind this concept, which AIMS has been instrumental in popularizing.

Many Canucks make the mistake of looking at this presidential contest as if they were Americans, and asking how they would vote if they lived in Michigan or Florida. But we live in Canada, and that makes the calculation about who would make the best president a rather different one. In a series of articles in La Presse, the Chronicle Herald, and the Times & Transcript, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explores the potential impacts of the US election on Canada.