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]