From August 15-18, 2010, the Honourable Senator Dennis Dawson led a delegation of members of the Canadian Section of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group (IPG) to the Eastern Regional Conference (ERC) 50th Annual Meeting and Regional Policy Forum in Portland, Maine. The other members of the delegation were the Honourable Senator Robert Runciman, Mr. Christian Ouellet, M.P., and Mr. Phil McColeman, M.P.

“The ERC meeting was a valuable opportunity for us to meet with state legislators and discuss a variety of regional and national issues,” said Senator Dawson. “We were particularly pleased to discuss the benefits of improving the Canada-US transportation corridors in the eastern region. Better regional transportation will lead to better trade, more tourism and more job opportunities. This is critical for boosting the region’s economic competitiveness and cultural vitality, and will contribute to a stronger North American presence in the global economy.”

Senator Dawson concluded: “Canada and the 11 ERC states are culturally and economically integrated and share a mutually beneficial relationship. According to recent figures, more than 1.5 million jobs in ERC states rely on bilateral trade with Canada, which was recently valued at $121.7 billion for the region in a one-year period: more than $37.2 billion was exported from the 11 states to Canada, while imports from Canada to the ERC states exceeded $84 billion. There are also frequent visits across the shared border. Recent data suggest that Canadians made more than 7.3 million visits to the ERC states in a 12-month period and spent about $2.1 billion. From the US perspective, residents of the ERC states made about 4.1 million visits to Canada and spent more than $1.7 billion.”

The ERC is a regional association of state legislators from 19 member jurisdictions from Canada and the US (see Appendix A). By facilitating cooperation among its member jurisdictions, the ERC promotes multi-state or 2 region-wide solutions to the problems and challenges facing state and provincial legislators. Information on the ERC is available at www.csgeast.org.

It should be noted that the views expressed in this news release are specific to the Canadian Section of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group and, as such, may not reflect the views of our United States counterparts.

The Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group aims to find points of convergence in respective national policies, to initiate dialogue on points of divergence, to encourage the exchange of information and to promote better understanding among legislators on shared issues of concern. Additional information on the Group can be found at www.parl.gc.ca/iia/us.