By Doug Draper
We Canadians and Americans who live across the Niagara River from one another know that down the middle of that waterway we share a border border the forefathers of our countries have drawn.
For our binational region, let's hope this isn't a bridge too far. Photo by Doug Draper
It may have been drawn for a list of reasons that have to do with historical circumstances and sovereignty. But to what degree does it have to be a barrier? Does it have to divide the people of Erie and Niagara Counties, New York and the people of the Niagara Region in Ontario from working more closely together as a ‘Greater Niagara Region’? Does it have to keep us from getting together to overcome the common challenges we face as people living and working in this region of the world and from promoting our interests for the betterment of all?
For the first time since the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, 2001 all but killed talk between political leaders on both sides of breaking down that barrier and building a Greater Niagara Region – what former Buffalo mayor Anthony Masiello envisioned as a larger “city-region” where municipalities on both sides of the river would make up” the middle ground” – there appears to be a growing interest in moving forward with that vision.
“We have opened the doors a crack (between communities on each others’ side of the border) but we need to open them further,” says Rob Gabriel, a regional councillor from the Ontario side and a strong advocate for building a binational region. “We are dealing from a relatively common economic ground,” he added during a recent interview with this columnist. “People (in Erie and Niagara Counties) often feel left out of the New York City economic orbit and we (in Niagara, Ont.) often feel we are left out of the Toronto economic orbit. I believe we have a better chances of getting our voices heard and of overcoming the challenges we face by working together.”
Peter Partington, the chairman of regional government in Niagara, Ont., said much the same thing this October as he outline his priorities for the last year of his council’s four-year term.
There needs to be “a greater recognition of Niagara as a strategic gateway and border crossing,” Partington said. “We are within a few hours’ drive of some of the largest markets in North America. Industry can access these markets by air, land or sea, providing us with a huge competitive advantage over other jurisdictions. We are just starting to get that message out.”
Kathryn Friedman, a deputy director of the University of Buffalo’s Research Institute who is exploring options for greater binational cooperation, said both sides working together as a combined region populated by millions (if, for example, the Rochester area was part of the fold) “would have a real potential to reposition itself as an economic power house in North America.”
Working more closely together, we might bring more pressure to bear on higher levels of governments in both countries when it comes to funding transit and other vital infrastructure, promoting our region as a world-class tourist destination, preserving what is left of our rural lands and those farming them, and protecting our shared environment for present and future generations.
The question is this. Do our political leaders have enough will and courage to make a more binational union happen? Can they look far enough beyond parochial interests to the benefits that could come from building a greater Niagara regional.
When I was a little kid growing up in Welland in the late 1950s and 60s, my family enjoyed day trips to Buffalo and my father had this ritual he’d play out every time we crossed the Peace Bridge and passed the flags marking the border between the two countries.
“Now we are in Canada,” he would say in a way where we almost expected to hear a drum role as he paused before declaring, “and now we are in the United States!” For my younger brother and I, it always lent to the excitement of a trip across the border. But it also accentuated a commonly held belief back then that we were entering a “foreign country.”
We went from that and from customs and immigration officers on both sides of the border routinely asking us what country we were born in rather than what country we were citizens of, to hardly even being asked to produce a drivers’ license by the turn of this century, to having no choice but to produce a passport or some comparable document if we wish to cross the border today.
But at least we still have bridges crossing that border and hopefully they are not bridges too far for building a Greater Niagara Region that could advance the fortunes of our or communities and improve the quality of life for people on both sides.
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Niagara At Large will do its best through its own reporting and through contributions from interested individuals and groups on both sides of the border to continue following any forward or backward steps on building a larger binational community.
