As you may be aware, Prime Minister Harper and President Obama
created the U.S. - Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) in
Feb. 2011 and released the Joint Action Plan on Regulatory
Cooperation in December, 2011 http://www.trade.gov/RCC/ The Joint
Action Plan is a practical first step to increased regulatory
cooperation between the United States and Canada. PNWER played a
significant role in the development of the plan by providing
recommendations from our stakeholders, (you will notice many of our
suggestions appear in the final plan.)
PNWER attended the first US-Canada RCC stakeholder engagement session
in Washington DC earlier this week. The meetings were intended to
highlight the RCC Action Plan and begin to get stakeholder input on
the implementation process. The RCC is seeking further input in
the coming months and is especially interested in how they can better
engage stakeholders. We are seeking feedback from you regarding
specific components of the plan related to our agriculture and
livestock-health working groups. Topics include:
Please see the links above to access the spreadsheets
with the proposed activities, timeline and deliverables for each
topic. We encourage you to please send your comments regarding
the action plan and specifically how the RCC can better engage
stakeholders to me (brandon@pnwer.org)
by Feb. 6, 2012, and we will compile a list of recommendations and
forward them to the RCC on behalf of the region. Or you may
forward your comments directly to the leads listed in each working
group spreadsheet by Feb. 7, 2012.
We are planning to have several sessions at the PNWER Summit directly
related to several of these initiatives. This is a very good
opportunity for PNWER to take a leading role in advising both federal
governments in this process and recommending potential pilots our
region could lead. For more information on the RCC and the other work
plans, please see http://www.trade.gov/RCC/
Let me know if you have questions. I look forward to working with you
on this as the RCC plans are refined.
Best Regards,
Brandon Hardenbrook
Deputy Director, Pacific Northwest Economic Region
Director, Center for Regional Disaster Resilience
World Trade Center West
2200 Alaskan Way, Suite 460
Seattle, WA 98121
URL: www.pnwer.orgwww.regionalresilience.org
Tel: (206) 443-7723
Fax: (206) 443-7703
Email: brandon@pnwer.org
The 2012 Cross
Border Livestock Health Conference will be held as part of the
Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) Annual Summit in Saskatoon,
SK (July 15-19) For more information about the PNWER Summit
please Check our website
frequently for updates.
