Cross-Border Institute director Bill Anderson was recently named co-chair of a newly-created working group that will focus on border issues specific to the region.

The Border Issues Working Group is a coalition of the Can/AM Border Trade Alliance, the Council of the Great Lakes Region and UWindsor’s Cross-Border Institute. It was established and will be led by Mark Fisher, president of the Council of the Great Lakes Region, an independent, non-profit corporation made up of business leaders, government officials, academics and non-governmental advocates, created to think strategically about the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence corridor as a bi-national economic region.

Dr. Anderson will co-chair the working group with Jim Phillips, president of the Can/AM Border Trade Alliance, a trans-continental, bi-national organization with participation of all 27 states on or near the Canada/U.S. border. The alliance involves more than 60,000 companies and organizations.

“Up until now the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region was the only major region along the border that did not have an organized issues working group,” Anderson says. “Our region is responsible for about 50 percent of trade between the U.S. and Canada, so it is vital that we formalize the process of bringing together various stakeholders in order to address cross-border challenges.”

Anderson, a professor of political science and Ontario Research Chair in Cross-Border Transportation Policy, founded the Cross-Border Institute in 2008. It is dedicated to research, education, and public outreach related to the movement of people, goods, and services across the Canada-U.S. border.