| North American model
parliament coming to AU BY MIKE UNGER The age of globalization arrived with great fanfare; its cousin, North American continentalization, with much less ballyhoo. Despite the passage of NAFTA and an immigration situation that is bordering on a crisis, politicians have not placed a priority on working together to deal with the issues confronting the three North American countries. Christine Frechette and Robert Pastor have. Four years ago, then Mexican president Vicente Fox’s proposal for the creation of a North American investment fund was quickly dismissed by Canadian and American leaders. Distressed by this, Frechette created the Montreal-based North American Forum on Integration (NAFI). “The challenges we have require North American solutions,” Frechette said. “If we want to improve the state of the region, we have to develop solutions between the three countries. When I saw both Canada’s and United States’ political leaders refuse [Fox’s] offer, I started to work on organizing a conference on that proposal.” Frechette asked Pastor, AU’s vice president of international affairs, to help, and after one successful conference she decided to hold an annual event. “We decided to work more with young people because we knew it would be hard to change the way of working within the official organizations,” Frechette said. “So we decided to work with the next generation. I’ve been working with Bob Pastor since the creation of NAFI. He was the first chair of the board. There are very few North American centers, and Bob has created the most important one. Not many students get to work on North American issues, even though we are for each other the most important and most strategic region.” For the past two years, Frechette has held a Triumvirate, a mock interparliamentary assembly involving 100 college students from the three countries. Over the course of a week, the students take part in real debates on a number of hot-button issues affecting the continent. The first conference was held in the Canadian Senate, the second in the Mexican Senate. This May 20 to 25, the Triumvirate will be held at American University, whose Center for North American Studies is cosponsoring the event. “We now have governments working on a trilateral basis, but we also need legislative input in that process,” Frechette said. “Our model parliament permits us to send that message and also to get young people involved into that kind of debate. The concept is to bring together around 100 university students studying international relations, political science, journalism, geography, history. We invite them to be either a legislator, a journalist, or a lobbyist.” Beginning next month, participants will get a paper of 10 to 12 pages describing their assigned issue. One month later, they will have to submit a suggestion for a draft resolution that they would like to be debated during the event. Organizers will then write the official draft resolution and send it to participants in April. “We have political commissions,” Frechette said. “This year we’re going to be talking about drug trafficking, water management, telecommunications, and the creation of a North American customs union.” During the commission hearings, lobbyists must testify in hopes of getting a specific provision taken out and another inserted into the resolution. The journalists report on the happenings, publishing a daily newspaper, the Trilat Herald. At the end of the week, the legislators vote on the resolution. “We see this as a way to really get our students more excited about being part of the larger North America and working alongside Canadians and Mexicans, really thinking through some of these issues,” Pastor said. “We’re very excited about the cosponsorship. Christine Frechette has been a tremendously energetic and effective leader on a wide range of North American issues. We particularly like the Triumvirate. We’re very happy to host it this year.” Marlon Brown ’06 represented the Canadian government at the 2005 event in Ottawa (legislators cannot represent their home country). “The Triumvirate gave me a very practical lesson about North American integration,” he said. “I had previously studied abroad in Canada, and even taken classes at AU on North American studies, however, actually interacting with students from other countries and hearing their thoughts and ideas taught me a lot about the current state of our interactions and how they might progress in the future.” Brown, now a graduate student at the University of Delaware, said the experience confirmed his desire to go into politics. “While I was there, I truly felt as if I was practicing for the roles I would play later on in life,” he said. Frechette hopes that participants walk away not only with renewed enthusiasm for their own potential careers, but also with a sense of the importance of ongoing trilateral relations. “People will consider that North America needs input in terms of new ideas, new initiatives, and a long-term vision,” she said. “If people do consider that at the end of the event, it’s a success.” |
