Time & Perspective Quote by Jean Charest

The line isn’t really about geography; it’s about power. When Jean Charest says “our real interest starts with our neighbors,” he’s quietly demoting grand, globe-straddling ambition in favor of something both more practical and more politically saleable: the idea that prosperity is built next door, not “out there.” The ellipses do a lot of work, implying a missing middle: that national myths and big multilateral promises are fine, but they don’t pay the bills, stabilize supply chains, or keep jobs from drifting away.

Read in context, this is a late-20th/early-21st-century politician’s reset button. After decades of free-trade evangelism and borderless rhetoric, regionalism has returned as a respectable strategy: tighter economic clusters, shorter logistics, shared infrastructure, coordinated labor markets. It’s also a message calibrated for voters who feel whiplash from globalization. “Neighbors” sounds cooperative rather than defensive, a soft-edged version of industrial policy that avoids the harsher language of protectionism.

The phrase “the future is about regional economies” carries a second, more tactical meaning: sovereignty without isolation. Regional blocs let governments reclaim leverage - over energy, procurement, standards, even immigration - without pretending they can unplug from the world. For a Canadian figure, the subtext inevitably includes the gravitational pull of the US, the politics of interprovincial trade, and the perennial question of how to be economically open without being economically captive.

It works because it reframes self-interest as community: a moral sheen on a strategic pivot.