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OTTAWA — If it were a country, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region of North America would be ranked as the third-largest economy in the world.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or This Canada-U.S. trading hub is worth US$5.8 trillion — and it's just starting to heat up Back to video

The U.S. shale industry has failed to crack as expected. North Sea oil drillers and high-cost producers off the coast of Africa are in dire straits, but America’s “flexi-frackers” remain largely unruffled.

One starts to glimpse the extraordinary possibility that the U.S. oil industry could be the last one standing in a long and bitter price war for global market share, or at least emerge as an energy superpower with greater political staying power than OPEC. Keep reading.

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As it is, this huge chunk of resources-rich land — sitting in the north-eastern portions of Canada and the United States — accounts for 30 per cent of the combined economies of both countries, and 31 per cent of all employment, equivalent to 51 million jobs.

The impact of that massive footprint is set to get even bigger, as manufacturers and exporters in Ontario and Quebec take advantage of a weak Canadian currency and stronger U.S. demand, according to a study by BMO Capital Markets, released Monday.