The Waterloo Co-operative, more commonly known as Waterloo, is a confederation of the three cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge located in former Southern Ontario.
Following Doomsday the Waterloo region was flooded with refugees fleeing the strikes on Toronto and Hamilton, as well as others fleeing north from the havok in Windsor, where the strikes on Detroit had left the city shaken, burned, and flooded with radiation. Only through the co-operation of the three municipal governments of the tri-cities area did they manage to hold on to stability. While looking like the wiser route at the time, the municipal governments focused on ensuring the refugees were housed and fed, seizing the stocks of any local supermarkets or food warehouses. The downside of this was while the Waterluvians were focusing on the short term survival of the refugees, London to the south was looking to the future, securing any nearby agricultural land they could. The reality of this soon reached the attention of the local governments as food stocks were dwindling and strict rationing had to be enforced. The local governments decided that some changes needed to be made in order to meet the demands of the future, the first being the inefficiencies of administration. A co-operative was established during a particularly hard winter on January 17, 1985 between the three cities, with a single administrative body for making decisions on a regional basis.
With a single administration, annexation of nearby agricultural land came at a faster pace, though it still wasn't enough to fully supply the populace. Unrest began to grow with the local population resenting the refugees, as they saw them as an unwanted burden on their supplies, and the refugee community was resentful of the locals for not accepting them.
Conflict with London
With word of London thriving, the Waterluvian leadership sent a delegation to negotiate an exchange of some outlying agricultural territory. With Waterloo's greater population and lack of power and equipment, they needed more land to farm in order to put more refugees to work and feed their people. London refused, offering instead to barter or sell the resources the Waterluvian's needed. Waterloo unfortunately did not have the resources available to barter in the quantities needed, and the delegation returned empty handed. This acted as a unifying influence on the Waterluvians, the refugees and locals united by a common perceived enemy. Groups of people began organising raiding groups to travel down to London and seize the resources they needed. Several of these initial raiding waves came back with stockpiles of biodiesel and food, but more importantly some came with plans for small-scale waterwheel power gernerators, algae farming techniques, and spare parts for repairing some equipment. Following the initial raids however, the Londoners established a border patrol which greatly reduced the effectiveness of these raids, reducing successful raids to one or two per year. While large scale raids have been largely abandoned, London raiding has become somewhat of a coming of age ritual for Waterluvian youth.
Government and Politics
The Waterloo Co-operative is a confederation of the three main cities of the Waterloo region of former Southern Ontario, Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge.
Relations with London are hostile, with little trade between the two nations. Waterloo's main trading partners are Midland, Superior, and the Canadian territory recently established in Kingston . Though independent for now, Waterloo has expressed to leaders in Kingston that should Canada attempt to re-establish control over Southern Ontario, they would support the efforts wholeheartedly.
Agriculture dominates the economy of Waterloo, with many rooftop gardens being established as well as communal farms in the secured farmland outside of the tri-cities area. The automotive manufacturing of the area has been reworked to produce vehicles that run on Biodiesel, though there is little demand.