Catherine Ann Marshall and husband Mike Manning were booked to fly to the U.S. next Sunday for a week of skiing with friends from New Hampshire.
Plans, however, changed in an instant Saturday as the couple watched Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urge Canadians to “choose Canada” and reconsider vacation plans south of the border, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 25 per cent tariff on imported Canadian goods.
“We looked at each other and went, ‘We can’t go. We can’t support what’s going on down there and spend money,’” Marshall said. By Sunday, the couple had cancelled their Air Canada flight and booked an Airbnb at Mont-Tremblant, Que. for next week — and their American friends are coming north to join them.
“We feel really good about the decision,” Marshall said, “and that we were able to pull it off.”
The Etobicoke couple are a part of a wave of Canadians, from occasional travellers to annual Snowbirds, rethinking travel south of the border after Trump’s chaotic tariff declarations this week.
“There’s a lot of Canadians that are upset about it,” Laurie Levine, a real estate agent who specializes in selling homes in Arizona to Albertan snowbirds, said Monday. “They’ve always been best friends, and right now Canadians are feeling like their friends are letting them down.”
Even after Trudeau and Trump reached an 11th-hour deal putting a 30-day pause on tariffs Monday night, Marshall and others remain committed to avoiding travel to the U.S. for the foreseeable future, all part of a growing “Buy Canadian” movement.
Disruption to Canadian travel to the U.S., even a minor one, will create noticeable ripples across the American tourism industry.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, Canadian travellers accounted for 11 per cent of total international inbound travel spending in the United States in 2024.
Canadians spent some $20.5 billion in travel to the U.S. last year, and between April and June last year alone 6.5 million Canadians spent $6.5 billion on trips to the U.S., according to Statistics Canada.
Flight Centre, a global travel agency with offices in Canada, has been getting droves of calls and in-person visits since Saturday’s announcements from Canadians wanting to cancel and rebook their vacations to the States, Amra Durakovic, head of communications, told the Star.
“Calls are still coming in,” said Durakovic. “There’s a lot of disappointment. There’s a lot of sadness. And I think there’s a lot of trust that’s been broken.”
Some of the trip cancellations with the Flight Centre include a $10,000 trip to Arizona and a $20,000 family cruise that was porting in Miami.
And emotions are so strong that people aren’t even “blinking an eye” at any of the cancellation or rebooking fees, Durakovic said.
It’s not that people are now choosing not to travel, Durakovic said, “they’re just pivoting away from the U.S. and they’re looking towards alternative international and domestic destinations.”
Some of these overseas spots include Japan and the Caribbean — which Durakovic said is due to the relative strength of the Canadian dollar in these destinations.
The loonie dropped to its lowest level since 2003 Monday to 68.48 cents U.S., while Canada’s currency sat at 107.86 Japanese Yen and 1.87 East Caribbean dollars.
Even some of Canada’s long-term snowbirds are taking a pass on the usual warm-weather, months-long vacations to destinations like Florida and Arizona.
Over the weekend, Levine showed a house in the San Tan Valley outside of Phoenix after the Canadian owners said the U.S. political climate was getting to them and they wanted out.
“They can well afford to live there,” said Levine, “but they just kind of had enough and said it’s time to do something different.”
He also has some Canadian clients who have decided to hold off on buying property to see what happens over the next few weeks.
Durakovic, too, has heard from concerned snowbirds, including one woman whose sister in Florida was thinking of selling her home.
“They are most certainly turning their backs on U.S. travel right now,” Durakovic said.
Vacations aren’t the only reason Canadians go the States. Many people, like Marshall who works as a consultant, often cross the border for work and the looming trade war is making them rethink in-person meetings or conferences.
“I was talking with my business partner and if we’re going to do business with Americans, they’ll have to come up here,” Marshall said.
Three days later, Marshall and Manning don’t regret their decision to cancel their ski trip. And, while they were able to pivot, they also feel a deep sense of betrayal.
“I felt absolutely devastated to realize that the co-operative and neighbourly relationship that I’ve had with Americans my whole life has changed,” Marshall said. “And depending on how this all plays out, it might be permanently changed.”
With files from Raju Mudhar
