TORONTO/CALGARY/WINNIPEG — Canadians have cancelled trips south of the border, boycotted US alcohol and other products and even booed at sporting events after US President Donald Trump announced 25 per cent tariffs on most of Canada's goods on Saturday (Feb 1).
Though Trump had pledged to put tariffs on Canada and Mexico before taking office, the perceived act of economic warfare on a country that is so close to the United States culturally and geographically still came as a shock to many Canadians.
"It feels like Trump wants to restructure the world order," Drew Dilkens, mayor of the Canadian border city of Windsor, said in an interview. "He's willing to start with his closest ally… If he's willing to do this to Canada, what's he willing to do to everybody else?"
Dilkens said about C$400 million (S$377 million) in trade crosses the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor every day. For his 240,000-person community, the fallout from Trump's tariffs will be immediate. He hopes residents will support local wineries and distilleries.
Calgary resident Ken Lima-Coelho said the tariff news spurred a surge of Canadian pride in his household. His 19-year-old son is now making plans to sew a small Canadian flag to his backpack for an upcoming trip to Europe, while his daughter spent Saturday night making an inventory of Canadian food products in the family's kitchen.
"There's nothing I can do about this quagmire that we now find ourselves in politically with the regime next door," Lima-Coelho said. "But I can change which toothpaste I buy... and that gives us something to do while hopefully our political and business leaders sort this out."
Trump slapped a 25 per cent import tariff on all Canadian goods, except energy products, which will carry a levy of 10 per cent while entering the United States.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately announced retaliatory tariffs on C$155 billion ($107 billion) of US goods. Those on C$30 billion will take effect on Tuesday, the same day as most of Trump's tariffs, and duties on the remaining C$125 billion in 21 days, Trudeau said.
Trudeau also encouraged Canadians to buy local and vacation in Canada, a sentiment echoed by many local officials.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered American-made liquor to be off the shelves of the provincially controlled Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the only alcohol wholesaler in Canada's most populous province, by Tuesday.
"Every year, LCBO sells nearly US$1 billion (S$1.36 billion) worth of American wine, beer, spirits and seltzers. Not anymore," Ford wrote on X.
After attending church in Winnipeg, Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd said her grocery shopping habits will change, and she hoped to support Mexican products as well as Canadian.
"There will be job losses in this country... we know that's going to happen," she said. "We need to find ways to be in solidarity with others who will be suffering the brunt of some irrational ire."
In Ottawa on Saturday night, Canadians reacted more angrily at a hockey game: booing the US national anthem before the Ottawa Senators played the Minnesota Wild. TV footage showed basketball fans booing the anthem again on Sunday before the Toronto Raptors played the LA Clippers.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew urged calm.
"I think we have to recognise our quarrel is not with the American people... for many of our families, our relatives on the other side of the 49th parallel are still our friends and relatives," he told a news conference. "We still share a history of our veterans fighting shoulder to shoulder . . . We defeated fascism together."
But British Columbia resident Mike Davies, 64, has been angry since Trump started posting comments on social media about absorbing Canada as the 51st state.
"To have Americans insult Canada has got my back up. … I think every Canadian is just disgusted, right? I just think [the tariffs are] treachery," said Davies, a resident of White Rock, near the US border.
Davies started a Facebook group encouraging people to boycott American goods. He cancelled Netflix and is trying not to use Amazon.
He also ditched plans to visit a friend in North Carolina.
"We're not going to America at all," he said.
Source: Reuters
