Appeals from American tourism organizations seemed to be everywhere Josh Loewen looked over the last year. Billboards and banners proclaimed a state or city’s love for Canada. Online and social media ads offered special deals for travelers from north of the border.
As a Vancouver resident and marketing executive himself, Loewen said he understands the conciliatory overtures. The number of Canadians traveling to the United States plunged after President Donald Trump returned to office with remarks about making Canada the 51st state. An acrimonious trade war between the two countries now is threatening to reinforce the informal boycott just as it appeared to be easing slightly.
“It’s such a big ask right now,” Loewen, 45, said of the U.S. tourism industry’s attempts to woo Canadians like him back before a new president occupies the White House. “It’s just a wasted effort.”
Once again need to clarify on behalf of Canada this is not about a trade war. We have trade wars with the US once a decade when they try and fail again to pinch us on softwood lumber or milk. It’s nothing new and it’s never been a threat to our relationship beyond us wondering why you want to damage your own logging industry and end up being forced to pay us back billions anyway once the nafta/cusma arbitration is done.
This happens all the time
What doesn’t happen all the time is your president directly threatening our sovereignty and stating outright that he is on an economic crusade to debilitate us to the point we are either politically it militarily subsumed by the USA.
If you can’t see the difference you are part of the problem.
Yes to all, but who wants to visit a country with a gestapo murdering people in the streets, sending people to concentration camps, corrupt policing, corrupt courts and extortionate healthcare AND everything you just said.
“We love you Canada”
No. You love our money. When Trump threatens to destroy our country, when Trump makes efforts to turn Canada into an enslaved resource colony, the best you can say about it is that this hurts your pocket book.
When someone is trying to mug and stab your “friend” and the best you can do about it is complain that your friend’s blood is staining the carpet, it is obvious that you aren’t really their friend.
Whether or not Trump remains in power, I have no intention of visiting America ever again. Greed, narcissism and misguided patriotism have destroyed the country, and it won’t be fixed in my lifetime. No thanks.
i know it feels good to say that, but its not a winning strategy. You need to make moderate voters in the usa believe you still like them so they get motivated to vote republicans out of office everywhere.
If they’re not already motivated by what Trump is doing to the country they may be hopeless cases.
That’s an Americans job. Not ours. Maybe get off your butts and do something yourselves.
It’s not just platitudes, it’s genuinely how I feel. If you think losing Canadian tourism will be the deciding factor that makes Americans wake up and vote Republicans out, I respectfully think that’s pretty naive. If the Epstein files, war in Iran, and complicity in Israeli genocide aren’t enough, then nothing is.
I 100% agree with you. Absolutely, I had plans to visit the states before 2020, they are canceled indefinitely.
It’ll happen once we start starving.
Right now people still have a lot left to lose, so understandably they’re not rocking the boat. It’s not uncommon for fascist takeovers to not have major pushback until the people have no choice left.
But…
Progressives have been pushing out neolib incumbents, so the people are actually working on changing things. Hell, a Democrat actually has a chance to win the election for Senator. His signs are all over my rural part of Texas.
People are waking up, just not as quickly as we’d all like. You have to remember that they’ve been working towards this outcome for generations.
honestly i feel the same way as you, but if they feel the situation is hopeless then they’ll just double down and become worse. i don’t believe the usa can be redeemed in its current form as they elected their monster twice. this means it wasn’t a mistake. i am advocating that we deceive them.
lol he doesn’t have to go anywhere. I’m not traveling to republican states either. And I’m scaring them out of my state anyway I can
You want us back?
Dethrone them.
Here in Ireland I’m getting a bunch of ads to come visit the USA that I never got before.
Canadian here, always wanted to visit Ireland. Is it okay for a POC?
Depends what you define as “okay”? My family moved back to Ireland in the early 90s when I was young so I don’t really know how it compares to Canada in terms of racism. Racism certainly exists, and it seems to be worse now than it was before COVID, but I can’t say I see it personally in my own life, maybe one minor incident (eg most recently a kid in the street throwing pebbles and shouting racist abuse at passersby) every fifteen years or so. And every time it’s happened, everyone else on the scene takes the POC’s side (most Irish people pride themselves on being sound).
TBH I’m not really sure I’m qualified to answer, though, as I’m white and I don’t hang around with racists so just because I don’t see racist stuff happening doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen when I’m not around. I suppose the most objective measure I can point to is that we have a racist political party but they’ve never won even a single seat in the Dáil.
Thank you very much for the info, I really appreciate it! Based on your description, it would seem that Ireland is as good or better than Canada for tolerance. Isolated wackos here and there with the majority having the backs of folks like me. Thanks again! I’ll definitely try to visit your wonderful country in the future! Also, please consider yourself welcome in Canada!
there is a show in Australia called Gruen on the ABC. it is advertising execs. They reviewed the recent american tourism ads. it was a brutal and hilarious episode.
