Niagara Falls is split between the United States and Canada, with boats leaving from each side of the river to sail close to the falls. The American boat passengers wear blue plastic ponchos and the Canadian boat passengers wear red. Last week I came to the falls from the Canadian side. I’ve visited before from the American side in 2002, back when you could easily cross over the border by foot. This time around, I didn’t dare risk the notorious wait times for US-Canada land border crossings that have developed since then.
I boarded the red boat, which was packed, and we sailed under the falls. On the way back we passed the blue US boat, which was much emptier by comparison. As we passed, some passengers on our boat started booing them. The Americans looked shocked. I cannot overstate how strange this all is for someone who grew up in North America.
This was just one of the many acts of Canadian defiance I’ve witnessed so far on this two-week trip. Last night, at dinner in Montreal’s Chinatown, I attempted to order a wine from California. “No American wine,” the waitress replied. I had forgotten that there is currently a boycott against American alcohol in Canada, with most provincial governments refusing to stock it. “Ah right, good,” I replied – as if it had been a test. Earlier in the day, I noticed that the bar in my hotel had relabelled the ‘Americano’ coffee on the menu as ‘Canadiano’. It reminded me of the “freedom fries” era in the United States – though in this case the retaliation is coming for a much better reason.
I’ve been in Canada for the past week – in Toronto, Quebec and Montreal – getting a feel for peoples’ feelings toward the US and the EU. I’ve just arrived in Vancouver, on the day Canada’s $28 billion in retaliatory tariffs against the US take effect, and so far the feeling seems to be the same. There is across-the-board fury about the American aggression and a deep feeling of betrayal from a country that Canadians have been inextricably linked to their whole lives. That fury transcends politics, race and gender. I imagine the only place where I might be hearing something different is Alberta, which I just flew over.
But everywhere I’ve been, Canadians seem ready to do what it takes to defend their country from American aggression. They are ready to make sacrifices, and they know that these retaliatory tariffs taking effect today are going to cause them pain. They think it’s worth it. And that is a night and day difference from what I hear back home from Europeans, who are largely unaware of the danger America presents them and, even if they understand it, are accepting it with a fatalistic shrug of their shoulders. Who in Europe is ready to sacrifice in order to counter American aggression?
Flipping through the TV stations here, you get a sense of how overwhelmed this country is by America culturally, and that really makes you understand the sense of betrayal. About 75% of the programming on TV is from the US. I was especially surprised this morning to see