Canadian snowbirds vent to WSLR News about their feelings and describe their reactions.
By Jennifer Johnston
Original Air Date: April 16, 2025
Host: The Trump Administration’s tariffs and 51st state rhetoric are being met with strong reactions by Canadians. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently urged his fellow Canadians: “Now is the time to choose Canada,” and “it might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada.” WSLR News reporter Jennifer Johnston spoke with two Canadians who live in Sarasota to hear their side.
JJ: The Trump administration’s trade war with Canada has garnered a strong response from Canadians here in Sarasota. The number of Canadians returning by car from visits to the U.S. fell by 23% in February. Air travel by Canadians returning from the U.S. was down 13% relative to last year, according to Statistics Canada. It is estimated international travel to the United States will drop at least 5% this year. This will result in potentially a $1 billion economic loss to the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian snowbirds add billions to Florida’s economy alone.
Allan Mestel grew up in Toronto and has lived in Sarasota for 10 years. He and his wife moved here to escape harsh Canadian winters.
Allan Mestel
Allan Mestel: As a Canadian, I certainly didn’t anticipate him to turn on the country with such venom. His talk of redrawing the borders, of invading or absorbing Canada into the U.S. as the 51st state and how much prettier the country would look if [unintelligible]. It’s just beyond belief for a country that has been a staunch ally—staunch neighbor—largest trading partner. The way that Trump talked about Canada in demeaning and patronizing terms, referring to Trudeau as a governor—it’s beyond belief that Canada would be treated that way.
JJ: I asked Allan about the Canadian calls to boycott U.S. travel.
AM: Canada has issued a travel advisory to Canadians, basically saying there has been a marked increase in the number of Canadians who are having electronic devices examined at the border. They are advising Canadians to potentially vet their social media posts. They’re telling Canadians to be careful in terms of what information might be gleaned from their device if they don’t want to have issues at the border.
My wife was in Toronto just last week visiting family, and she said that—at Pearson, at Toronto International Airport, you clear U.S. customs in Toronto airport—and she said that—normally it’s a huge lineup; there’s an enormous lineup of people in the customs line at Pearson—she said she just walked straight up to the counter. There was absolutely nobody there. She’s never seen that before. And I haven’t, either. People are just not coming here.
I know that the Elbows Up, Buy Canadian movement is huge right now in Canada. You talked about Quebec; I saw a picture recently on social media of a stack of Florida strawberries at a grocery store. I think it was like $0.99. They couldn’t literally could not unload them at any price. The commentary about the 51st state has infuriated Canadians, and I don’t think that anyone who’s not Canadian could truly understand how infuriating and how demeaning and patronizing we feel when that rhetoric was bandied around by Trump and others.
I hope that in a new administration, in a new era, that amends can be made, but it’s not going to happen without effort because there has been enormous damage done to the relationship between the two countries in terms of our perception of each other and that sort of unspoken camaraderie that we used to think we shared. I think work needs to be done to repair that relationship, and it certainly won’t happen in this administration.
JJ: I also spoke with Shawky Fahel, a Canadian who bought a home in Venice in 2009. He and his wife love their American friends. They fell in love with Venice.
Shawky Fahel
Shawky Fahel: We’ve been spending winters down there. We love it down there. We love our American friends. Our neighbors are like family, literally speaking, for 15 years.
To have the president attack us, insult us, threaten us, with annexation—this is totally, totally unacceptable to any Canadian.
I’m in Canada. I came back on the 22nd of March. I have to tell you, on the 22nd of March, my wife looked at me and said, “You know what, honey? I don’t feel welcome here.” And that’s the feeling of all Canadians. I have a lot of Canadian friends from Punta Gorda to Naples to Sarasota and so on and so forth, and that’s the feeling.
We have, right now, a very serious rift in our relations between the Canadians and the Americans. Everybody that I talked to here is making plans to go to the Dominican or go to Mexico, or—a matter of fact, WestJet, which is the second largest airline in Canada, has made alternative routes, and they implemented 120 new routes to Dublin and Edinburgh.
Canadian Snowbird Association logo via snowbirds.org.
So, is it affecting the CSA—the Canadian Snowbird Association—and the members? Absolutely. Tremendously. And everybody’s thinking about selling, which is really, really sad. We wanted to sell, but the market is very soft. We figure we wait until next year, and hopefully common sense will prevail onto the politicians and then we can sit down and we can really negotiate in good faith between the two best neighbors.
JJ: Reporting for WSLR News, Jennifer Johnston.
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