Americans: It’s always the deal
American businesses near the border are offering exclusive deals for Canadians, but don’t they understand it isn’t about the deal, even if their Great Leader is the lord of the deal? It’s about people not wanting to visit a hostile regime.
jeather 10:36 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
A bucket of golf balls. Be still my heart.
Ephraim 10:38 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Have you noticed the uptick of travel ads on US channels? VT and NY both advertising heavily to get Canadians to visit.
JaneyB 11:25 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Cute, Canadian-themed golfballs…against the threat of detention in ICE facilities or Salvadoran prisons. So many Americans don’t value ‘habeas corpus’, the very foundation of democracy. It’s strange that they don’t see the danger. Then there’s the annexation issue, of course…grrr.
dhomas 11:41 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
I listen to the radio in the morning with the kids. They play a commercial constantly advertising for travel within the US from Plattsburgh airport, via Allegiant Air. Not sure who is paying for the advertisement: the airport, the city of Plattsburgh, or the airline. I’m not sure if I want them to stop so as to avoid convincing Canadians that it’s a good idea to travel to/via the US or if I want them to continue wasting their money supporting our local economy (in the hopes they convince no one).
Orr 11:48 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
A nice vacation vs an Ice “vacation”?
I know which I’d choose.
jeather 12:04 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Upstate NY is a pretty red area, too, so a lot of them did in fact vote for this exactly.
Ephraim 12:24 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
21st Congressional District…. Elise Stefanik who is a BIG orange supporter.
saintlaurent 12:55 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
> Upstate NY is a pretty red area, too, so a lot of them did in fact vote for this exactly.
Not quite as much as you think. Clinton County, where Plattsburgh is located? 48.9% Harris, 51.1% Trump.
Essex County, where Lake Placid and most of the Adirondack High Peaks are located? 50.3% Harris, 49.7% Trump.
Warren County, where Lake George is located? 47.9% Harris, 52.1% Trump.
So the three upstate New York counties that attract the most Quebecers as tourists? All three are pretty close to purple. When I wasn’t growing up in Montreal, I grew up in Essex County, and I’m still pretty surprised that it’s pretty much as purple as purple gets. Yeah, Lewis County may have gone 70+% for Trump, but I’d argue that very, very few Quebecers go there as tourists.
For the whole 21st Congressional District, which by east-of-the-Mississippi standards is a *huge* district and stretches all the way down to Saratoga Springs and almost as far west as Lake Ontario, yes, Trump won 60%. Stefanik is a big (if opportunistic) Trump supporter (don’t get me started on that; she used to be a *very* establishment Republican), and slightly outperformed Trump (62%). Her consistent re-elections since 2014 are partly due to the Democrats putting up a series of severely weak candidates over the last several election cycles. A Democrat represented that district as recently as 2014.
Now, myself? I find a couple of souvenir golf balls pretty chintzy. But I would gently suggest that you don’t dismiss these efforts as entirely insincere. Having known many of these people for my entire life, they think the bullshit annexation talk is exactly that – bullshit – and truly do value Quebecers as both neighbours and customers.
Uatu 15:25 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
F that. ICE is supposed to be raising it’s arrest quotas to 3000 a day which means that anyone is fair game for detention even if you did nothing wrong. Border agents aren’t necessarily bad people, but they believe that the system will prove your innocence…. eventually. In the meantime they fill their quota and the privately run detention center gets paid- which is what’s really important to the current administration.
Ephraim 15:26 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Elise Stefanik got 62% of the vote. Clinton was 52%. Essex was the lowest with 51.7%. 55.6% in Franklin (the next county to Clinton) and 60.6% in St-Lawrence country, where the Akwesasne reserve is located. And as you move more west and more south they all get much worse. But not a single country went blue.
Kate 15:27 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
saintlaurent, that’s a mixed message if I’ve ever seen one.
saintlaurent 15:59 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Ephraim, I was counting how each county voted for Trump or Harris, not Stefanik. The numbers are roughly similar, but Essex County went (very slightly) for Harris, and Clinton was only very slightly Trump.
Kate, I would argue the message isn’t that mixed. If about 50% of voters in Clinton County voted against Trump, it stands to reason that about half of all small business owners didn’t vote for Trump and are desperately trying to salvage whatever they can of that summer business from Quebec tourists. So it’s really a 50/50 shot if the guy with the golf balls is a Trump voter or not. If he isn’t, can you blame him for trying to promote his business? Again, I think the golf balls are pretty cheesy, but I don’t think it is logical to immediately jump to the conclusion that he’s obviously a Trump voter with buyer’s remorse. Although who knows, maybe he is?
Kate 18:23 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
You make it sound like we owe it to these people to bring them our business.
And you know? We really don’t.
saintlaurent 19:28 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
> And you know? We really don’t.
I agree with that, 100%.
You make it sound as if you want to punish any and all of them, because the barest majority of them happen to made a bad choice. I could see that if, for example, Montreal was a 45-minute drive from rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ ruby-red Texas or middle-of-nowhere ultra-Trump Wyoming. But those parts of upstate New York (e.g., Plattsburgh, Lake Placid, Keene Valley, Lake George) are not that.
Thought experiment: if this story had been about the efforts of business owners in Vermont to reach out to their Quebec customers, I imagine some readers’ reaction would have been rather different, since deep blue Vermont that voted nearly 2-1 against Trump is cool in a way that merely 50/50 purple upstate New York is not. Burlington is hip in that QS/NDP crunchy-granola way, whereas Plattsburgh is a little bit quétaine.
Ephraim 20:15 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Honestly, we used to go to Plattsburgh, but haven’t visited in more than a decade and likely a lot longer. (I checked, last time we stayed in Plattsburgh overnight was 2011) New York State Troopers in that region target Quebec and Vermont plates for speeding tickets. The mall decided they were going to charge Canadians for Internet access, when it was expensive to roam. And of course, they have a Sam’s Club, not a Costco. And slowly there were less and less businesses. So, we started going to Vermont instead. The people are nicer, the businesses as well. There is a Costco. But it changes, too. I looked at our last overnight in 2020, before COVID. We paid C$88 for a night in January (tax-in). Now, a hotel below that is $169 tax-in (also January). And when we went to the US it wasn’t about price, it was about variety and different products. But we just stopped going. In fact, even vacations have moved from the US to elsewhere. We have on vacation planned with a friend in 2026 that starts in the US, but nothing else.
Kate 20:44 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
saintlaurent, you’re playing a range of tiny violins here but I can’t hear them.
I don’t want to punish anybody. I don’t want to spend my money in that country and I’m not going to lose any sleep over Canadians choosing to spend their money at home, or elsewhere. But it’s not chiefly about money and deals (it always comes down to money and deals). The U.S. isn’t a safe place right now. It’s better to stay away.
jeather 22:37 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
There is absolutely no reason to assume that business owners track the overall voting population.
But reliably blue NYC and southern Maine and California are trying to get Canadians, and they’re not working either. I’m not blaming the hotel and restaurant and etc etc owners for trying to get Canadians back, and I think they are sincere that they want Canadian tourists. I just don’t CARE, and I can’t see that people who are avoiding the US would be swayed by some golf balls. I’m sorry for (some of) the people getting caught up in this, but their problem is not Canada, it’s their own government.
saintlaurent 22:45 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
I’ll entirely concede the point that crossing the border can be viewed as a crap shoot. I have dual citizenship (and a NEXUS card), so for me there’s virtually zero apprehension. I certainly wouldn’t, though, advise someone who has PR status in Canada or has a Canadian passport that shows their place of birth as, say, Tehran or Port-au-Prince to have a jolly good Saturday day trip buying cheap groceries in P’Burgh. In fact, quite the contrary – I’d be right at the front of the line, telling them that is a Very Bad Idea.
But I do take issue with what I perceive to be a massive amount of shade you’re throwing at the folk, a significant number of whom, safe to assume, are anti-Trump voters, just trying to maintain their existing Quebec customer base and keep their own small businesses afloat. That casual dismissal of their efforts is, IMHO, kind of shitty.
And I’m sorry, the vibe I feel you’re throwing off really does smack of a desire for (or at a minimum, a schadenfreude attitude towards) collective punishment. As you said, no one owes these people any business, and I agree without hesitation. But you make it sound as if a U.S. business even attempting to market itself to Quebecers, in the current environment, is an affront to your sensibilities.
J’ai eu la bonne chance de passer environ la moitié de ma vie à Montréal et l’autre moitié dans le nord de l’État de New York (principalement, à Plattsburgh ainsi que Essex County). Je comprends parfaitement la colère des Canadiens, et ils ont raison, à mon avis. Je comprends aussi que les New Yorkers de Plattsburgh et des Adirondacks savent bien de quel côté leurs tartines est beurrée, et c’est pourquoi plusieurs d’entre eux essaient de sensibiliser les Québécois pour leur faire savoir qu’ils sont toujours les bienvenus, ainsi que leurs dollars touristiques, malgré les efforts du gouvernement américain actuel.
Margaret 07:17 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
I’m sure many of the American affected didn’t vote this regime in, but neither did the Canadian workers that are suffering as a result of its tariffs etc. My money and my consumer loyalty is going to Canadian enterprises and I don’t see how any offer of “a deal” changes that. “American deals” are never without fallout.
Kate 08:09 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
That casual dismissal of their efforts is, IMHO, kind of shitty.
Am I expected to express sympathy for a country that wants to take mine over and which, if it doesn’t assent to this, will be faced with a constant barrage of economic attacks and threats?
But you make it sound as if a U.S. business even attempting to market itself to Quebecers, in the current environment, is an affront to your sensibilities.
It is. The idea that all we need is a little “deal” and we’ll rush happily across the border to save their businesses would be funny if it didn’t smack, in a small way, of what Trump is already trying to do to us.
dwgs 09:26 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
Speaking as someone born and raised in a border community where there is a lot of back and forth (I have American and dual citizen relatives due to intermarriage) I get where saintlaurent is coming from and it’s a valid point, there are a lot of decent Americans doing their best to get by. I am also outraged by the insanity that has taken root down there and refuse to cross the border or give them any money until Trumplethinskin and the rest of his evil posse are sent packing. Decent people down there need to feel enough economic pain to get them demonstrating in the streets by the millions.
Orr 12:05 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
Once you’ve seen, as I have, a car at the border get surrounded by a heavily-armed swat team, see everyone get pulled out of the car and forced to lie face-down on the ground with weapons aimed at them, and after a few minutes they are told “it’s all good, you can proceed now,” you might think twice about if this is a place you really want to visit.
Bonus points if you enjoy the experience of ICE roadblock checkpoints 50 miles into the US to examine your papers.
Tl;dr: a police state is a state I don’t plan to visit.
Ephraim 14:05 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
All I have to add is that the Munich pact was signed by Neville Chamberlain, who seems to have some things in common with Keir Starmer… inviting him to the UK for discussions…
jeather 15:04 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
I don’t really blame Americans who want to regain their Canadian clients for it. But “ok our president is threatening to take you over, he has fucked up the world economy, and if you’re unlucky you might get held by ICE for a few weeks” is not something that “here are some golf balls” can fix, and it feels patronizing.
Kate 20:04 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
Well put, jeather!
Joey 09:11 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
“Only half the population is MAGA” is hardly a consolation (let alone lone a marketing slogan) if you clock MAGA as a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, death cult. If the “folk” who want to retain their Canadian customer base mean it, they’ll leave the golf balls for now and revolt against their crooked government.