Quick Take
Canadians living and/or working in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area are trying to comprehend a sudden shift in the historically placid relationship between Canada and the U.S. And they have as many questions as Americans do.
Sorry, I just got off the plane from 2022. Not sure I heard you correctly. Did you say the United States is suddenly in open cold-war hostility against … what is it, Cambodia? Cameroon?
Wait … what? Canada?!? You mean Ryan Gosling/Celine Dion/Keanu Reeves Canada? That Canada?
Sure, there are many contenders, but the current diplomatic turmoil between the U.S. and Canada has to be one of the most bizarre, most unlikely consequences of the 2024 election. An American president saying casually and repeatedly that Canada — stalwart, unoffending, sturdy Canada — should be the 51st state is the stuff of a satirical “Colbert Report” monologue from 2009.
When times get absurd, we all need to be reminded of things that were once so obvious that they didn’t even need to be uttered. The U.S. and Canada share the longest demilitarized border in the world, more than 5,500 miles long. Perhaps no two neighboring nations on Earth have historically been more simpatico than Americans and Canadians. Yes, there are differences and disagreements — currency, health care, guns, Tim Hortons — but in so many ways Canada is America’s mirror country and vice versa. Bad blood between Yanks and Canucks? That’s like Rachel feuding with Monica, one Hemsworth turning on another, Damon lawyering up against Affleck, Thelma dissing Louise. This can’t be real, can it?
On this side of the border, we’ve heard the bristling and belligerent soundbites of Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and now newly named Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. We’ve read the stories of Canadians boycotting American goods. We’ve pondered how the breathtaking level of disrespect that all this “51st state” talk has wounded the hearts of Canadians.
I’ve traveled to Canada a handful of times, but to really get a sense of what’s going on here, I had to talk to Canadians now living and/or working around the Monterey Bay. Some were happy, even eager to talk U.S./Canada relations. Some were willing to chat but asked that their names not be used, given the volatility of the unfolding situation. Still others wanted nothing to do with me or my impertinent questions and declined participation (politely, of course).
What are local Canadians hearing from friends and family back in Canada?
“People are mad in Canada,” said Jody Renee Lee. “I have lots of family and lots of friends there, and I’m getting posts every so often on my Facebook going, ‘You need to come home.’ ‘When are you coming home?’ ‘It’s not safe there.’”
Lee, who now lives in Seaside, is originally from Sarnia, Ontario, just across the St. Clair River from Port Huron, Michigan. At 52, she is old enough to remember, as a kid, walking across the Blue Water Bridge to the U.S. side to visit a comic book store, carrying her birth certificate, just in case. An admiration sometimes shading into envy was, she said, the default stance that most Canadians took when it came to America’s “land of plenty” reputation.
“To have an American connection and tangible things from the U.S. was really special growing up,” she said. “You know, we would bring American soda to school after [spring break] and everyone was like, ‘Wow, look at how big the cans are,’ ‘Did you get to go to Denny’s, or a Big Boy?’”
Tyler Cobbett is a U.S. Coast Guard-certified captain teaching sailing from the Santa Cruz Harbor. He was born and raised in Montreal and has also lived in Toronto. “Americans always seemed larger than life to us,” he said. “Americans always seemed bigger, faster, smarter and richer. From my earliest upbringing, I admired Americans.”
Though a native of Canada, Cobbett is also a naturalized American citizen and feels pride, he said, in both countries. “I feel that this strife is being caused by a leader and a small group of people that, for some reason, have decided to pick on Canada like a schoolyard bully, and I don’t really understand why,” he said. “I certainly don’t blame all Americans — or any Americans really, except our current leadership — for picking this fight. And I would say that most Canadians feel similarly charitable toward Americans.
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“But they don’t understand why, having been friends and relatives for 200 years, all of a sudden our friend has turned up and punched us in the nose, over and over again.”
In talking with Canadian friends and family, Cobbett heard a common theme. First, what’s happening between the U.S. and Canada is “sad,” but also that “Trump, in a few short weeks, has destroyed faith in America [from Canadians] for generations to come.”
Growing up in Quebec, Cobbett experienced a separatist referendum, as well as the linguistic schisms and the strife between the oil-producing provinces of Western Canada and the more populated Central Canada. “There’s been inherent cultural barriers [between different provinces] that are now falling. We’re now united against a common enemy,” he said. “I’m hearing from people in Quebec who are not particularly huge fans of Canada, that they’re flying Canadian flags for the first time in years.”
Another Canadian living in Santa Cruz County who asked that her name not be used said that her mom in British Columbia is seeing her neighbors flying the Maple Leaf in big numbers for the first time. “What I think we’re seeing a lot in Canada right now,” said the local woman, “is no matter what political party folks are aligned with, everyone is coming together to really stand up as Canadians and try to come together as a unified front, which is really good to see.”
However, she is planning her wedding for later this summer in Big Sur. As the only one in her family living in the U.S., she was expecting a big contingent from Canada for the wedding. Now, that’s uncertain. “It’s creating a divide in my family. It’s really up in the air whether they’ll feel comfortable coming down,” she said. “It feels a little bit like we’re at war right now. The future is so uncertain, it’s hard to know what the next best step is.”
“It feels like my parents are fighting,” said Cobbett. “It feels like my adoptive dad is abusing my mom, and it sucks.”
“It’s just so sad that we feel we have to take a stance against our biggest ally in the world, our biggest trading partner, our biggest cultural partner. I mean, more Canadians identify with Americans than we do the British,” said Lee.
Erik Nelson, Santa Cruz documentary filmmaker and the co-host of KSQD-FM’s “What a Week!” talk show, holds dual citizenship after purchasing a home in British Columbia 20 years ago in the wake of the Gulf War. He lived there for eight years. As a political provocateur on the air and perhaps as a more blunt-spoken native of the U.S., Nelson is sharper in his criticisms of the U.S. than many of the other Canadians I spoke to. As closely as he has followed the MAGA phenomenon since Trump’s first election in 2016, he was still surprised by Trump’s hostility toward Canada.
“In my wildest imagination,” he said, “the concept that the acting U.S. president — the comb-over Caligula — would attempt to declare war on Canada, that was just not in my forecast. It utterly took me by surprise. It’s insane on so many levels, and in my ever humble opinion, one of the prime reasons for this is because [First Lady] Melania [Trump] made goo-goo eyes at Justin Trudeau, and Trump was teased about it in the press. I really think it’s that personal. There’s no overarching thoughts here with this guy. It’s just because he was humiliated and he’s projecting his rage at Justin Trudeau and the entire country of Canada.”
As politically divided as the U.S. is, Canada has experienced its own deep political divisions for generations, specifically when it comes to separatist sentiment in French-speaking Quebec. But, said Jody Lee, the showdown against Donald Trump has “created a unity that has not been seen in maybe forever.” And this is happening in a country preparing for a national election pitting the Liberals, who before the inauguration of Trump looked to be doomed, with the suddenly sagging Conservative party.
I spoke to a UC Santa Cruz student and native-born Canadian who also asked that her name not be used. We spoke by phone while she was visiting her family in Alberta. She has not noticed a wave of Canadian flags on the streets where her family lives: “But I will say I’ve heard more people just say, ‘I don’t really want to go to the U.S. anymore.’”
Since she arrived, one thing she has noticed that is unusual from what she remembers about growing up in Canada, is a new enthusiasm for consumer activism and economic nationalism. “When you go to the grocery store now, everything is [prominently] labeled ‘Made in Canada.’ If there’s a Canadian alternative to an American product, stores are playing it up, putting the Canadian one at eye level, say, or pushing the no-name brand because they are procured through Canadian companies, even if they’re not entirely made in Canada.”
Jody Renee Lee, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and carries both a Canadian and a U.S. passport, said it was “heart-wrenching” to hear her friends and family urging her to leave the U.S. and return to Canada: “At least, I know I’m loved and people are thinking of me. I live in a lovely part of the world [here in California], and I’ve always tried to say to people, ‘You know, America is better than its politics.’ But, my goodness, it’s getting harder to believe that.”
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