So Many Reasons

Those who read this blog with any regularity likely know that I have not entered the United States since 2016 and have no intention of ever going there again. My reasons are many, not the least of which is the American love of the gun, as well as the fact that all signs point to a rapidly devolving nation. Donald Trump, of course, serves as the perfect emblem for that devolution.

In his latest column, Bruce Arthur specifically addresses how Trump's Amerika is a nation that should be avoided at all costs, and notes that many are already boycotting travel there.

Travel from Canada the United States is not just falling: it is plummeting. According to the flight information site OAG, year-over-year bookings of flights from Canada to the United States are vanishing: down over 70 per cent in each of the months between April and September. Airlines are changing routes. Canadians are changing their habits. And not just Canadians: all foreign travel is falling in real time. 

News like the above, I must confess, absolutely delights me. But the economic pain we can inflict on Trump's Amerika is almost incidental.

Avoiding the United States is not just a matter of patriotic principle; it’s a matter of simple safety. Canadians were willing to risk American gun culture, and more. But this American government does not recognize fundamental rights, and you are no longer protected by the law if you set foot in that country. Canada should join other nations in issuing stern travel advisories. We have not, yet.

The frightening landscape that is emerging should serve as a bracing warning for all of us:

People are simply being disappeared off the streets for wrongthink. A Columbia University graduate student named Mahmoud Khalil, in America on a student visa whose wife is a U.S. citizen, was arrested for leading pro-Palestinian protests. A Georgetown University researcher named Badar Khar Suri who was born in India, in America on a student visa, was arrested outside his home in Arlington, Va. A Turkish national named Rumeysa Ozturk, a student at Tufts in Massachusetts, was arrested in daylight by four plain clothes officials for writing a pro-Palestinian op-ed in the student newspaper.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the move, saying, “if you come into the U.S. as a visitor and create a ruckus for us, we don’t want it.” A ruckus. She was transported to a prison in Louisiana, and says she has been borderline tortured.

Then there was the Russian dissident, Kseniia Petrova, a scientist working at Harvard Medical School, who may be deported back to Russia, which sounds like a death sentence. The French academic who was asked for the contents of his phone, to look for anti-Trump content. And, of course, there was the case of Canadian Jasmine Mooney, who was detained in terrible conditions for two weeks by ICE over questions about her visa. Canadians born in Iran and Afghanistan have been denied entry at the US border.

And don't expect the rule of law to protect you,

Judge’s orders are being ignored, so people can be shoved on planes and used as the backdrop for an Instagram-style, influencer-modeled fascist mode of cruelty porn. Or too-online AI-as-the-aesthetic-of-fascism taunting. Or a more cinematic version of the same. Friday, the U.S. government resisted implementing a unanimous Supreme Court order to return a wrongly deported man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. It’s a truly dangerous moment.

Canadians intemperate enough to risk travel to the U.S. need to take precautions.

If you must go, you need to register if you will be there more than 30 days, or face criminal charges.

Bruce Arthur advises Canadians to travel to other countries or vacation here. Never has Canada looked more like a safe haven than it does now. We should cherish it, and do everything we can to cultivate our own country, while avoiding the perils and pitfalls endemic to our southern, increasingly hostile, neighbour.

 

UPDATED: Another Reason To Avoid Travel To The U.S.

As I have been writing of late, more and more Canadians are choosing not to travel to the U.S. for holiday purposes. The American attacks on our sovereignty have rightly rankled people, but now there are additional reasons to avoid the increasingly fascist country.

You have probably heard of new rules requiring Canadians visiting for more than 30 days to register as aliens and be fingerprinted. However, there is something else to now worry about beyond administrative inconvenience, as evidenced by the horrifying experience of Canadian Jasmine Mooney. While some may say she brought this on herself because of a visa 'irregularity',  most Canadians do not expect imprisonment upon entering America.

Jasmine Mooney, an actor who is also co-founder of the beverage brand Holy! Water, was detained on 3 March in San Diego, California.

The 35-year-old Canadian citizen’s work visa to the US was reportedly revoked back in November while traveling from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and she was attempting to file a new application.

Her mother, Alexis Eagles, who lives in British Columbia, says Mooney was detained at the San Ysidro border crossing between Mexico and San Diego, the busiest land border crossing in the world, on 3 March with an incomplete application for a work visa. Eagles told the Vancouver Sun that instead of sending her daughter to Canada or advising her to fix her application, US Customs and Border Protection officers arrested her.

What ensued was nothing short of a nightmare. 

She spent three nights in the detention centre, then was transferred. “We eventually learned that about 30 people, including Jasmine, were removed from their cells at 3am and transferred to the San Luis detention center in Arizona,” Eagles said.

“They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, fluorescent lights that are never turned off, no mats, no blankets, and limited bathroom facilities.”

Every time Mooney was transferred, she was handcuffed and in chains, Eagles claimed.

Mooney told ABC 10 that she was appalled by the conditions inside the private detention facility in San Luis where she was being kept.

“I have never in my life seen anything so inhumane,” she said. “I was put in a cell, and I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for two and a half days.”

The case did not escape the attention of David Eby, C.C.'s premier, who said

he was "profoundly concerned about these kind of actions" by the U.S. administration, saying they "violate the very idea that Canadians are safe in the U.S. when we visit." 

"The nature of our relationship is so fraught right now that this case makes us all wonder, you know, what about our relatives who are working in the States? What about when we cross the border, what kind of experience are we gonna have?" 

Mooney is now back home in British Columbia, but her experience sends a chilling message to all of us. As my mother used to say, "It's better to be safe than sorry." Indeed, all Canadians would be wise to keep such observations in mind if contemplating crossing the border, and err on the side of caution. 

UPDATE: If you would like to read Jasmine Mooney's first-person account of her ordeal, please click here.

The Power Of Canadians

Normally, when world events overtake us, we feel largely powerless. Happily, that is not the case when it comes to the punitive and totally unjustified American tariffs. Many, many Canadians are making their power felt through their wallets and travel choices as increasing numbers choose to eliminate U.S. destinations from their itineraries.

More power to them.

There are also other ways to make our outrage felt.

And it you haven't taken to the streets for a while, there is this:

Calling All Steadfast Canadians

Being pro-Canadian instead of complacent and meek in the face of American tariff oppression can take many forms. Perhaps the strongest expressions of how we feel are to be found in our purchase and travel choices.

Tim Harper reports that many are making those choices:

If Canadians are, in a typically understated way, spending their vacation dollars at home, taking a few extra moments at the grocery store to determine where that ketchup was made or buying Ontario rather than California wines, a national statement is being made this summer.

While technically not a boycott, it is a means of condemnng the Trump administration and its mistreatment of traditional American allies.

It is not a boycott to decide to holiday in New Brunswick rather than Maine.

If I decide to forego an annual baseball and beach jaunt to the U.S., or as TVO’s Steve Paikin wrote, the U.S. doesn’t deserve his money, or Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson or NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh courteously decline an invitation to a July 4th party thrown by the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa, we are not bringing the White House to its knees.

Nobody shouted their decisions from the barricades. We’re not boycotting. We are making individual decisions.

Increasing numbers are making those individual decisions:

A Nanos Research poll published by The Globe and Mail Thursday showed 73 per cent of respondents were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop or cut back travel to the U.S.

Another 72 per cent said they were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop buying American products and 68 per cent said they were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop purchasing goods from U.S. retailers.

Others are taking even stronger measures. Martin and Carole Lajeunesse, co-owners of a restaurant in Quebec, decided that national integrity needs strong expression:

Martin ... suggested they pull the American wines from their menu. They asked the server who runs the restaurant’s Facebook page to post a notice, and she wrote, in French, “In solidarity with our Canadian jobs, LaLa Bistro suspends the sale of wines from the United States for an indefinite period of time.”

And the resistance is spreading:

Many Canadians who’ve had it with Trump just crave a chance to do something, almost anything. For instance, in Halton Hills—a collection of communities northwest of Toronto that adds up to a municipality of 61,000 people—the town council voted unanimously for a resolution to “encourage residents and businesses with the town to become knowledgeable about the origin of the products and services that they purchase [and] consider avoiding the purchase of U.S. products where substitutes are reasonably available.”

Individual empowerment is not just a lofty ideal. Everyone can realize it:

In Ottawa, labour lawyer Scott Chamberlain ... on a recent grocery trip for his family, ... found himself standing in front of a display of oranges from the U.S. and others from Morocco, so he picked the Moroccan produce, then decided to see if he could buy an entirely “Trump-free” grocery cart. “It wasn’t out of anger . . . it was more out of solidarity,” he says. “I was really proud that people set politics aside to put a common front together to support Canadians. It was an attack on all of us.”

Chamberlain has altered his travel plans, too. He has family in the Maritimes whom he visits three to four times a year, but now instead of driving through New England, his family will stay in Quebec and New Brunswick hotels.

Merideth Broughton, a paramedic living an hour north of Calgary in Torrington, Alta., has made the same decision. She had planned to travel throughout the U.S. Midwest with her dog Scout this summer:

But between the trade tariffs and the horror of detained migrant children, Broughton just won’t do it. “I can’t in good conscience contribute to that economy or that government,” she says. Instead, she and Scout will stick to the Badlands of southern Alberta and wander through Saskatchewan to visit friends and family.

Want to get in on the action? Here are two videos that may help inform your choices:

To Go, Or Not To Go

I have written elsewhere on this blog about the decision I and others have made to boycott travel to the U.S. as long as Donald Trump and his peculiar brand of madness hold sway. I am happy to report that Steve Paikin has come to the same decision:

[I]t’s been a Paikin family tradition for many years to travel to the U.S. for a baseball road trip with my dad and as many of my kids as can attend. We’ve done Boston, Cleveland, New York , Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and others.

We’re not going to do it this year.

....when President Donald Trump began slapping tariffs on Canadian goods for reasons of “national security,” it felt wrong. It was an intellectually dishonest move. How could the country that fought alongside the U.S. in World War II, in Korea, and in Afghanistan be a national-security threat? It makes no sense.

Even most Americans seem to recognize how misguided the tariffs are, given the negative impact they’re having on innumerable U.S.-based businesses. And when I saw the federal Liberal government and the incoming Progressive Conservative provincial government speak as one on the stupidity of this policy (with the support of all other major parties), I thought: Okay, that’s it.

America, you just don’t deserve our money.

Even though as individuals we may doubt we have much influence, money, as they say, talks:

We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your baseball tickets. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your restaurants and hotels. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your gas. We will not spend hundreds of dollars at museums or at the theatre. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on souvenirs and gifts.

I think it’s time I looked at product labels of all kinds much more carefully. California wines? Not anymore. I’ll try some local brands, from Niagara-on-the-Lake or Prince Edward County. And maybe I should make the extra effort to purchase groceries at local farmers’ markets rather than buy American brand-name stuff at the supermarket.

On a personal note, since Trump imposed those absurd and insulting tariffs on us, I have decided (reluctantly) to extend my boycott to bourbon, (there's no liquor like it) and will instead begin exploring some of our Canadian whiskies. As well, although it is impossible to avoid American goods, I am trying as much as possible to purchase Canadian.

In light of the deteriorating connection to our southern neigbours, we must ask ourselves a fundamental question:

Do we regard ourselves simply as citizens of a globalized world, or does being Canadian still mean something to us? Your answer will no doubt tell you whether taking a stand against what the U.S. now represents is a worthwhile endeavour.

Fortress Amerika Begins To Pay A Heavy Price

Now that the parody of a president selected by the American people has infected the U.S. national psyche with more than its usual quotient of paranoia and xenophobia, those same people are beginning to get the message that there is a high price to be paid for their irresponsibility. And I, for one, can muster little pity for those sectors that are suffering as a result of their fellow-citizens' choice.

Many are choosing to avoid Amerika for at least the next four years, from individuals to educational institutions. And it is beginning to have a financial impact, as these statistics make clear:

-Tourists spend $108.1 million an hour in the USA.

-Tourists spend $2.1 trillion in the USA every year, half of which goes to secondary small businesses like bars, restaurants, theaters, and so on.

-All of this generates $147.9 billion in annual tax revenue at the city, state, and federal levels.

-Travel ranks as the seventh largest industry in the USA.

Granted these figures represent domestic travelers as well as international ones. If you just look at international travelers, they still supported 1.1 million jobs and $28.4 billion in wages in 2015 alone. And in a divided America, will we see less internal travel, too? Almost certainly.

And as the following report makes clear, the financial health of universities is also in jeopardy:



All of these developments must be humbling indeed for the country that has the hubris to call itself 'the greatest nation on earth."

Amen

H/t Toronto Star

In Case You Hadn't Noticed

Meanwhile, Star letter writers offer their suggestions:

Re: Chaos, fear and anger, Jan. 29

Canadians outraged at Trump’s ban on Muslims and refugees can take concrete action by contacting the United States embassy in Ottawa and pledging not to travel to the U.S. until the ban is overturned. We can’t vote south of the border, but we can ban ourselves in solidarity with the victims of Trump’s racist policies.

John Gilmore, Montreal

While emphasizing Canada’s diversity and willingness to accept refugees are good things, they are not enough. President Trump and his cadre are putting in place the foundation for religious and racial discrimination that, liberals are convinced, will lead to undermining democracy and endangering the world by pitting Muslims against non-Muslims.

I recognize that our relationship with and trade dependence on the U.S. is important, but the U.S. government will operate in what it deems its own best interests regardless of what Canada says publicly. There is no more risk to speaking out than in staying relatively silent. The rest of the world, however, needs to hear our message and see our opposition to this intolerance.

The federal government, as one of the last liberal regimes in the world, must be a voice for the sort of fairness and equality that will alleviate the fears of others and undermine the messages of fear and hatred coming equally from Daesh and Trump.

Bruce Milner, Richmond Hill

The Power That Resides Within All Of Us

We live a world where far too many decisions are heavily influenced, if not determined, by economic considerations. The cost of everything, and the value of nothing, seems to be today's ruling ethos, to the point where we regularly seem to be little more than cogs in a giant mercantile wheel. That can be a source of despair, but it can also be an opportunity for all of us to rediscover both our true power and our essential values.

I recently wrote about my personal decision to boycott travel to the U.S. for at least the next four years. In this update, I provide links and brief summaries of those who have made the same choice; I will end with a letter in today's Star that echoes the same theme.

In a commentary, Mark Bulgutch, a former senior executive producer of CBC News, offers his thankfulness at being born a Canadian, and cherishes the life Canada has given him the opportunity to pursue.

But now the United States has decided to shut everyone out if they were unlucky enough to be born in one of seven countries, which happen to have mostly Muslim populations.

That is a policy we can’t ignore.

There are a lot of things we can’t control in our lives ... But no one tells us where to spend our vacation. And no one forces us to cross the border to buy a sweater or a TV set.

So let’s not do it. There’s no need to start a campaign. Just make a personal decision to avoid the United States whenever you can as long as the cruelty persists.

It’s not a terrible sacrifice. Wait four years. We can hope the Trump presidency will then be over. The Grand Canyon will still be there. The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Disney World. They’ll all be there. And with any luck, the Statue of Liberty will still be there too.

Sheryl Nadler is another Canadian who has come to a similar conclusion. She talks about trips she and her girlfriends have regularly made to nearby Buffalo, a venue that offers them opportunities for shopping and nurturing their friendships:

...this weekend we made the call. Our next girls' weekend will be in Canada. And while I get that it's pointless to try to boycott the U.S. or to punish businesses of Americans who do not support Trump policies, that government's recent ban on immigrants and travellers from predominantly Muslim countries is abhorrent. The rolling back of women's reproductive rights, and the wall with Mexico are unthinkable. And the Trump administration's refusal to acknowledge the murder of six million Jews in its statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, essentially aligning itself with Holocaust deniers everywhere, is pretty much what I've been taught to fear my whole life.

Well-known Canadian author Linwood Barclay is making a similar choice, going so far as to cancel the U.S. part of his book tour, even though that may have negative consequences for sales.

The chaos caused by Trump's Muslim ban was a turning point for Barclay:

At this moment, entering Trump’s America feels akin to patronizing a golf course that excludes blacks, a health club that refuses membership to Jews.

I struggled most of the weekend with what to do. I spent a lot of time talking it over with my wife as we watched the news. I have never cancelled an event before. I had made a commitment to people. I had made promises.

For the writer, the other deciding factor was the mosque murders in Montreal which may have been influenced by the exclusionary policies favoured by Trump. as well the firebombings and vandalism of American mosques.

So I pulled out of the Arizona book events and went on Twitter to say that at least while the travel ban is in effect, I will be foregoing U.S. events and invitations.

It is not just individuals who are making the same call.

More than 4,000 university professors, administrators and researchers have signed a petition to boycott international academic conferences in the U.S. to show solidarity with Muslim colleagues affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

“The reality is these international conferences are large money generators. They are important economic drivers. We don’t want to give the economic support to the U.S. in this situation.”

And finally, there is this letter from David Wentzell, of Milton, responding to a recent column by Heather Mallick:

Re: You must decide if you are a Sally or a Sean, Feb.1

The more than 4,000 educators who have committed to boycott conferences in the U.S. have demonstrated that they are “Sallys” and not “Seans.” As Mallick exhorts, we must all, individually, make this decision. In what we hope is a “Sally” statement, my wife and I have committed to eliminate all discretionary travel to the U.S. during the Trump presidency.

I encourage your readers to take the next four years to discover the glories of Canada, instead of Florida, Arizona and California, or the other 47 states. As a modest encouragement, your paper could eliminate coverage and promotion of U.S. destinations from the Travel section. Mallick wonders if Canada can “obstruct America’s dark path without paying a price.” A U.S. travel boycott is a way for individual Canadians to do just that.

There are other ways to convey one's opposition to the repressive regime to the south. I will try to look at them soon.