1) (Update) ‘It’s very grim’: Duty-free shops see sales plummet as travellers shun U.S.

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Christopher Reynolds, April 11, 2025.

Philippe Bachand was in his mid-20s when he helped open his family’s duty-free store an hour south of Montreal.

In the 37 years since, he has never seen such a drastic drop-off in traffic and sales while the Canada-U.S. border was open.

After U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war and mused about annexing Canada, revenue began to plummet in lockstep with shrinking traveller volumes.

“January was not too bad. February was starting to slow down, and then March, with the new tariff and all that, my Canadian traffic was down 50 per cent,” said Bachand, 63, whose shop sits in Philipsburg, Que.

“It’s not fun.”

His experience reflects a blow felt by duty-free store owners across the country as Canadian travellers steer clear of the United States amid anger over tariffs, fears about treatment by border guards and demeaning comments from Trump about Canada as a potential “51st state.”

Sales at duty-free stores have fallen between 40 and 50 per cent across the country since late January, with some remote crossings reporting declines of up to 80 per cent, according to the Frontier Duty Free Association.

“It just dropped off the cliff,” said executive director Barbara Barrett, whose association represents 32 stores. “It’s very grim.”

The mom-and-pop shops, which sell products tax-free ranging from maple cookies to Canadian Club whiskey, were just starting to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic when the trade war struck, owners said.

“I just woke up from my COVID hangover, and I’m having a tariff nightmare,” said John Slipp, while driving to the duty-free outlet in Woodstock, N.B., that his father founded in 1985.

While duty-free stores at land crossings number fewer than three dozen, they can be cornerstones of the local economy in rural areas.

Layoffs loom as a possibility if business fails to turn around.

“I have not made them yet, but I’m going to be,” Slipp said.

The Frontier Duty Free Association, whose tightly regulated members do not have the option to pivot to delivery or online sales, is calling on the federal government to offer support in the form of grants or loans to ride out the disruption.

“We are 100 per cent dependent on that travel over the border,” Barrett stressed. “You have to be travelling over to the United States to enter into our stores.”

The number of Canadians returning by car from the U.S. fell nearly 32 per cent last month compared to March 2024, the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines and the steepest plunge since the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

At some crossings, Americans going back home make up the bulk of the buyers. But car visits by U.S. residents dropped 11 per cent last month versus a year earlier, the second straight month of year-over-year declines.

“It’s like the Americans are shy to come to Canada,” said Bachand. He pointed to the boos that American sports teams have received in Canada over the past two months.

“It’s not welcoming.

2) (Updated) GM temporarily halting CAMI plant on low demand, 500 jobs to be cut

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Ian Bickis, April 11, 2025

GM Canada says it’s temporarily halting production and cutting staff at its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont., because of lower-than-expected demand for its electric delivery vehicles.

“CAMI is making operational and employment adjustments to balance inventory and align production schedules with current demand,” said GM Canada spokeswoman Jennifer Wright in a statement.

The company remains committed to the future of the BrightDrop delivery van and the CAMI plant, and will support workers through the transition, she said.

The production halt comes after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on vehicles produced in Canada, but Wright said the CAMI adjustment is directly related to demand for the BrightDrop vehicle.

The CAMI plant is the only one that produces the EV delivery vehicle. 

Unifor, representing more than 1,200 workers at the plant, said it’s been told the plant will start temporary layoffs on April 14, come back for a limited production run in May, and then the plant will be idled until October.

Once production returns, it will operate on a single shift for the foreseeable future in what’s expected to mean the indefinite layoff of 500 workers, said Unifor. 

“This is a crushing blow to hundreds of working families in Ingersoll and the surrounding region who depend on this plant,” said Unifor national president Lana Payne in a statement.

“General Motors must do everything in its power to mitigate job loss during this downturn, and all levels of government must step up to support Canadian auto workers and Canadian-made products.”

Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican auto imports came into effect on April 3. 

On that same day, Stellantis said it was temporarily halting production at its Windsor, Ont., assembly plant, as well as some Mexican plants and U.S. feeder plants.  

The company said it imposed the two-week shutdown as it continues to assess the recently announced tariffs.

Automakers and experts have warned that the 25 per cent automotive tariffs will cause havoc in the highly-integrated North American supply chain and force plant closures and layoffs

3) Canadians turn their backs on U.S. travel, as return trips plunge: StatCan

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Christopher Reynolds and Jordan Omstead, April 10, 2025

Canadian visits to the United States plummeted last month amid anger ver tariffs and annexation threats from its president, on top of growing fears about treatment at the border

In March, the number of Canadians returning home by car from the U.S. fell nearly 32 per cent compared to March 2024, the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines and the steepest plunge since the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

Return trips by air from the U.S. fell 13.5 per cent year-over-year.

Backlash to tariffs both threatened and real by Donald Trump have prompted many Canadians to turn their backs on stateside excursions, as have belittling — or menacing — comments from the American president about Canada as a potential “51st state.”

“There’s a lot of resentment, a lot of anger,” said Martin Firestone, president of Toronto-based insurance firm Travel Secure Inc., in a recent interview.

Flight Centre Travel Group Canada spokeswoman Amra Durakovic has said of the drop-off in visits: “It definitely reflects the time right now, and the sentiment of Canadians.”

Reports of foreigners being sent to detention or processing centres for more than seven days, including Canadian Jasmine Mooney as well as a pair of German tourists and a backpacker from Wales, have sent shivers north of the border, chilling some Canadians’ urge to head down south.

“Even snowbird travellers are going to be treated like aliens,” said Firestone, referring to stricter registration rules for Canadians who stay in the U.S. for more than 30 days. Those new rules take effect Friday.

Last week, Canada updated its advisory to warn residents travelling to the U.S. they may face scrutiny from border guards and the possibility of detention if denied entry.

But Mike Niezgoda, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in New York state, said there is no cause for alarm.

“It’s business as usual here,” he said in an interview Thursday. “There’s no difference … As long as you’ve got your documents, you’re fine.”

Niezgoda said Canada’s currency may help explain the thinner cross-border traffic.

“My friends in Fort Erie, they’re going, ‘I literally can’t go to the mall because our dollar is just not that valuable at this point,'” he said.

The loonie has hovered around 70 cents US for the past few months. But it was in similar territory in December — before the tariff rhetoric ratcheted up — and Canadians took seven per cent more car trips year-over-year to the U.S. that month, StatCan data suggests.

Americans may not be motivated by the greater mileage their greenbacks get them up north. The number of car trips to Canada by U.S. residents in March fell nearly 11 per cent from a year earlier, the second straight month of year-over-year declines.

Meanwhile, Canadians are warming to regions beyond America.

Return trips from countries other than the U.S. increased about nine per cent year-over-year last month.

4) Sorry not sorry: Restaurants revamp decor, menus to showcase Canadian ties

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Tara Deschamps, April 6, 2025

When Grizzly Bar opens next week in Toronto, diners will have no doubt about where its owners’ allegiances lie in the trade war between Canada and the U.S.

Maple leaves and animatronic bears will set the mood. Customers will be able to order Montreal smoked meat, calamari from the Maritimes or Caesars topped with ketchup chips in mini paper boats. They can all be paid for by cash, card or the country’s other favourite currency, Canadian Tire money.

For entertainment, Blue Rodeo, Rush and Loverboy will be on heavy rotation and a “Hoser Olympics” will see customers face off in a series of challenges like the “loonie toss,” “hockey tape escape” and “sorry-not-sorry” Canadian apology competition.

“It’s going to be wild how much stuff there is,” said co-owner Jessica Langer Kapalka, who also plans to dress the bar manager in a nine-foot, inflatable grizzly bear costume and set up tents offering a campfire-like experience with s’mores.

Grizzly Bar’s in-your-face approach is one of the ways Canadian restaurants are responding to the tariff tensions that have engulfed North America and threatened to upend food supply chains and dining out budgets.

As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to antagonize his country’s closest ally with duties on everything from cars to kitchen cupboard staples, Canadian restaurants have swapped U.S. ingredients for domestic ones.

Some have revamped menus, ditching the Philly cheesesteak and replacing Americanos with Canadianos, while others are holding back on U.S. expansion plans.

The varying approaches reflect the fact that every establishment has had to find its own way to balance its Canadian pride with the preferences of its customer base and the realities of pricing pressures, said Jo-Ann McArthur, president at Toronto advertising agency Nourish Food Marketing.

“You don’t have to go all the way to changing your decor and changing your entire menu,” she said. “It’s about supporting your local producers where you can.”

Yet some, like James McInnes, are keen to take the issue even further.

His vegan fast-food chain Odd Burger Corp. paused its plan to open 60 franchises in the U.S. just two weeks after announcing the expansion in March.

McInnes made the decision because he feared “escalating political tensions” had made the economics of the plan too much for his London, Ont.-based business to stomach.

“Not only are the tariff percentages changing on a daily basis, but also what is getting tariffed is changing on a regular basis,” McInnes explained.

“How do you formulate pricing for franchisees when you don’t know what many of the costs will be?”

Rather than get caught up in the confusion, Odd Burger decided to stay focused on its Canadian operations and think more closely about what it can do to insulate its supply chain from the U.S.

“If there’s a 200 per cent tariff put on Coke, we don’t know what that will look like,” he said. “We’re exposing ourselves to a lot of risk and at a certain point, it just doesn’t make financial sense to carry U.S. products.”

At Kanoo Coffee, it was patriotism rather than prices that got co-owner Steve Neville to make its menu unabashedly Canadian.

When the Guelph, Ont., café opened last year, the plan was to bring customers a taste of the world’s best coffees, so it cycled through international brews until the tariff spat convinced Neville to make Canadian coffee the star.

“We realized it’s been a no-brainer all along,” he said.

Kanoo’s offerings now come from Subtext Coffee Roasters in Toronto, September Coffee Co. in Ottawa, Phil & Sebastian in Calgary and Traffic Coffee Co. in Montreal.

“Being in this globalized world, we’ve kind of lost sight of some of those domestic priorities (like) supporting local businesses, local families … and that’s starting to break down,” Neville said. “So that’s kind of like the silver lining to all this.”

Grizzly Bar is similarly proud it will be able to put the spotlight on Canada.

The company found the fixings for menu highlights like poutine,chicken wings and bison burgers at home.

“I was expecting it to be a lot more difficult in some ways to source the majority of our food items from Canada, but it hasn’t been that difficult at all,” Langer Kapalka said,

In the few cases when something can’t be sourced from Canada, the business turns to allies. That’s why New Zealand elk and Mexican fruit and vegetables make the menu and the animatronic bears come from the Philippines.

Asked how much she and Jason Kapalka, her business and life partner, spent on the endeavour, she said, “wish I knew!” The couple’s budget is up to $15,000 but they reduced expenses by getting friends to scour “wood-panelled basements” for eccentric decor they could borrow.

All of the preparations happened in the last few weeks after the couple settled on transforming Offworld Bar, a dining establishment they run that rotates through different themes, into a Canadian paradise.

The beach style pop-up Grizzly Bar will supplant lasted about two months. The Canadian theme will likely stick around longer.

Kapalka jokes about running it until 2028, when the U.S. will elect its next president, but hopes the political tide will render it unnecessary even sooner.

“Hopefully, there’ll be a different regime at some stage there,” he said. “I would look forward to switching it off, if there’s no longer a need for it.”