N.Y.’S ties with Canada weathering tough times
Canadian opinion of America’s policies isn’t stopping tourists
Canadians may not have the highest opinion of the U.S. and President Donald Trump, but that chill from the north has not hurt business and tourism ties to New York.
“It was amazing how fast things unfroze” after Canada and the Trump administration announced a new trade agreement in late November, said Garry Douglas, president and CEO of the North Country Chamber of Commerce.
“The phones starting ringing again. The Canadians are back,” said Douglas, whose group represents 3,200 companies in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton and Warren counties, as well as in the Canadian province of Quebec.
That upbeat message was echoed by tourism officials in the North Country and Lake George regions, who report visits by Canadians remained strong this summer, even as Trump and his aides castigated Canadian leader Justin Trudeau during trade talks as “weak,” dishonest,” and deserving of “a special place in hell.”
The Trump administration also slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum in June, which still remain in place.
But all that disparaging talk ended after the U.S. and Canada inked a new trade deal to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement, which now goes before the U.S. Congress for its review and potential approval.
New York’s shoreline along Lake Champlain, marketed as
the Adirondack Coast, is a key tourism destination for visiting Canadians, and visits there remained strong this summer, said Kristi Kennedy, vice president for marketing at the Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau.
“Numbers were up for Champlain this year. Each month we saw 4 to 11 percent growth,” she said. “We got comments (from upset Canadians) on our social media after the election, but they died down quickly and we just replied with ‘We understand our strong and important ties to Canada.’”
She said merchants in the region report that Canadian shoppers are still visiting, with numbers up for Black Friday last month. “In all aspects, from visitors to air travel, the Canadian traveler was on the rise in 2018,” Kennedy said.
The same goes for the Lake George region, another tourist destination popular with Canadians, said Joanne Conley, director of the Warren County Tourism Department.
“We also saw some negative commenting on social media, but that stopped at the end of the summer,” she said. “Our numbers remained steady. In our experience, changes in visitation are tied to the exchange rate more than anything else.”
While New York state is not bearing the brunt of Canadian ire, there are many citizens of that country who are not feeling quick to forgive in the wake of what they saw as bullying and insults from the blustering American leader.
In November, an established Canadian public opinion poll found that the view of the U.S. was at its lowest level since the question was first asked in 1982.
The poll by the Toronto-based Environics Institute for Survey Research found that 37 percent of Canadians have a favorable view of the U.S., down 10 percentage points from the year before at the end of Trump’s first year.
When President Barack
Obama left office, nearly two Canadians in three looked up to the U.S. The previous low had come during the second term of President George W. Bush, when about half of Canadians held an unfavorable view of their southern neighbor.
“This declining view of the U.S.A. (in 2018) is evident across most of the country,” according to the poll, “but is most noticeably among older Canadians and those with lower levels of education and income.”
Opinions about Trump were even worse, with nearly 80 percent of Canadians disapproving of him, the poll found.
Closer to home, the Trump administration’s trade war, which also placed tariffs on imported Chinese goods, has not yet hampered business at the Port of Albany, said Bill Ring, port manager for the Canadian-based Federal Marine Terminals.
Imported Chinese-made subway cars, bound for the Boston transit system, started arriving in Albany this fall, and should continue through 2021, said Ring, given that purchase contracts were already signed.
More such cars could follow, if the city of Philadelphia completes an agreement with the Chinese, he said.
At his office in Plattsburgh, Douglas is hopeful that a Canadian alternative energy company will finalize a deal to set up in the former Air Force base there. He is also busy planning business research trips to Quebec this spring, after not doing such visits this year, he said.
“But there is a little bit of a cloud out here,” said Douglas. “Congress needs to approve the new trade deal, and we are hearing there may be some opposition on both sides of the border, a debate which creates uncertainty.”
In what Douglas sees as a worst-case scenario, should Congress not quickly accept what the Trump administration has created, the President could cancel NAFTA, which would throw economic ties between the two countries into turmoil. Meanwhile, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has made it clear what it thinks about continued tariffs on steel and aluminum.
“Canadian exports do not pose a national security threat to our closest ally,” according to a Canadian chamber statement on Nov. 30. “The federal government must continue pressing for a full and permanent exemption for Canada from the United States’ tariffs. These tariffs harm Canadian competitiveness and only weaken North American supply chains.”
▶ bnearing@timesunion.com 518-454-5094 @Bnearing10