Bob Bloomer was loath to cancel his Florida trip this year.
The retiree from Cobourg, Ont., looks forward to the annual pilgrimage to Orlando. Come March, a third of the cars in his usual resort’s lot seem to have Ontario licence plates.
The chance to catch a tan, play golf and catch up with familiar faces has become a family tradition.
Except for the early pandemic, Bloomer and his wife have travelled south every March for the past 20 years, he told CBC. The kids came too before they grew up.
So why did he cancel this year?
“Basically just frustration listening to Trump and all his rhetoric about how Canada’s taking advantage of the U.S. with the trade agreement that basically he engineered,” he said.
Since assuming office again in January, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada, or introduce punishing tariffs on Canadian goods.
Coming from Canada’s closest ally, these threats have angered many of the approximately one million Canadian snowbirds who travel to the U.S. each winter.
Some have cancelled trips, while others are considering whether they will return next season.
The implications of a boycott are worrying Florida hoteliers, realtors and organizations that represent snowbirds.
‘Craziness’ to hotel owner
Down in Hollywood, Fla., the water is still warm and the weather is still perfect, so Richard Clavet can’t understand why Canadian guests are cancelling bookings.
“Right now, the places are being filled up with Americans. I just wish I had more Canadians,” he told CBC.
The proprietor of Richard’s Motel, Clavet arrived from Quebec in 1985 and never left, becoming an ambassador for a French-speaking enclave in the beachside community north of Miami.
Since buying his first motel in 1990, he has amassed a group of properties now offering about 200 units to an almost exclusively Québécois clientele. They came to escape brutal winters but return year after year for the Québécois television, the French magazines and the poutine food truck.
Which is why Clavet, who is a Trump supporter in the state hosting his Mar-a-Lago resort, is perplexed that anyone would cancel their booking over some bluster from the 47th president.
“This is not Trump’s country, this is Little Quebec,” he tells uneasy guests.
Still, he’s seen “craziness” in the past few weeks.
“I’ve seen a customer dropping a $1,000 deposit to choose to go to Cuba instead,” he said.
“They’re boycotting Trump,” he said, incredulous that someone would instead choose to vacation in a one-party state — or in Mexico, where some drug cartels are now listed as terrorist groups by Canada.
Worse for him, more guests are reconsidering whether they will return next year.
“They’re all worrying, you know, ‘What’s gonna happen? Are we gonna go to war?” Clavet explained, insisting that they’re “way overreacting.”
Overreaction or not, plenty of snowbirds are weighing their futures, according to Rudy Buttignol, the president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons.
Buttignol has been on a listening tour, hearing from some of his organization’s 250,000 members about their views on vacationing in the U.S.
“Anecdotally, I would say more than half the people that I’ve spoken to … have said they were definitely reconsidering their travel plans,” he said.
Trump’s threats have come toward the end of the snowbird season, meaning that their full impact on the market will not be felt until next fall, according to Stephen Fine, president of Snowbird Advisor.
“There’s definitely a negative sentiment amongst a number of snowbirds at this point, but I’m not sure what that is going to translate to for next season,” Fine said.
Canadians selling
So far, short-term travellers have been more likely to cancel their plans than snowbirds, who have stronger ties to the U.S., Fine said.
He said 40 per cent of snowbirds own property and 70 per cent drive their own vehicles down, meaning going elsewhere isn’t as simple as changing a plane ticket.
But a weak loonie and rising costs have already made the Sunshine State an increasingly expensive option for snowbirds, forcing a growing number of Canadians to sell their properties, according to Fort Lauderdale real estate agent Alexandra DuPont.
“In the last two weeks it’s shifted to what’s been happening more on the political side,’ she said of the motivations of Canadian sellers.
She’s currently listing 35 properties, she said, and about 30 of those are owned by Canadians. Meanwhile, she has zero Canadian buyers. It’s unprecedented in her 12 years of selling real estate.
“I’ve never had this many listings in my life,” DuPont said. “A lot of my clients are checking up weekly … they want to know how come I’m not bringing offers.”
In St. Petersburg, Fla., Johanne Ouellette is one Ottawa snowbird weighing whether she will continue wintering in the U.S.
“It is certainly a choice we will have to make down the road, probably in the spring,” she told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning.
“It’s a big choice. It’s not just a vacation for us. It’s a way of life.”
But Bloomer, the retiree from Cobourg, says he is reluctant to return to Florida while Trump is in office.
“We just booked,” he said: “We’re leaving for the Dominican on March 1.”
