Alan Zendell, March 18, 2025

To Americans like me who have always loved Canada and considered our Canadian neighbors our best friends in the world, the actions of the second Trump administration are especially damning. Imagine that one day you found out your best friend since childhood was publicly bad-mouthing you, calling you a leech and a parasite who steals from you. Imagine they’ve been making up outrageous lies about you like knowingly allowing Fentanyl to be smuggled into your neighborhood, and they even questioned your right to exist as an independent entity.

I admit I’m biased. I have twenty-two aunts and uncles, and from the time I was a young child, my favorite uncle, who was always nice to me even when I was a pain in everyone’s rear end, was from Alberta. In 1965, he bought one of the first Ford Mustangs, and of all things, he gave it to me for a month and let me drive it from New York to Ithaca and keep it at Cornell while I finished my Masters Degree – who does things like that? He didn’t have to, but when my father and millions of other American men were drafted to fight in World War 2, my uncle enlisted in the U. S. Army and fought alongside Americans. (I learned, many years later, that he was actually born in Brooklyn and moved to Canada as a toddler, but he was still my Canadian uncle.)

He was only one man, but I’ve known many Canadians, and they’ve always lived up to their reputation of being “just like us only nicer.” It infuriates me that Trump is treating Canada the way he is. He even threatened to destroy their automobile industry after decades in which Canada and Mexico have partnered with American car companies to create efficient, affordable vehicles, we couldn’t have made alone. Our interests don’t always align perfectly – sometimes we’re competitors. Have you ever known a family in which siblings never bicker or disagree?

According to Trump’s (and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s) policies, Canadians are no different from our thieving allies in Europe. When we forget who our real friends are we diminish them and ourselves.

Canadians own roughly 500,000 homes in Florida. They pay several billion dollars in real estate taxes and patronize stores, restaurants, and amusements. For years they have been a consistent source of demand in the real estate market, helping Floridians maintain the value of their homes. They make up a significant portion of the snowbirds who spend every winter in Florida, fitting seamlessly into our population.

In the last few years, however, severe hurricanes and high inflation have greatly increased the cost of having a second home in Florida. Insurance rates have skyrocketed, and Homeowners Association fees and special assessments resulting from Florida’s new structural integrity laws are doing the same. This hits all of us, but it hits Canadians harder. The average household income in the northeast and middle Atlantic regions of the United States, where most American snowbirds live, is about $86,000 US dollars. For Ontario and Quebec, where most Canadian snowbirds live, the comparable numbers in US dollars are $68,700 and $52,440. In addition, the exchange rate between American and Canadian dollars is US$0.69 = CA$1.00. As a result, many Canadians have been finding it too expensive to own and maintain properties in Florida. The news media are full of comments by Florida realtors who see an accelerating trend of Canadians selling out.

This began well before Trump took office, but the White House’s policies toward Canada seem to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The administration has proposed new rules and restrictions on Canadians crossing the border, particularly for those who plan to stay more than thirty days. Moreover, Trump’s on again/off again trade policies make the future extremely uncertain for Canadians. The result is that more and more of our northern neighbors are divesting their Florida properties.

You don’t have to be an economist to see that dumping thousands of properties into an already tight real estate market could have a devastating effect on home prices all over Florida. It’s another clear example of what happens when zealots take a chain saw to our economy. I wonder how Governor Ron DeSantis feels about what Trump is doing to property values in his state.

I see Canadian friends who have wintered in Florida, propping up its economy for decades, finally deciding that Canada’s relationship with the United States is too uncertain to risk their investments. I’ve approached a number of them to participate in a Focus Group with me. I intend to interview them regularly and listen to their views on Trump and United States policy toward Canada, and I will publish everything they tell me in future articles.

Stay tuned. It should be very interesting.