Elbows Up

by Vicki Delany

I am a Canadian, and in the 20 years since I became a full-time author, I’ve travelled to the United States many, many times. I love meeting readers and fellow authors. I love listening to their stories and talking books and brainstorming promotional efforts. Of the three major mystery conferences (Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, and Bouchercon) I’ve gone to at least one every year, many years all of them. (COVID years excepted, naturally). I’ve been to smaller festivals and conferences, to libraries, to bookstores. I’ve done a signing in a bowling alley and one in a gym and have been a guest speaker at the Pennsylvania Tea Festival. I’ve toured with wonderful American authors many of whom I now consider good friends, and I’ve spent before and after event time enjoying a vacation.

Is all that over? Possibly. I posted the following to my Facebook author page in February.

With much regret I wrote to the Malice Domestic Board today to tell them I will shortly be cancelling my registration and hotel booking. As a proud Canadian, I can not in good conscience travel to the United States as long as the President continues to insult our Prime Minister and our country and is threatening Canadian sovereignty,  either by destroying  us economically, or invading militarily. I will miss getting together with my many American friends and readers. I hope, but do not expect, that the situation will change and we can meet again.

I believe Canada, and the entire democratic world, is at an existential crossroads. The current regime in the United States is determined, for whatever demented reason, to eliminate Canada as an independent country, by whatever means necessary.  The insults from the President and other members of the regime against our Prime Minster personally (and yes, Governor is an insult and meant as such) as well as the country as a whole  are relentless. The tone and much of the wording is exactly the same as used by Russia prior to its invasion of Ukraine. (Trump: Most Canadians want to be 51^ststate. Peter Navarro: Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels. Elon Musk: Canada is not a real county).

We don’t for a minute believe, even if this comes to pass, we would be a “51^st state.”  We wouldn’t be a state, with voting rights and government investment, but a colony, a vassal to be exploited for resources.  We believe this intended exploitation is the entire purpose of this out-of-nowhere threat.

In 2019, the leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico negotiated a revised free trade treaty called CUSMA (CanadaUSMexicoAgreement). This treaty is up for renewal in 2026. 2026. Not today. Showing that the word of the President of the United States is meaningless, Trump has overturned the agreement and slapped steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

The pretext Trump is using to impose tariffs on Canadian goods (in violation of a treaty he himself signed) is that supposedly Canada is allowing fentanyl to “pour’ across the border. That is an out and out lie.

According to the CNN on Feb 3, 2025 :  Fact check: Canada makes up just 0.2% of US border fentanyl seizures | CNN Politics

Federal statistics show US border authorities seized 21,889 pounds of fentanyl in the 2024 fiscal year. Of that amount, 43 pounds were seized at the Canadian border — about 0.2%

Only a month later, on March 4, 2025,  then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quoted data from US customs and border protection:

“..fentanyl seizures from Canada have dropped 97 per cent between December 2024 and January 2025 to a near-zero low of 0.03 pounds seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”

Near zero. Down from a very low figure to begin with.

Therefore, there is literally nothing Canada can do, as the PM pointed out, to fix a problem that does not exist.  (As an aside there are no customs and immigration checks upon leaving either Canada or the US for the other country.  Is it not, therefore, the responsibility of US customs to stop illicit goods coming in? Never mind attempting to solve the fentanyl problem in your country yourselves.)

Why then does Trump keep repeating the lie? Because it isn’t about making trade ‘fair’ or fixing problems that don’t exist, and thus cannot be fixed, but creating circumstances to permit the annexation of Canada’s Arctic, natural resources, and water.

Trump and some of his sycophants keep repeating that Canadians want to be taken over by the US.  (Again, echoes of Putin to Ukraine). It’s a lie.  Here’s a poll reported  March 12, 2025 by the respected Canadian pollster Angus Reid.  The categories are by voters of the federal political parties.

This isn’t a trade dispute; it is an outright attack on our sovereignty and Canadians are coming together in a way they haven’t since WWII.  We are well aware that a trade war hurts everyone, but the Government of Canada believes appeasement will accomplish nothing, so Canada has imposed tariffs on a wide range of US goods.

As well as retaliatory tariffs, Canadians are fighting back in other ways. Stores are posting stickers on shelves indicating Canadian goods. Apps are being created to indicate the nationality of companies and the source of their product, and Canadians are taking those apps shopping. The world’s largest purchaser of alcohol is the Ontario liquor stores – all US products have been removed from the shelves and the same thing is happening in other provinces.  The province of Ontario (where I live) announced a 25 percent surcharge on exports of electricity to the US (now on ‘pause’ pending further developments.) Substantial numbers of Canadians are cancelling holidays to the US, or, like me, forgoing optional business trips. The list goes on and continues to grow.

Ontario Liquor Store – March 2025, photo by Vicki Delany

We’re not interested in the game of ‘on-again, off-again, on-again’ Trump is engaging in. As long as the threat exists, Canada will retaliate.

Our new Prime Minister, Mark Carey, has been very clear. “We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” he said on March 14, 2025.

It has been said that Canadians are prepared to sacrifice much in this fight and Americans nothing, so we do have the upper hand. Which of course, considering your President, might not matter.

We will see how things pan out, but I am encouraged by the solid and vocal support we are getting from our many American friends.

There isn’t much I can do, as an average Canadian citizen, to resist these threats, other than make my position public, shop mindfully, and refuse to grace the United States by my presence, definitely not spend any money.

Others have different opinions. Some say it’s important to engage Americans, and point out that despite propaganda from the US leader and members of his party and administration, the overwhelming number of Canadians are firmly against any take-over.  I’d argue in return, we have social media on which to present our case and a substantial number of my American friends approve of my choice to make this clear stand.

I will admit the decision to forgo travel to the US is easier for me than it might be for self-published or small press authors and particularly for writers just starting their career. I have a solid social media following, I have a strong reader base, I’m active in two prominent online cozy mystery groups, I’ve been building my newsletter distribution list for twenty years.

It’s up to each of us to decide what’s best for us and for our country. I’ve made my decision.

Elbows up.

Protect yourself and your teammates.

***

Vicki Delany is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy.  She is currently writing the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, the Tea by the Sea books, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).

Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the CWC Awards of Excellence. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Let’s have a chat with Vicki in the comments.  I, for one, would love to hear her thoughts on what her American friends here on Balloon Juice can do.  Elbows up!