Canada has been awash with talk of US boycotts since the start of the trade war. It’s a theme that’s consumed the Canadian election, which will take place on Monday.
What’s harder to quantify is the actual impact on spending and travel. Today, Statistics Canada released its cross-border report for February and it shows a real impact, though not as large as touted in some reports.
A viral news story last month indicated that Canadian air bookings were down 70% but this number is much more modest. That’s no surprise as Air Canada said in late March that its US booking curve was down 10% over the next six months.
The bad news is that auto and same-day travel is more indicative of real-time decisions, as air travel is often booked months in advance. It suggests we will see poor Canada-to-US travel in March and beyond.
Perhaps a caveat is that February weather was particularly harsh and that could have curbed cross-border road trips. Toronto saw 73.4 cm of snow in February 2025 – roughly double the normal amount and the Feb 13-16 period was particularly harsh. Throughout Feb 2025, Environment Canada issued numerous winter storm warnings, blizzard advisories, and extreme cold warnings in some areas. Another system on Feb 28, 2025 brought ~15 cm more snow to Ontario. Compare that to Feb 2024, which saw no major storms.
Weather alone in Feb 2025 likely caused a 5–15% reduction in cross-border trips, or around one-third of the same-day auto trip decline. Along those lines, US auto trips to Canada were also down 6.5% y/y in February with same day down 7.0% m/m despite a very strong USD/CAD in the month.
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