A man walks past closed shops in the San Juan de Dios commercial district in the historic center of Guadalajara, Jalisco state, Mexico, on Monday.ULISES RUIZ/AFP/Getty Images
It has not been a good season for the Canadian sun-seeker, in pursuit of respite from this endless winter and trying to do the right thing while you’re at it.
In protest of Donald Trump, you’re not travelling to the U.S.; you refuse to spend a single loonie in a country that is threatening Canada’s economic stability and our sovereignty. (And insulting us to boot – did you see that that AI video the President of the United States posted portraying himself as a hockey player, beating up on a Canadian opponent? Talk about loony.)
You can’t travel to Cuba, because of Mr. Trump’s cruel oil blockade that has devastated the country and shut down its important tourism industry. Other Caribbean destinations, including Curaçao and Aruba, may feel iffy too, as a result of the U.S. operation in Venezuela.
So, wanting to support a country that, like Canada, is a target of Mr. Trump’s tariffs – and whose families are deeply affected by his immigration crackdown – you’ve landed on Mexico. Where you might not be able (or now want) to land at all.
With around 55,000 Canadians registered in Mexico, many of us know someone who’s down there, caught up in the recent cartel-led chaos. It’s a shock and a scare to hear gunshots, watch smoke take over the pretty resort haven of Puerto Vallarta, and realize you’re stuck – at best.
Vacationing Canadians can’t escape the effects of Trump’s policies
It does seem strange for the primary concern about this turmoil to be for the safety and ruined plans of vacationers when there are so many actual Mexicans with no escape route to security – who bring up their children, run their businesses, and live daily life under the shadow and menacing control of the all-powerful cartels. How to utter, even in the same breath, the plight of the stranded tourists, the postponed destination weddings, the endless waits on hold with airlines?
That’s not to discount how awful any of this is for Canadians. Beyond the actual danger and fear, it is painfully disruptive and expensive: at minimum, a gigantic bummer. You save and save, you trudge through a horrible Canadian winter with an escape date circled in red, and then you are denied.
Worse, we often make these plans thinking we’re doing the right thing.
Travel guilt can be part of the tropical vacation experience. Anyone who has headed from an airport to an all-inclusive resort in the air-conditioned comfort of the hotel shuttle – travelling past evidence of a much less comfortable existence for locals en route to the gated multi-swimming-pooled paradise where you can disconnect for a few days – has probably felt some form of this.
It’s complicated, right? Because you’re not luxuriating on the backs of local families; your tourist dollars contribute to the economy. But do they also support nefarious government policies or corrupt politicians – or, in Mexico, the cartels?
Or does that matter, because your vacation is supporting the citizens caught up in the hell of the situation: the siege, the cartel control, the oppressive governance, or what have you?
You’ve packed toothpaste and school supplies in your suitcase for the children of the Cuban resort workers. You tip well. You leave behind all of your unspent pesos in the hotel room. You mean well, you really do.
But in the case of Mexico, anyone with the privilege of being able to travel there knows what’s going on, right? We push aside the truth of the nightmare of cartel-controlled Mexican life in our pursuit of some quality beach time – until we can’t ignore it, because there’s smoke all over the city and they’ve just shut down the road outside the hotel.
Are we guilty of prioritizing fun in the sun over humanitarianism? Or do we feel as if we are helping, as much as we can help (how much power do we really have?) with these choices?
But by not going, who suffers? (Beyond us, the sun-starved.)
One thing we know for sure is that voting with our vacation dollars has had an impact. In 2025, total foreign travel to the United States was down 5.4 per cent through November, USA Today reports, led by four million fewer Canadian visits. In January, visitors from Canada fell 28 per cent, according to the New York Times , compared to January, 2024, pre-Trump. It’s costing the U.S. tourism industry billions.
We don’t like your ICE, we don’t like the rupture your President is creating in his own country and the world - or his stupid fake ice-hockey video. We’ll find another way to escape from our own icy winter. We’ll just have to figure out where, in a way that is safe for all. We hope.