The days of two people eating breakfast at Ted's Coney Island for $12 in Canadian funds and reasonable bridge fare are gone. Now, two people's breakfast is $20 Canadian, and bridge fare is $14 round trip for a day excursion. That, and the Bluewater Bridge no longer accepts cash. Compounding this are the host of bad feelings because of tariffs imposed by the American presidential administration.
How many people stopped going to the U.S.? In February 2025, the number dropped by 12,000 people. Obviously, those aren't all from Sarnia itself, but the sample size is large enough to extrapolate that the percentage drop will be the same. The total number of crossings in February was roughly 53,000. That's an 18.2% drop from the approximately 66,000 that crossed the border in February 2024.
From March until May of 2025, the percentage drop increased to 23%. All of these traffic numbers are for passenger vehicles, not trucks. In fact, truck traffic has increased, often to ludicrous levels. Backups all the way to Mandaumin Road, which were rare in the past, have become increasingly common. When I spoke to a few people in Sarnia, none of whom wanted to be named in this story, the intense truck traffic was a common theme as to why they didn't cross the border as much as they used to, if at all.
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The ongoing construction since 2023 hasn't helped matters any. The truck drivers themselves haven't been too pleased either. Many trucking companies in Canada don't pay by the hour for overtime. They only pay by the mile driven, so sitting in a lineup at the Bluewater Bridge for four hours can cost them 200 or more miles of pay. Sarnia citizens have also been periodically displeased with the truck traffic going through town as truckers attempt to bypass the terrible lineups by using a combination of off and on ramps.
The political friction boiled over in March 2025, when Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, citing the ongoing trade war and the American president's asinine rhetoric about Canada, issued a directive to have all American flags removed from municipal buildings. Bradley framed the move as "...standing up for Canada," a sentiment that resonated with many residents who called city hall in support. However, the decision was not unanimous. Councillor Bill Dennis called the reaction "childish and short-sighted," though his appears to be the minority position.
The trade war has created another casualty: the Canadian dollar. Against "Yankee bucks," the dollar sits at just $0.73. The lack of Canadian buying power, along with rising costs across the border from a combination of tariffs and inflation, is a big turn-off to Canadians who used to shop in Michigan frequently. One person I interviewed, who asked only to be referred to as "Hope," said that she definitely couldn't afford to shop "over the river," particularly because of the $14 round-trip cost.
Hope also had other reasons why she didn't want to cross. Citing the case of Jasmine Mooney, who was detained for nearly two weeks for a minor issue, Hope said that she, "...didn't want to wind up being sent to El Salvador simply because someone didn't like the cut of her jib." She also said that she didn't want to wind up being in the U.S. if "...something went down," and she was then unable to return. "What the **** would I do then?" she said.
The others I interviewed weren't as specific as Hope, but the consensus was that it wasn't safe to travel to the U.S., was too expensive, and would mean supporting a country that, as Bradley said while discussing the flag removals, mocked and belittled Canada.
As stated in the already-referenced article about 12,000 fewer people crossing the border each month, newly elected Port Huron mayor Anita Ashford lamented the "...decisions made in Washington" that adversely affect the economy of her border city. One of the people I interviewed thought that was disingenuous because St. Clair County went 66% for the current president. Mayor Ashford ran under "no party affiliation."
It remains to be seen whether this downward trend in border crossings will continue or abate. None of the people who I interviewed were sure about anything that might happen, but there was a general wish among them for better things in the future on both sides of the border.
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