Alberta-U.S. travel down but not as sharply as the rest of Canada. Is it politics? Pragmatism? Peer pressure?

CBC

26-05-2025

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It's been well documented by now that Canadians have been travelling to the United States less since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, but a further breakdown of the data reveals Alberta has seen smaller declines than the rest of the country.
Air travel through Alberta's major airports, in particular, has been less affected than at airports in the rest of Canada.
And while Alberta-U.S. travel by land is down quite a bit, the declines are still less pronounced than what's been seen at border crossings in other provinces.
These trends come as no surprise to David Rast.
He's a psychology professor at the University of Alberta who studies leadership, social influences and group behaviour. He's also an American who has been living outside of the United States for the past 13 years.
"Every time I go back to the states, I feel less and less like I'm an American and less and less like I belong there," he said.
Rast has a trip planned to the U.S. this month and understands the mixed feelings many Canadian residents now have about travelling to a country widely seen, until recently, as a friend and ally.
"I am also apprehensive about going to the U.S. and have thought about cancelling my trip, but it's been planned for quite a while, so we're just kind of continuing with it," he said.
"But we have had some people who were going with us who have backed out."
'A lot of interesting dynamics' at play
That dichotomy has played out in millions of Canadians' travel decisions this year and, statistically speaking, those in Alberta appear to have leaned more toward going than not going when compared with the rest of the country.
We don't know exactly why, but Rast believes political viewpoints likely play a big role — as they do in so many aspects of our beliefs and decision-making.
Other Albertans who have made their own travel decisions this year figured other factors are at play, as well.
Alberta's oilpatch does have close ties to Texas, for instance, and business trips might be less likely to be cancelled than personal vacations. The geography of Alberta also means spur-of-the-moment trips to the United States are harder than they are in other parts of the country, and those trips are easier to cancel than long-planned vacations.
Safety concerns also play a role, and those worries can be especially pronounced for those who don't follow binary gender norms.
Then there's also the influence of old-fashioned peer pressure.
"A lot of interesting dynamics are at play here," Rast said. "And the answer is far from straightforward at all, once we start getting into all the different politics, groups and subgroups, and then the international relations going on, as well."
Booked in advance, but not booking again
Greg Rairdan was among the Albertans who decided to go.
But, he said, it came with some hesitation.
The 52-year-old Edmonton resident actually made two recent trips to the U.S. this calendar year, both booked in the fall of 2024. Or, as he puts it, "before the inauguration, before the 51st-state stuff."
The first trip was to Las Vegas with a group of guy friends for "some golf and hanging out." The second was a family trip to watch the Canadian men's soccer team play in the CONCACAF Nations League Finals in Inglewood, Calif.
He said it crossed his mind to cancel the trips when Trump's tariff talk and annexation rhetoric heated up, but after thinking it through and discussing it with his fellow travellers, they decided to continue on with their plans.
"It just didn't make any sense for us to cancel a non-refundable trip, burn all that money," he said.
That said, he will think twice about booking future trips.
"I think with United States trying to punish us economically, I don't think it makes sense for us to spend our hard-earned tourism dollars in the United States at this moment," Rairdan said.
"And it seems like there are a lot of like-minded Canadians."
That sense of national solidarity, he said, is palpable. And there's a degree of social pressure that comes along with it.
"I think especially when the news cycle hit its peak, not going to the United States was being seen as a proxy for the Canadian patriotism," he said.
"But, you know, I haven't really heard of anyone actually being really judgmental, like, 'That person is a bad person because they're going to the United States.'"
Personal boycott, professional consequences
Jennifer Annesley is among the Albertans who decided not to go.
And, as a professional visual artist, it was a difficult decision.
One of her paintings was accepted into the 158th International Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society, an honour that comes complete with an invitation to the Salmagundi Club in New York City, where the event is held.
It's not the first time she's had a painting accepted into the annual exhibition, but it's the first time she's turned down the invitation — and the professional opportunities that come with attendance.
She thought long and hard about her decision and ultimately chose to make "a personal boycott" due to "the tensions between the U.S. and Canada."
"I wanted to make my own statement by not going and not travelling and not spending my time there," Annesley said.
As time went on, however, she started to see other reasons for not crossing the border, including warnings about U.S. Border Patrol's ability and willingness to search people's personal electronic devices, and stories about international travellers being aggressively detained.
"It sort of started out as protest and then ended up with being a bit fearful to go," she said.
'I certainly felt anxious'
Those worries crossed Gavin Needham's mind, as well.
The 29-year-old Edmontonian recently travelled to New York City on his way to board a cruise ship that would take him across the Atlantic Ocean.
"On a personal level, I certainly felt anxious about the process, [and] if there would be any extra scrutiny at the [U.S.] border," he said from the ship, via a direct-message conversation, as he continued his vacation in Europe.
However, he said the experience flying to New York via Toronto, where he did pre-clearance via the NEXUS program, all went as smoothly as it had in the past.
He's planning one more trip to New York in the summer and another trip to Florida in the late fall.
"They were all booked ahead of time with non-refundable deposits so cancelling would mean losing out on some money," he said.
Needham wondered if Alberta's air-travel numbers, in particular, are affected by people in similar situations, with non-refundable U.S. trips booked months ahead of time. That might explain why February and March saw such small declines in air travel, while April's decline was significantly larger.
Alberta-U.S. travel by land, meanwhile, has seen larger declines than by air. (But still not as large as in the rest of the country.)
Needham notes Alberta's geography makes travel options to the U.S. "a lot more limited" than for British Columbians who can make relatively easy trips down to Washington state, or Ontarians and Quebecers who are close to major destinations in the northeast U.S.
"So I think it might be easier for people to cancel 'easier' trips, but there's a lot more involved in U.S. travel from Alberta," he said.
"I have made the decision, however, to not book any new trips going forward for 2026 and later, considering the situation."
Gender and safety
Ellen Forget lives in Calgary and is working on a PhD at the University of Toronto that focuses on braille and accessible book production.
In the past, Forget has presented research at conferences organized by the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing. But this year's conference is in Rochester, N.Y., and they decided not to go, in large part due to American laws and attitudes toward gender.
"I can't justify spending money and supporting American tourism or just spending money in the U.S. in general, and I can't justify the risk," they said.
For genderqueer people, Forget noted, concerns around safety extend beyond the border crossing.
"I can appear femme to a lot of people, but I also have really short hair, and from behind could very easily be mistaken for male. And the American policies of who can use which bathroom and who can be in which space is very alarming to someone like me, who is non-binary and gender fluid, and doesn't really subscribe to gender norms," they said.
"And the thought of possibly just needing to use the bathroom and being harassed for that or worse, being assaulted, because that has happened in many cases, means just the personal safety risk is not worth it for me."
They said missing the conference will mean missing out on academic and professional opportunities, but it was the correct decision, for them.
Forget has "no judgment" for people who make different decisions but isn't surprised Alberta-U.S. travel has seen smaller declines than the rest of Canada.
"Alberta is largely conservative, which aligns with the current political state in the U.S.," they said. "So it is likely that fewer Albertans are concerned about the political state of the U.S. and still feel comfortable travelling there."
How politics shape beliefs
Rast, the American psychology professor now living in Canada, said politics and peer pressure play a big role when it comes to these kinds of decisions.
"We're looking to other people around us to see how they're behaving, especially people that we might think of as being representative of our own group," he said.
So when people with high levels of Canadian pride see other Canadians choosing not to travel to the U.S. based on that sense of pride, he said they're more likely to go along with the group and choose not to travel as well.
Albertans, he noted, expressed some of the lowest levels of Canadian pride in recent polling, so it's not surprising Alberta-U.S. travel has seen smaller declines than in other parts of the country.
Even concerns surrounding the safety of U.S. travel, he said, can be affected by political beliefs.
"People view the world right away through their left and right partisan beliefs," he said.
"And that's going to shape whether they view the U.S. as threatening at the moment."
The same psychological effect might prompt Albertans who feel more provincial pride than national pride to actively travel to the U.S., due to the dynamics within their own social groups.
"And so for them, instead of wanting to support Canada, they're possibly wanting to support the U.S., or show that they're actually different from the rest of Canada," Rast said.
petition for the referendum for independence in Alberta."