A love letter to Canada, from a worried Jersey neighbor

You know what it's like when you get along great with your next-door neighbor. They come over the fence for a backyard fire, a couple of drinks, good conversation that runs later than you planned. You know what it's like when you don't get along, too. Dirty looks across the yard. That awkward half-second of eye contact where you both look away first. In the worst version, there's yelling, insults, a fight over where exactly the fence line actually sits.

New Jersey has been watching one of our biggest neighbors get treated like the second version lately, and it's been going on for a while now.

A rough stretch for the friendliest border on Earth

Canada and the United States have had about as good a neighbor relationship as two countries can have, for about as long as either of them have existed. Lately, that relationship has been fraying, tariffs going up, trade talks collapsing, rhetoric getting sharper on our side of the fence. This week alone, 50% tariffs hit roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, Canada's promised to match it dollar-for-dollar starting September 8, and there's already talk of doubling auto tariffs to 50% by New Year's Day. Somebody keeps telling the folks next door their fence doesn't count for much anymore. I don't think that's how you treat a neighbor who's been showing up for you since before either of you had a name for the country you'd become.

And here in New Jersey, we've actually felt it. Canadian visitors, especially from Quebec and Ontario, have been a real part of the Jersey Shore's summer economy for generations, some families driving down to Wildwood every July since the 1960s. That tourism has cooled hard the last few years, cancellations, quieter boardwalks, motel owners watching rooms that used to book solid sit empty. You can still see the evidence of what we used to have if you know where to look. Wildwood alone has hotels named the Quebec, the Royal Canadian, and the Fleur-de-lis. Cape May has one called the Montreal. Those names didn't happen by accident. They happened because our Canadian neighbors showed up, year after year, and we built a piece of the Shore's identity around them.

My own tab I owe Canada

I like Canada. My family's vacationed there more than once. We took a ferry out of Portland, Maine, and spent a week soaking in Cape Breton Island, and came home with more maple syrup than we probably needed. We celebrated my 50th birthday and our 25th anniversary together at Niagara Falls. Have you ever had Canadian ice wine? It's a nectar from the gods, and I don't say that about many things. Canada is also the only place I've ever won real money in a casino, and I've got a generous roulette wheel in Ontario to thank for that.

And that's before I even get to what Canada's given the rest of us without asking for much credit. Maple syrup. Hockey. Molson. Tim Hortons. Poutine. Lululemon. Canada Dry, which, and I had to double check this myself, actually was invented by a Canadian pharmacist in Toronto back in 1904. Rush. Bryan Adams. Neil Young. Gordon Lightfoot. Alanis Morissette. The Guess Who. BTO. That's not a small tab to run up on a neighbor you're currently giving the cold shoulder.

So here's my glass of ice wine, raised to Canada. Come on down whenever you're ready. The water's fine. Just leave Nickelback and the Speedos at home.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 show host Eric Johnson only.