Canadian musician Matthew Good cancels U.S. shows to protest Trump tariffs

Saying he has a deepening "disdain" for the Trump administration, singer Matthew Good has cancelled a series of U.S. shows and invited other Canadian performers to do the same.

Canadian musician Matthew Good has announced that he’s cancelling his U.S. tour dates in protest of U.S. President Donald Trump’s government and its ongoing tariffs policy.

Good, 54, made the announcement Saturday on Facebook, telling his U.S. fans that he cannot “in good conscience carry out my dates this summer in your country.”

“This is not fair to you, and I’m very well aware of that, but the truth is, every week that goes by, I have a deeper disdain for what’s going on there politically,” the four-time Juno winner wrote.

The Load Me Up rocker pointed to Canada’s cancellation of the digital services tax on Canadian revenue of companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta as a main factor in the decision. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced late last month that Canada would cancel the planned tax as a condition of resuming trade talks with the U.S.

“Recently, it was announced that after a year of an imposed digital services tax, we (Canada) are backing down from that, to appease Mr. Trump’s government,” Good wrote. “This was approximately 2 billion dollars in revenue that has been accumulating, and we’re walking away from that,” Good wrote.

“Add to that, the massive increase in visa costs, the fear mongering that even after we have our visas, we may still be denied entry if we have something negative to say about the current GOP, and I end up in a situation where I’m biting my tongue, and losing what credibility I had to stand up and say something.”

Good went on to say  he will lose a week’s worth of work but “giving up 30% of our earnings to a withholding tax, walking on eggshells at the border, and actively participating in the silencing of opinions, is a bigger cost to me personally.”

“I realize that I have approximately .00001% impact on things overall, as this was just a few thousand tickets, but I can’t stand by and be quiet while our amazing country is bullied into walking away from billions in needed revenue, constantly left wondering if we actually have a partner or an enemy to the south, and equally as tragic, supporting someone who has completely bastardized the institution of art and culture in the US.”