Canadian snowbirds say U.S. politics are ruffling feathers and changing their migration patterns

The sunny weather. The beach views. The relaxed lifestyle. These are the things that drew Jo-Ann Rowe to South Florida.

When the Toronto woman retired 10 years ago, she started spending her winters in Fort Lauderdale, renting a condo for three months. Being in the United States was familiar for Rowe, whose grandmother was American, and because she’d travelled throughout the U.S. as a young athlete.

“It was just gorgeous,” Rowe said of her home away from home, which also became a place of comfort and refuge when her partner died. Friends and connections she had made there eased the pain of her loss.

But things started to change after Donald Trump was re-elected as U.S. president in November 2024. Not long after, Trump made comments about Canada becoming the 51st state, and Rowe says her American friends brushed it off as a joke.

“I thought, ‘This is not a joke. This is not funny at all,’ ” she said, adding the remarks about Canada made her feel unappreciated.

“I thought, basically, they weren’t in tune with what was happening, and it bothered me that they didn’t really pay attention to Canada and what we offered and how much we supported their economy and vice versa. They took us for granted,” she said.

As a patriotic wave swept Canada amid tariff tensions — with consumers buying Canadian — Rowe started to re-think her vacation plans.

While she acknowledges the low Canadian dollar, Rowe says it was the friction between the two countries that pushed her over the edge. Within the first few months of 2025, her mind was made up.

“I thought, ‘I’m getting out of here,’ ” Rowe said. “As a Canadian, my little thing to do was change my winter vacation as a snowbird.”

She says she’ll spend this winter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and has no plans to go back to the U.S. until there’s a change in administration.

November is traditionally the time of year when Canadian snowbirds begin their migration south to escape cold and snowy winters. But this year, fewer Canadians are expected to make that trek to states such as Florida, Arizona and California, choosing patriotism over tradition.

A recent U.S. travel report forecasts a 3.2 per cent decline in international tourism in 2025, much of it attributed to the loss of Canadian visitors.

According to a survey of more than 4,000 Canadian snowbirds conducted in late October by the company Snowbird Advisor, which runs a resource website for winter travellers, 70 per cent of respondents who are part of the organization’s community said they plan to spend the winter in the U.S. — a 12 per cent drop from the year before. 

Jacqueline and Carey Ellingson are from Barrhead County, Alta., about 120 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. When they retired in 2015, they started travelling to the United States and later bought a home in an RV park in Yuma, Ariz.