🇨🇦 Nothing harder at the border, except reality

CBSA boss Erin O’Gorman says crossing into the U.S. is not harder now, while Washington searched a record 55,318 phones and devices in 2025, up 17.6 per cent from 2024 and 32.4 per cent from 2023. Totally normal, apparently. Ottawa even quietly updated travel advice telling Canadians to expect scrutiny and broad discretion from U.S. officers, but the bureaucracy still insists the border is secure and everything is fine, as reported.

The more revealing number is not the spin, it is the retreat. StatsCan shows roughly a 25 per cent drop in Canadians returning from the U.S. last year, while University of Toronto cellphone data puts the decline closer to 42 per cent. People vote with their feet when states become intrusive and unpredictable. Meanwhile our geniuses in Ottawa lecture citizens about smooth cross-border travel, then scramble into emergency Ebola border measures after spending years treating borders as a rude suggestion. Sovereignty for Canadians means scrutiny, quarantine, and excuses. For everyone else, the gates somehow stay open.

🍁 Maple Chronicles