In this week’s episode of Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music, it’s the annual Canada Day Show, ahead of the July 1 holiday.

“Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.”

– Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy

See the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music Playlist for June 28, 2025

HOUR ONE:

• “The Canadian Dream” – Sam Roberts Band
  
• “Baseball” – Sara Dufour
  
• “Red Future” – Snotty Nose Rez Kids
• “The Cobbler” – Matt Andersen
• “Consistency” – Tanika Charles
• “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature” – The Guess Who
• “Dopamine” – Jon Vinyl
• “Canadian” – Billy Raffoul
  
• “Mhepo” – Munya Mataruse
• “Total Cinema” – Ken Yates
• “Girls Like You” – Sofia Camara
  
• “Yellow” – Tegan & Sara
• “Human Nature” – Sloan
• “Rolodex” – Logan Richard
  

• “Better Broken” – Sarah McLachlan
  
• “Home” – Aysanabee
• “Listen2Me” – foxwarren
• “Poets” – Tragically Hip
• “Eleanor Rigby” – Oscar Peterson
  
• “Life Is A Highway” – Tom Cochrane
  
• “Walking In Sunshine” – Brandon Isaac
  
• “Nothing Is Perfect” – Metric
  
• “My People” – AHI
  
• “The Night Loves Us” – Alan Doyle
• Qujannamiik” – The Jerry Cans
• “Pour que tu m’aimes encore” – Celine Dion
• “Acadian Driftwood” – The Band

Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org.

We’re past Memorial Day and kids are out of school. The summer tourism season is here.

But this year, Canadians are upset with President Donald Trump’s tariffs — and his talk of annexation. For that reason, many of our travel-happy neighbors to the north are staying out of the U.S.

Speaking with WDET, new U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra called Trump’s 51st state rhetoric “a sign of affection.”

“That may be the first time that America has extended an offer to someone else to become part of the country,” he said. “…why they’re offended by such a generous offer, I’m not sure.”

According to Statistics Canada, car trips by Canadians into the U.S. dropped by 35% in April; flights by Canadians into the U.S. are down by 20%; and border crossings between the two countries are now at their lowest levels since the 2020 pandemic.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says that’s not good for Michigan.

“We know that Canadians are our friends, they’re our extended relatives in many cases, in many families,” she said. “Michigan loves Canada. Our economies are intertwined.”

Whitmer says the president is killing the good vibes between the countries.

“The chaos on the Trump tariff talk is palpable,” Whitmer said. “You can you can feel it just talking to people here. You can feel it at home. We can feel it in our tourism.”

Canadians spend more than $360 million every year in Michigan on average — about 10% of the state’s total tourism revenue.

Michigan is consistently in the top six for Canadian tourist destinations, after bigger ones like Florida, California and Las Vegas.

As the CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, Brian Calley knows the importance of the state’s tourism industry.

“We have year-round tourism, but summer is the time in Michigan where a lot of businesses make their opportunity,” Calley said.

The bigger challenge for resort towns is finding enough workers, he said, downplaying concerns about drops in Canadian tourism.

“Early indications are that that bookings are solid, that people are still booking hotels,” Calley said.

Though he acknowledged that a dip in tourism could possibly be felt more in communities near the border.

“[Places] where Canadians live right across the border and experience, in very short periods, shopping and things,” he said. “I think that’s probably more vulnerable than, say, the week-long family vacation.”

Michel Soucisse manages El Moore, a lodge offering overnight stays in Midtown Detroit. He says he agrees with Calley…to a point.

“We’re a border town, and unfortunately, border towns feel this first, and our businesses are the ones who are absorbing the impact first,” Soucisse said. “None of these small businesses asked for this. You know, we’re just sort of rolling with the punches. Everyone’s seeing a slow down. Everyone’s getting the emails saying ‘we’re sorry, but we’re not spending our money here right now.'”

Emails like those mean a hit to the bottom line.

“I would say it looks right now compared to last year and year over year that we’ve experienced something around a 15% drop in their travel,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think it’s going to change anytime soon.

“We already had so many regular guests, that it was really kind of heart wrenching for some folks to cancel plans that they had already made — sometimes a year in advance. But I don’t necessarily blame them,” Soucisse said. “This is a way that they can show us their displeasure with the current situation, and ‘this is the way we can protest.’”

The same is happening in Detroit’s emerging foodie scene.

Sandy Levine is a James Beard semi-finalist and the owner of two of Detroit’s most-heralded restaurants: Freya and Chartreuse. He says lots of Canadians used to make the trek over the border.

“A large amount of people have come to Detroit because they they heard really good things about it, and they just wanted to see for themselves. And you know, for the first time, that steady increase has kind of stopped,” Levine said. “We certainly still see people from Canada and from other countries, but it’s not nearly to the degree that it was maybe like six months ago or a year ago.”

Levine’s theory for the change? Again, bad vibes.

“There’s definitely a sense of just, kind of tension in this country, and I think a lot of the people are looking to just avoid that,” he said.

So if a city like Detroit is seeing an immediate impact, how about places not quite as close to the border?

Robert Chambers helps manage the Windermere Hotel, a bed and breakfast on Mackinac Island.

“We’ve definitely had some regulars who’ve had to cancel their reservation, and they’re from Northern Ontario. They stay with us every year,” Chambers said. “Unfortunately, about two months prior to our opening, though, they contacted us and said they wouldn’t be able to make it to the States this year.”

Chambers told WDET in late May that they didn’t have a single booking from a Canadian. It’s significant, even if Canadians don’t make up a large portion of their guests.

“So not a huge dip as far as numbers go, but we still really look forward to seeing friends and loyal customers at the hotel every year. It’s unfortunate that they can’t make it now,” he said.

And being over an hour away from Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, he figures short term stays to the island will be limited too.

There’s a feeling — from some — that the bad vibes aren’t permanent. Or as Ambassador Hoekstra puts it: “The Canadians are, you know, they’re acting on emotion.”

Back in Detroit at the El Moore, Soucisse says that’s true. He became an American citizen a decade ago, but he’s originally from Montreal.

“I know for a fact that my French Canadian family — or as we call ourselves, Quebecois — do not want to be a 51st state, and will not be a 51st state,” Soucisse said. “I hear the steady drumbeat from my friends and family over there.”

He says Canadian guests have been pretty honest about their motivations for canceling upcoming reservations or choosing not to spend their money in the U.S. right now.

“I thought it was great that they were letting us know,” he said. “Oftentimes they would include messages like, you know, we’ll be back. You know, someday.”

With Trump’s trade war far from settled, a crackdown on immigrants and people from other countries, and ongoing threats to send federal troops into American cities, it’s unclear when that “someday” will be. That could pose a serious risk to a tourism industry that’s still recovering from the pandemic.

New U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra is downplaying the effect of tariffs on the auto industry.

The former Congressman and ex-chair of the Michigan GOP was confirmed to the ambassadorship in early April. 

In an interview with WDET during the 2025 Mackinac Policy Conference, Hoekstra said the economy is strong, and that worries about tariffs and a trade war with Canada are overblown.

“They’re not going to have a dramatic impact, OK?” Hoekstra said. “They will have an impact, but it’s not fundamentally going to change this relationship.”

Hoekstra said he thinks there will be a full re-working of the trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada within the next couple years.

He also dismissed concerns about President Donald Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state, calling the threat a “sign of affection” — something that has been outright rejected by Canadian leadership and its populace.

“Why they’re offended by such a generous offer, I’m not sure, but they are,” he said. “We have to deal with it, and we will.”

Car trips from Canada into the U.S. have dropped by nearly a third since Trump started the 51st state rhetoric. According to a recent poll from the Association for Canada Studies & Metropolis Institute, a majority of Canadians said it’s no longer safe for them to travel in the U.S.

Still, Michigan is consistently a top destination for Canadians for business and leisure travel, and with the newly constructed Gordie Howe International Bridge set to open by the end of the year, Hoekstra says he expects the relationship between the two countries to improve.

“Canada is our second largest trading partner, 70-80% of what they export comes south. That’s not going to go away,” he said. “If anything, we’ve got a president that is energizing the American economy. We have a prime minister in Canada that wants to try to do the same thing in Canada. And when they’re both successful, we’re going to have an energized North America.”

–WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said that the Detroit-Windsor area is the “busiest active border crossing in North America,” and that about $200 billion of trade flows between the two countries annually. 

A border that is active has plenty of infrastructure that needs to be maintained. Regine Beauboeuf, CEO of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel for American Roads, oversees the bridges, tunnels and toll roads that exist between the two countries. 

She joined The Metro live from Mackinac Island on Wednesday to discuss what her job entails and to provide more insight on the consequences of the trade war between the U.S. and Canada. 

American Roads is a U.S.-based owner and operator of transportation infrastructure, including toll assets, and currently operates three toll bridges — including the international tunnel connecting Detroit with Windsor.

She spoke about the region’s unique cross-border economy and why she doesn’t expect to see a major impact at the border from Trump’s recent tariffs.

“Together Detroit and Windsor, really that’s its own ecosystem,” she said. “We’ve been working together; it’s not just trade, it’s also people [who] will come to work, like the health care workers who are coming here; you have people with families or in-laws in other countries…so there is a very strong history between Windsor and Detroit and I don’t think you’ll see that being affected.”

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

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