THUNDER BAY — A provincial minister says visitors from the U.S. are still crucial to Ontario’s tourism, despite ongoing trade strife.
George Pirie was in Thunder Bay on Thursday and addressed the Northern Ontario Tourism Summit at the Valhalla Hotel and Conference Centre. Pirie began his remarks by announcing $1.6 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, before pivoting to how destructive ongoing tariffs imposed by Donald Trump have been — particularly to places like Sault Ste. Marie and its Algoma Steel.
Despite that, he said, the American visitor should still feel welcome north of the border.
“We talked … in the campaign about getting your elbows up,” he told the room full of attendees. “When it comes to tourism, you’ve got to tuck your elbows in, because we want to have every single visitor we possibly can from the States into these … locations.”
“And I think you’ve done a great job in doing that.”
David MacLachlan, the executive director of Destination Northern Ontario, said talks in the tourism sector about remaining a welcoming destination started last winter when the spectre of U.S. protectionism under Trump was starting to show.
“We talked about our elbows were up but our arms were wide open,” MacLachlan said. “And really making it clear to the U.S. visitors that we were still a welcoming destination and that they were welcome and safe here.”
“But also messaging in our communities that these visitors were important.”
Destination Northern Ontario is one of 13 regional tourism organizations which is funded by the provincial Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming.
MacLachlan said feedback and data since then has shown northern Ontario has fared well in terms of Americans coming north, with numbers this past summer still relatively strong.
“We had our Ontario residents and Canadians travelling at home, but we also were able to see a good number of Americans coming across the border,” he said. “While our numbers were softer, we had single-digit decreases (in American visitors) at the northern (Ontario) border crossings versus double-digits at the southern (Ontario) border crossings.”
“We’ve done quite well.”
Still, the tourism industry has been working to diversify where it’s marketing, showing some growth in overseas visitors, MacLachlan said.
“Nobody’s happy with the tariffs that Trump has inflicted upon us, but we must welcome the visitors,” Pirie told reporters later in the day at another funding announcement. “They’re good friends and you have to welcome them.”
“They’re spending their dollars here in our towns, they’re helping the economy and they are not part of the problem that Trump has caused with the tariffs.”
With Northwestern Ontario sharing a significant border with Minnesota, Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland said it’s important to continue to market there, particularly in the northern part of the state, and convince “those visitors to come that extra hour into Northwestern Ontario.”
“We have a great population base in the northern Midwest United States — it’s closer to Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario than what Toronto is,” Holland said.
“There’s a strategy that’s been developed, and when we can support those small tourism industries throughout Northwestern Ontario, it benefits the whole region and then the province as a whole.”
