796 Oh Canada!

·52 min·4 clips

Wade Davis: 'Only a bully would see civility, humility, kindness, and generosity as weak traits — and we've never lost a war.'

1. Travel with Rick Steves episode 796 focuses on the strained US-Canada relationship under Trump's 51st-state rhetoric and tariff threats, through conversations with Wade Davis and Rick Antonsen. 2. Wade Davis is a cultural anthropologist at the University of British Columbia and author of Beneath the Surface of Things; Rick Antonsen has headed Tourism Vancouver and the Asia Pacific tourism region and recently updated his book Slumox Gold about a legendary BC gold mine. 3. The episode argues that what Americans perceive as Canadian passivity is actually a principled commitment to fairness, civility, and social solidarity — one backed by a strong martial history. 4. Rick Steves opens by describing childhood visits to the Peace Arch at Blaine, Washington — a shared US-Canada monument with gates inscribed 'May These Gates Never Be Closed' — and frames it as now under strain. 5. Canadian cross-border tourism to the US has dropped by roughly 50% month-over-month; government-run liquor stores in Ontario and British Columbia removed all American products after two months of sustained policy, and the buying patterns have permanently shifted. 6. Wade Davis recounts that Canadians sheltered American diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis and hosted thousands of grounded Americans in private homes in Gander, Newfoundland after 9-11 air traffic shut down. 7. Davis states that Trump's annexation rhetoric 'rattled Canada to the roots' and reversed the Conservative Party's 30-point polling lead; Liberal candidate Mark Carney won largely on his ability to handle Trump. 8. Davis argues the single word that distills Canada is 'fair': Canada's Chief Justice described Canadian law as founded on fairness, and former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, when asked how Canada would be remembered in 150 years, answered simply 'fair.' 9. Davis describes Canada's national healthcare system as built on 'social solidarity' — contrasting it with viewing hospital beds as rental properties — and links it to the national motto 'peace, order, and good government' since Confederation in 1867. 10. A Canadian wrote the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau led nuclear disarmament efforts; Conservative Brian Mulroney rallied the world against apartheid — Davis uses these to argue Canada punches above its weight internationally. 11. Canada holds a third of the world's fresh water and has a boreal forest three times the size of Colombia and tundra the size of Western Europe; 90% of Canadians live within driving distance of the US border but the country extends as far north as Los Angeles to New York City is wide. 12. Davis explains that British Royal Proclamation law requires Canada to treat nation-to-nation with Indigenous peoples on unceded land; the Haida people recently regained full legal control of their archipelago after 10,000 years of occupation, with cross-party political support. 13. Davis uses an analogy: 'What would happen to Barack Obama if he announced he was going to Arizona to treat with the Navajo over who owns the Grand Canyon?' — framing Canada's reconciliation process as extraordinary by any international standard. 14. Between Vancouver and Prince George, a distance of 800 kilometers, travelers pass through more languages than from Moscow to Madrid; half of Toronto's population was born outside Canada. 15. When Martin Luther King gave the Massey Lectures in Canada, he described old Negro spirituals as coded messages pointing north toward Canada — Davis calls this a fundamental difference in heritage between the two countries, as Canada never had institutional slavery. 16. Canada entered World War I three years before the US; the Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge at the Battle of Arras in April 1917 in three days after British and French forces had failed for three and a half years. 17. At Normandy, Canadian forces at Juno Beach advanced further inland than British or American troops on either flank and suffered more casualties than any beach except Omaha. 18. Wade Davis started playing hockey at three, had his first hospitalizing injury at five, and ended his career with a slap shot to the head at fifteen; he uses Gordie Howe's 'elbows up' technique — breaking opponents' noses in corners — as a metaphor for Canada's current stance. 19. Rick Steves discloses he cried on the phone apologizing to his Vancouver cousin, saying 'I didn't know I had so much emotion inside of me' about the loss of what he describes as a 'win-win' relationship. 20. Listeners who find the topic politically partisan or who want practical Canadian travel tips will find neither tone-neutrality nor destination logistics here.

As heard by us

A reflective Canada episode about the values and political strain behind a once-easy border crossing.

Oh Canada! uses a familiar border crossing to open a wider conversation about why many Canadians are feeling newly wary of the United States. Rick Steves starts with the Peace Arch between Washington and British Columbia, then gives Canadian guests Rick Antonsen and Wade Davis…

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Two Canadians explain, without rancor, what Americans keep getting wrong about their closest neighbors.

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