Some musicians have pledged to stop travelling to the U.S. during the trade war, but that isn’t an option financially for Cassie and Maggie.
By Aron Bestwick
For the sisters it was a wake-up call on how President Donald Trump’s tariff war, accusations of Canada being a source of fentanyl and promises to make us the 51st state, is filtering down.
The Celtic folk duo, known as Cassie and Maggie, have been splitting their tours between Canada and the U.S. for 11 years.
They’ve logged hundreds of thousands of kilometres in rental cars, playing gigs and developing a community of fans south of the border who don’t just come for their music, but to soak in the Celtic traditions of northern Nova Scotia where the sisters were raised.
“Being Canadian has always been a great calling card,” Cassie said on Friday. “We talk about our family history, how the music was passed down generation to generation and (our American fans) have always been charmed by it.
“It’s a disturbing thought … that good will expired. And so quickly.”
It hadn’t seemed to at their shows across North and South Carolina, Florida and in Chicago.
Fans would come up between and after sets and ask them what Canadians thought of the threats and accusations getting lobbed by their president.
Everyone seemed supportive.
But then, those who come out to hear their Celtic folk come from a particular demographic in massive country riven along political lines.
Their interaction with the state troopers showed them the other side.
Driving a rented Chevy Malibu with Oklahoma plates, they’d been tailed by a state trooper for half an hour before being pulled over on an ostensibly reasonable pretense – they were passing a phone back and forth while talking on speaker phone with their mother, Anita MacDonald.
The troopers separated the sisters, placing them each in a separate cruiser, and walked a drug sniffing dog around their rental.
Claiming that the dog had smelled narcotics, they then did a thorough search of the car.
All they found was one of the sister’s medication and a bottle of wine.
“The trooper told me, ‘you know there’s a lot of fentanyl coming in through Canada,’ and let that linger as a statement, almost an accusation,” recalled Cassie.
“He then said, ‘Chicago is a horrible place right now, it’s really a centre of drugs.’ He was very concerned with a drug problem in America.”
While there are serious drug problems in both Canada and the U.S., less than one per cent of the fentanyl seized crossing America’s borders have been coming from this country.
Those statistics are getting repeated often in Canadian media, President Trump’s repeated assertions of Canada as a source of the problem get more play down south.
“To be honest, Canada only works as a state,” Trump reiterated last week from the White House.
“We don’t need anything they have … O Canada, I love it. Keep it. But it will be for the state.”
The sides of the divide in America live in different realities, each reinforced from where they get their news.
Last Thursday, Premier Tim Houston sought to cross that river, offering himself for an interview on Fox News.
“First off, Canadians love Americans and Americans love Canadians. This isn’t a beef between Americans and Canadians or vice versa, it’s really about one person,” Houston told Claman Countdown host Liz Claman.
“These are longstanding relationships that are highly valued. So, to hear talk of the 51st state, first it was kind of fun, then it started to get a little annoying and then Canadians started to get angry. And I’m going to say they’re really angry right now.”
Houston went on to speak about longstanding trade and family ties, along with the opportunity to bolster them and the border to create a “fortress” North America.
He seemed to have a receptive audience in the host on a channel that is watched by President Trump and many of his supporters.
“And let’s not forget, during (the Second World War), Canadians fought side by side with America and the Allies,” Claman told Houston.
“At Normandy, my great uncle died on the beaches of Normandy, fighting for Canada. Folks, come on. Can’t we all just get along.”
Houston responded, validating her point, “Your story is not unique. The familial ties on both sides of the border. We’re in this together, so let’s act like it.”
Cassie and Maggie visited family members spread across the U.S. between gigs.
While some authors and musicians have pledged to stop travelling to the U.S. during these tensions, they have a tour booked for their new album coming out this spring.
Not going isn’t an option financially, nor is it what they think the relationship needs.
“I think more than ever we need to be there, show we are bigger than all this and have a compassion for one another,” said Cassie.
“There are a few people at the top making choices we don’t agree with and that doesn’t have to be the whole story.”
As for their answers to the troopers’ questions, both responded that they love America and Americans too, along with the touring opportunities south of the border, but kept it at that.
“We answered like we understood what the assignment was,” said Cassie.
Source: Canada or America? Touring N.S. folk duo questioned by state troopers | PNI Atlantic News