MONTREAL — Philippe Bachand was in his mid-20s when he helped open his family’s duty-free store an hour south of Montreal.
In the 37 years since, he has never seen such a drastic drop-off in traffic and sales while the Canada-U.S. border was open.
After U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war and mused about annexing Canada, revenue began to plummet in lockstep with shrinking traveller volumes.
“January was not too bad. February was starting to slow down, and then March, with the new tariff and all that, my Canadian traffic was down 50 per cent,” said Bachand, 63, whose shop sits in Philipsburg, Que.
“It’s not fun.”
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