In a picturesque town on the U.S.-Canada border, workers under dark clouds were building a new entrance for Canadians into a library to replace one that had long symbolized bilateral closeness.<\/p>\n
For more than a century, Canadians in Stanstead, Quebec, could walk through a door in the Haskell Free Library into Derby Line, Vermont, without passing through customs.<\/p>\n
But U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has canceled the arrangement, citing the need to counter \u201cillicit cross-border activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing on the black line inside the library that demarcates the US-Canada border, Sylvie Boudreau, Haskell\u2019s board of trustees president, said the Trump administration\u2019s announcement caused \u201ca lot of anger on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the end of something,\u201d she told AFP.<\/p>\n
As a result of the U.S. action, a new entrance is being constructed on the side of the building to give Canadians access to the library.<\/p>\n
Canadian access to the library has been restricted before, including when tighter controls were imposed following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and again during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
But the Trump administration\u2019s announcement marks the first definitive end to an arrangement that signaled enduring U.S.-Canada unity for many in Stanstead, a town dotted with large Victorian houses about a 90-minute drive from Montreal.<\/p>\n
\u2018Mistrust\u2019<\/p>\n
The change has stirred emotions on both sides of the border.<\/p>\n
Derby Line resident Jonas Horsky, a Franco-American who frequents the library for its bilingual catalogue, told AFP he felt \u201cnostalgic\u201d for the days of unencumbered cross-border travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always been united, we\u2019ve always visited each other, but now we carry our passports with us. It wasn\u2019t like this before,\u201d the 41-year-old said.<\/p>\n
For Canadian Erica Masotto, who works at Stanstead College — a boarding school in the town of 2,824 residents — it\u2019s \u201cstrange\u201d to have to enter through what used to be the library\u2019s emergency exit.<\/p>\n
She said she was troubled by the \u201csymbol\u201d the change represents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy this sudden mistrust?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Never be the same again\u2019<\/p>\n
The shift at the library comes amid a broader breakdown in U.S.-Canada relations.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s musings about annexing Canada — made regularly through the early weeks of his second term — enraged Canadians.<\/p>\n
His tariffs have forced job losses across several key sectors, and late Thursday, he announced he was ending trade talks over an anti-tariff ad produced by the government of Ontario province.<\/p>\n
As he laid out his vision for Canada\u2019s upcoming budget, Prime Minister Mark Carney reiterated that the U.S.-Canada relationship would \u201cnever be the same again,\u201d stressing that decades of deepening economic ties had been permanently ruptured.<\/p>\n
Bilateral tension has impacted Canadian travel patterns, with the national statistics agency in June reporting \u201ca marked decrease\u201d in the number of Canadians visiting the United States.<\/p>\n
Marc Samson, a silver-haired retiree who was picking up his wife from her job at the Haskell library, affirmed what the data shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t go to the United States anymore,\u201d despite Stanstead and Derby Line existing side-by-side, Samson told AFP.<\/p>\n
But, he added, political change could help repair the relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI imagine that if the government changes on the other side of the border, things will go back to normal,\u201d Samson said.<\/p>\n
Boudreau said the changes in library access marked \u201ca physical end\u201d to an era of unique closeness.<\/p>\n
But, she insisted, \u201cfrom the perspective of people, of friendship, of unity, the sense of community, that has been strengthened by what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a picturesque town on the U.S.-Canada border, workers under dark clouds were building a new entrance for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-238245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}