When Lucia Lloyd immigrated to Canada in 2019, she thought she had moved far away enough from President Donald Trump’s America.
She said she was already upset when Trump first took office in 2017, but the president’s controversial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court and the judge’s subsequent confirmation amid sexual misconduct allegations was the last straw for her.
“So, that was the day that I started researching whether I could move to Canada, and it turned out to be the end,” said Lloyd, a Virginia native who is now a priest at an Anglican Church in Bowmanville, Ont., east of Toronto.
Ever since Trump launched the trade war with Canada in his second term and mused about annexing the country, Lloyd said she has been “horrified” by the way the president has treated her adopted home and Canadians.
“There is nothing that Canada has done to deserve this, there is no advantage to doing this,” she said in an interview. “It’s just Trump’s own personal meanness to go around insulting allies and trading partners and friends on this side of Lake Ontario.”
That’s why Lloyd said she was thrilled to see the Democrats’ sweeping victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections, which she hopes will put a check on Trump’s powers.
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“I do feel a huge sense of relief,” she said, adding that the results also give her hope that the relationship between Canada and the United States might gradually improve after nearly two years of heightened tensions.
Lloyd said she is currently in Canada on a work permit while her permanent residency application is being processed, and she feels lucky that, unlike many immigrants in the United States, she doesn’t have to worry about being picked up by “masked federal agents” on the street and put into a detention centre.
While Canadians welcomed the blue wave in U.S. Congress, many expressed doubts that it would restore their trust in their neighbour any time soon.
Lloyd said she “absolutely” understands the sentiment given the extent of damage caused by the current U.S. administration.
“There’s a lot of work still to be done. I think it’s going to take a long time,” she said, adding that as long as Trump is in the White House, the path toward normalizing those ties won’t be easy.
Lloyd’s views were echoed by Kate Kitchen, an Ohio-born dual citizen who lives in Peterborough, Ont. She also thinks Canadians’ distrust of the U.S. is likely to stick around in the near future.
The shifting political landscape in the United States, however, makes her optimistic about mending the close economic and cultural relationship between two nations in the long run.
“I’m thinking these are trustworthy, intelligent, compassionate people who have taken over these jobs … let’s wait and see but I think people are hopeful,” she said.
Kitchen said she stayed awake past midnight Tuesday to watch the midterm results, particularly those in Ohio where she’d mailed her ballot and followed up to make sure it was received and counted.
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She said she was “shocked in a good way” to see the Democrats win the House and the Senate with a majority that makes it hard for “the president to be able to mess” with.
“We hadn’t wanted to get our hopes up, but oh my gosh,” she said.
Matthew Lebo, a political scientist at Western University in London, Ont., whose research focuses on U.S. politics, said he was “more optimistic today than a week ago,” following the midterm results, but it is too soon to celebrate the future of the U.S.-Canada relationship.
“Two years ago they voted [Trump] in, Tuesday they voted out a bunch of Republicans and I don’t know what they’re going to do in two years,” he said.
It will take a few more elections to find out if American voters will roundly reject overt racism, threats to immigrants and cruelty in politics, Lebo said.
He said the ongoing tariff war is something that Canadians are mostly worried about.
“But the most important issue is whether or not we are living next to a full democracy,” he said, adding that the United States has been sliding toward an authoritarian system, and “that’s accelerated under Donald Trump.”
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On trade talks, Lebo said while historically some Democrats have been more protectionist, it is possible that they will push back against Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and be successful.
“I think they should be helpful. They will try,” he said of the newly elected Democrats in Congress who have spoken out against the tariffs in recent days.
“But it’s still going to be Trump and the same people who will be negotiating with Canada,” he said. “It’s going to be a very confrontational two years … within the American government and maybe still between Canada and the U.S.”
