With the pedigree of a person who has seen his share of bust-ups in the boardroom and on the ice, Canadian American businessman Graeme Roustan is blunt about the looming trade war and what it will mean for the two countries he calls home.
“It’s totally ridiculous,” says Roustan, a prolific entrepreneur and owner of Roustan Hockey in Brantford, Ontario. “This business here has been in place for 178 years and it’s been selling product and trading product with the United States since before Canada was a country. It’s just ridiculous to insult your neighbor, and as a dual citizen, Canadian American, I don’t understand it from the American point of view either, why would we insult Canadians?”
His wooden hockey stick company is one of the last manufacturers of its kind in North America, based in the proud hometown of the man widely seen as hockey’s G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time), Wayne Gretzky, known here as simply, “The Great One.”
Roustan’s business, the city, and even the hockey legend himself have all been caught in the crossfire of the trade war declared by US President Donald Trump that from April 2 will see the US impose widespread tariffs against Canada and other once-friendly trading nations.
For Roustan, what the president is calling “liberation day,” feels more like “disaster day.” Business has already been impacted and customers are jittery, he says.
“All these are going to the Miracle on Ice Team USA 45th Anniversary Fantasy Camp,” Roustan says, while holding a red, star-spangled hockey stick in his hand. The stick, he says, needs to be shipped to the US in a hurry to avoid tariffs. “The customer wants this to cross the border as soon as possible because they don’t want to get a 25% tax on their invoice.”
While similar concerns are being voiced by many in Brantford’s business community, the looming disaster for the town’s arguably most famous export is about reputation rather than the bottom line.
From ‘Great One’ to hated one
Hockey legend Gretzky, who has nurtured a long-standing and very public relationship with Trump and has lived in the US for decades, has been taking flak from his fellow Canadians since Trump first announced he wanted America’s northern neighbor to be reduced to the 51st state.
Now, with the looming tariffs deepening the sense of betrayal felt across Canada, many of Gretzky’s countrymen are directing and distilling their anger toward their once-untouchable hockey hero.
Roustan calls Gretzky a friend, and he is astounded that some would think he would ever be a traitor to his Canadian roots.
“To drop Wayne Gretzky’s name into the middle of this,” says Roustan, clearly incredulous, “It’s a drive-by assassination of a name, a good quality Canadian name, it’s just been just completely ridiculous.”
It started with Gretzky attending an election night party with Trump, a social media post of him wearing a MAGA hat, capped with a happy snap of him and his wife, Janet, attending Trump’s inauguration in January. Trump, for his part, boasted he counseled Gretzky to run for Prime Minister of Canada, and then quipped he’d rather see Gretzky as “governor” of Canada as America’s “51st state.”
Since then, the Gretzky reckoning has been chronicled in Canada with social media riffs, memes and newspaper editorials.
The pages of Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper has weighed in on much of it, starting weeks ago with opinion columnist Cathal Kelly writing, “He’ll show up for any gala dinner, but when his best buddy the president is threatening to annex the country? Oh, you wouldn’t believe how busy he is then.”
Kelly wrote again last week, wondering why Canadians are so obsessed with Gretzky, concluding, “What most of these people feel is betrayal. Many countries have a great turncoat in their history. Gretzky has become ours.”
As parents and players headed in the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre on a recent weekend here in Brantford, passing a triumphant statue of the hockey prodigy lifting the Stanley Cup, the anger and contempt does not square with the devotion and donations Gretzky and his family have made to this community over the years.
Rick Mannen took his seat aside the rink to watch the local Brantford Titans take to the ice. He says he wishes the hockey legend he still admires would say something to his friend, President Trump.
“He’s kind of a voice of Canada, he has been that way in the past and he is now if he chose to do that. So I really would like to see Wayne do that, but I still don’t feel any ill against Wayne just because he’s a friend of Donald Trump.”
When asked what Mannen wishes Gretzky might tell the president: “I wish he would say to Donald ‘back off and treat Canada as a partner instead of trying to take over.’”
Junior hockey coach Terry Corbin has a different take, saying Gretzky hasn’t really been a part of Brantford for a long time.
“He hasn’t lived here for how many years. I mean, I almost see him as kind of somebody with dual citizenship, but who has chosen United States of America,” says Corbin.
A city in the crosshairs
The highway leading to this gritty, working-class city bears the name of its hockey icon, but the Wayne Gretzky Parkway might as well be a free-trade expressway.
Hundreds of warehouses and manufacturing facilities dot the landscape. The city is a little more than an hour’s drive from both Toronto and Buffalo and has become a convenient crossroad for Canadian companies and US subsidiaries.
For Brantford, the recessions of the 1980s and 90s gave way to a thriving business and commuter corridor that led to substantial growth in both employment and income.
A recent Canadian Chamber of Commerce analysis found that Brantford is one of the top five cities vulnerable to American tariffs.
The city’s mayor, Kevin Davis, says some businesses here sell up to 80% of what they make in the US, but they also buy many of their raw materials from American factories. He describes Brantford as tough and resilient but he says there is no doubt tariffs will affect livelihoods.
“Our local economy is very intertwined and integrated with that in the US and not just in the auto parts industry. We have a lot of food processing here, plastics, pharmaceuticals, that is the essence of the economy here in Brantford. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States,” he says, adding that it would take the city four to 10 years to reimagine its industrial strategy if tariffs are punishing and long-lasting.
“There’ll be industries in Brantford that may shut down, they may reduce production, they may have to retool, and – for a year or two – not be producing much and employing less,” warns Davis. “That’ll happen and there will be people in our community that will suffer.”
But, he promises, the city will fight back and bounce back.
“You know, we’re nice until we’re not. And yeah, if you want a war, then it’s a war. But it’s a, it’s a totally meaningless war from my perspective. I really, frankly don’t understand it.”
Many bewildered workers and consumers in this city are already preparing by cutting back on spending and cutting out most American products.
Buying American now seems like an act of treason here. Restaurants are scratching Caesar salads from their menus – they won’t buy American romaine lettuce – and alcohol from the US, no wines from California.
“Even in our store, we get asked all the time, you know, are these products local? Have they been made in Canada?” says Ines Kowas of family-owned and operated Uniqpol, a grocery, deli and food processer in Brantford.
Before learning of the tariff threat, Uniqpol invested in a significant expansion that is set to come online in a few months.
Kowas says they’re already seeing cautious consumers cut back even on staples like groceries, afraid of the impact tariffs will have on the family budget.
“Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to absorb all these kinds of costs, so that will have to eventually be reflected in some of our prices as well,” she says.
Back rinkside at Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre, Karen Robb is in her son’s game. She wishes Gretzky would say something to the president but acknowledges, like many here, how much he and his family have already done for the Brantford community.
“I think it’s just about, you know, we don’t want anybody to get hurt,” says Robb adding that some good has come of this. “The upside is we’re thinking more Canadian. We’re starting to think a little bit more about Canada, you know, supporting our businesses.”