Trump tariffs hit wrong chord with Cape Breton musician

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Donald Trump’s tariff tantrum has struck a sour note with one of Cape Breton’s best-known musicians. Hours after the U.S. president triggered a trade war by imposing 25 per cent levies on Canadian goods, legendary multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter J.P. Cormier announced that he would no longer perform south of the border and encouraged his fellow artists to do the same.

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Using the example of a 400-seat show in a U.S. venue, Cormier figures a visiting Canadian performer could generate $80,000 in economic activity for a U.S. town or city once you factor in the cost of tickets, gas, food and beverages, and possibly accommodations.

“We’re at war. Literally. (Trump) is trying to destroy us, and he’s doing it so he can get our minerals. Everybody should know that. They should they should be paying attention enough to see that. It’s the only reason he’d want us. So there’s no way I’m gonna go down there and add to their economy when he’s doing this to us. It’s pretty simple,” said Cormier, who invoked the name of his friend the late Stompin’ Tom Connors in calling for a musical boycott.

Connors focused his career exclusively in Canada and in 1978 famously returned his six Junos and retired from music in protest because he felt the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was rewarding artists who had moved to the U.S., whom he referred to as “border jumpers” and “turncoat Canadians.”

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When Connors re-emerged a decade later, Cormier was a sideman on his comeback tour and before his death in 2013, Connors personally selected him as one of the artists who would perform at his memorial service at the Peterborough Memorial Centre in Peterborough, Ont., where Rita MacNeil was among those who gave testimonials.

“When I think about what Stompin’ Tom would say to me at this point in my life, there’s no way I can ever cross the border at this point. He would be livid — and he’d be livid with anybody who was going down there. He didn’t like people going down there in the first place, the artists going down there. At this point in time, you just can’t do it. This is my home. I’ve been in war zones for this country. I’ve travelled all over from every corner of this nation. I’m a Canadian. One thousand per cent Canadian and I just can’t do it. I just can’t. And I’m encouraging other artists to do the same thing,” said Cormier, who was born in Ontario to Cape Breton parents and considers himself a Cape Breton artist.

Lot to lose

However, Cormier also has strong ties to the U.S., both personally and professionally.

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Before he relocated to Cape Breton in the mid-1990s, he was a child bluegrass prodigy who made a name for himself on the U.S. festival circuit and eventually moved there to work as a session musician while performing with country greats like Earl Scruggs, Waylon Jennings and Marty Stuart. He even attended college in Mississippi where he majored in music education, specializing in bluegrass instruments. These days, in addition to frequent performances in the U.S., his YouTube channel, which has generated more than seven million views, is supported by American fans and sponsors.

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“In the last five years, I was going into the U.S. about every two months. There’s a lot for me to lose here. My YouTube channel, which is huge, has actually been paying most of my bills for the past five years. Probably half or more than half of the endorsements and company partners I have on the channel are located in the U.S. Some of these companies have even built me signature-model guitars and I’ve been talking to them, and they don’t know what to do,” said Cormier, who has kept a permit in the U.S. for more than 30 years and was in the process of getting a green card.

“My business in the States is huge because of the channel. I already kind of trashed the idea of going down there at least three or four times just since (Trump) was inaugurated. I was supposed to make a trip to Florida. I was supposed to make a trip to Missouri, Nashville, of course. We play in Nashville a lot. I trashed all those ideas. I was like, ‘No. I’m not gonna do that.’

“I have a festival booking there in May with Gallagher Guitars, which is a company that builds a J.P. Cormier signature-model guitar. They’re actually the second partner that signed on to the channel five years ago, and they’re very close friends of mine. Technically, we still love each other and I’m still promoting his company, and I always will, but for me to go there in person is not gonna happen now. And that doesn’t kinda suck, it sucks big.”

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Emerging stronger

Cormier said while emerging East Coast artists have traditionally travelled to New England to grow their careers, he hopes they will make a stand with him and stay in Canada while the trade war is being waged with the U.S.

“My work is more international and national than most of the players there but I hope that this younger generation that is going to go through the same close ties to what we all call the Boston States, which is where most Cape Bretoners end up going to play is down in New England, I hope they think twice about what they’re doing. Sure, there’s an argument to be made that music is the great healer, which it is, and people down there are suffering as well under that government and blah blah blah, but there also comes a time when you have to stand up and say ‘this is my nation. This is who I am, and I’m not going to have these things said about us, and I’m not going to have this kind of completely unsolicited attack on us, on our economy, on our jobs, on everything that we’re doing here.’ We have to stand together,” he said.

“If we’re going to survive this administration we have to gang up, and I think Canadians are ready to do it. I’ve been talking all morning with people about the fact that there are thousands of venues in Canada who are now saying, ‘You know what? We’re not hiring Americans anymore. We’re going to invest our money and our efforts in Canadian artists. And that’s where we should be turning to because when this is all over, if we get out of this in one piece, the industry here would be 10 times stronger because we went internal and started to concentrate on each other, which is what we must do now if we’re going to provide any kind of front against this bullshit.

“It’s a war. It’s a trade war. And there’s casualties in a trade war just like a ground war. There’s going to be thousands of people lose their jobs and the markets are gonna collapse here. We gotta stand together.”

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