Canuck Shoppers Create Buffalo Backlash

It’s a mass exodus that we haven’t seen in this country for more than three decades. With the Black Friday weekend well underway, all you have to do is head to any mall parking lot in Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York to see the proof of it – car after car after car bearing Ontario plates. And you may be looking at them for a while. Thanks to the influx of Canadians taking advantage of the higher loonie with some cross border shopping, you may not be able to get a place to park at all.

Americans are looking at all this with a bemused detachment that sometimes borders on anger. One complains the lots are filled with shoeboxes left behind by crafty Canucks, who are trying to hide their purchases from customs agents. The evidence is almost as prominent as those license plates. “You know what’s really funny?” American shopper Maria Dimopolous asks. “I was sitting on the passenger side in the front seat. My cousin said to me, she goes, ‘See?’ She goes, ‘Those are the Canadians. They shop. They put their shoes on. They change and they go.'”

“They shouldn’t do that in our country,” complains another Yank.

Others are angry because we’re taking up all the spots. “There’s one person from Pennsylvania. I’m from New York,” admits an American named Jerry. “Man, we’re outnumbered here and we’re in our own country.”

Another woman resents our presence for a different reason. “Honestly, I can’t get the bargains that I wanted to give because they’re out here before I am today!” she grouses. “They drive faster and they pull into parking places faster and we’re just more laid back, I think, than they are.”

Canadians beg to differ, falling back on an old Canuck stereotype. “We’re very polite shoppers,” suggests one woman from Hamilton.

“We’re actually telling people how to save money,” echoes another.

Still, not everyone is upset with our presence. The merchants love us – and the dollars we bring. “They definitely help our business boom,” store manager Laura Janese agrees. “They’ve been great. They’re very polite.”

In the end, most Americans seem to be taking all this in stride, recalling that it wasn’t very long ago when the shoe was on the other foot. Only they didn’t leave the boxes behind.