While Canadians turn their backs to the United States for their holidays, the federal government employees went more often and spent more money in Donald Trump in 2025 than for the past 13 years, according to an analysis of The press. Unlike certain companies, Ottawa does not intend to limit the business stays of its employees in the United States.
This observation is drawn from an examination of open data from the federal government. Since 2004, executives and employees with more than 125 ministries, agencies and state companies of the Federal have declared more than 136,000 trips. They cost nearly $ 280 million.
During these 22 years, civil servants have made 5.7 % of their trips and spent 7.7 % of their budget for stays in whole or in part in the United States.
In the first half of 2025, this proportion increased to 6.5 % with regard to the number of trips and 9.6 % with regard to the total amount devoted to civil servants’ trips. In both cases, it has been a summit since 2012.
Diplomats have nothing to do with it
You would think that this sudden attraction for our southern neighbors stems from the trade war launched by the Trump administration. Would we witness an intense diplomatic tango between Ottawa and Washington?
To check it, The press isolated global business spending Canada. Diplomats are part of this ministry, which is also responsible for international trade in the country.
However, spending on travel in the United States represents only 8.9 % of what world strokes spent on travel during the first half of 2025.
Not only is this proportion less than that of all federal organizations for the same period (9.6 %, as we have seen), but it is also less than 10.6 % that global AVers have devoted to the United States for all of its missions since 2004.
The trade conflict is therefore not to be pointed out in this case. In fact, the only organization whose leap in the chapter to the ES. –U. This year could be justified by the cooling of relations between the two countries is Canada public security.
Fetanyl fault
The officials of this ministry, whose mandate includes border protection, have so far traveled only to Washington when they went to the United States in 2025. The description of several of these missions is the same: “Supporting the Minister of Public Security of Canada [alors David McGuinty] During meetings with his American counterpart. »»
Indeed, McGuinty had to go to the American capital many times last spring, in particular to hammer that Canada is not responsible for fentanyl imports in the United States. Almost 30 % of public security travel expenses have been made in the United States in 2025 at the moment. It is much more than the average of the last 20 years, which has only been 11.1 %.
Partner whatever happens
The other ministry who weighs heavily in the 2025 increase is national defense. Of the 1.2 million that this ministry spent on business trips in the first six months of the year, almost 15 % were devoted to travel to the United States.
The Stefanie Beck subminister, for example, went to Hawaii, in February, as part of the Honolulu Defense Forum. The trip, which also included stays in Vietnam and South Korea, cost more than $ 33,000.
The close collaboration of national defense and the Canadian armed forces with the various components of the American army requires more frequent trips to the United States, explains Andrée-Anne Poulin, spokesperson for the ministry. “We also have the common responsibility to defend North America, notably through the Norad,” she adds in an email answer to the questions of The press.
At the top of the prize list
The federal equivalent of the Quebec Deposit and Placement Caisse (CDPQ) is the organization that goes most frequently to the United States. The Public Sector Investment Office Investment Public Sector Scheme has carried out more than 38 % of its business travel expenses in the south of the border.
This is explained by the fact that its 300 billion portfolio is made up of investments located in the United States up to more than 40 %. Like the CDPQ, the Office has an office in New York, epicenter of the international financial world. And indeed, the majority of the organization’s trips to the States were made in the American metropolis.
But the proportion of 2025 remains much greater than its average of the last 20 years, which reaches 27 %.
The same goes for another organization whose employees have traveled to the United States in large numbers.
Natural Resources Canada devoted more than 35 % of its 2025 travel budget to stays in the United States, while over 20 years, this proportion was only 9.8 %.
“At a time when we are continuing our efforts to negotiate the best possible agreement for Canadians and redefine the relationship between our two countries, it remains important to make certain targeted and strategic business trips to the United States to promote Canadian interests abroad,” wrote to The press Marie Martin, spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada.
No directive
While Canadians boycotted them. –U. For their vacation, “the secretariat of the Canada Treasury Board has not implemented politics restricting business trips to the United States,” wrote his spokesperson Martin Potvin.
Companies have already decided to limit business trips south of the border. The Desjardins movement, for example, did it at the end of February.
Even training or congress in the United States must be approved by managers. “Business positioning concerning professional trips to the United States is still in force at Desjardins,” confirms the spokesperson Jean-Benoît Turcotti in an email to The press.
Read the text of Marie-Ève Morass, “Canadians continue to sulk the United States”, on the drop in the number of Canadians who return to the country by car
Read the Chronicle of Francis Vailles, “Canadian boycotting hurts”, on the economic impact of the net decline in the United States by Canadians
