“It was all going to be fabulous,” Andrew McAnerney, associate director of music at Christ Church Cathedral, said wistfully of a now cancelled plan to take the Boys’ Choir to Boston.
“I was excited about the opportunity it gave for our Boys’ Choir to go and meet two other boys’ choirs because there are so few boys’ choirs here in North America, and the opportunity to go and sing with two and socialize, we’d organised a basketball tournament and a Boston pizza party.”
The reason why the trip was cancelled hardly needs explanation anymore. President Donald Trump.
“When we planned the trip to Boston, everybody was very excited,” McAnerney recalls.
But after news of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being bullied at the White House, mass deportations, Canadians being detained or deported at the border, the trade war, and Trump’s threats against Canada’s sovereignty, the U.S. looked like a very different neighbour.
“I was worrying about taking the choir across the border to the States,” McAnerney said. “And then all the economic threats that have been made against the country. It was very distasteful, the idea that we’d be spending $36,000 of our hard-earned and fundraised money in the United States.”
When they when back to the families to ask if they wanted to go ahead with the trip, McAnerney said 90 percent of them said, “‘No, we don’t want to go ahead with the trip. We don’t want to spend our money in the States. We don’t want to take the risk crossing the border.”
It was a difficult and sad decision, he said, because “it’s taking an opportunity away from our boys. It’s taking away an opportunity for cultural exchange and all the good things that come with it.” He added that there was a financial cost as well because they lost their deposits on the hotel in Boston. “It’s never good to lose money like that,” he acknowledged, but he and the organizers now have peace of mind and are relieved of worries about complications crossing the border.
McAnerney said both of the host churches they would have visited in Boston were very gracious. “They understood why we had made that decision. They understood that the choristers and their parents were concerned about making the trip.” The door is open for a trip in the future.
For now, the silver lining is the Boys’ Choir was able to arrange an alternate trip to Quebec City. “Holy Trinity Cathedral in Québec City have been very welcoming, and we’re going to go and sing there instead with their choir, so I’m delighted for that, ” he said.
Church of the Ascension, Ottawa — Deanery of Central Ottawa