A Canadian working in health care in the U.S. shared a disturbing incident she faced in the operating room amid a discussion on the tariff war.
TikToker @fern_9221, whose bio states that she’s a neuroscientist, shared a video of herself sitting in her car after work in which she describes an experience in the workplace that caught her off guard.
“Just got off work,” she said. “I just wanted to share with you what it was like today down under in the United States in 2025.”
She said that when Americans find out she’s Canadian, they typically ask her to say “out” and “about” in a Canadian accent, causing them to “break down in giggles.”
However, one American coworker’s reaction completely took her by surprise.
The neuroscientist described how she was in the middle of surgery when she “outed” herself as a Canadian during a conversation about tariffs.
“I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m a Canadian, and I, you know, I don’t agree with the tariffs.’ And one of the nurses came over — and I said this because I felt like I was in a pretty safe space for a variety of reasons — she says, ‘You guys have been stealing from us for years, and it’s about time that someone stepped in and stopped it.’ And I was shocked,” she alleged. “Stealing? She thought the Canadians are stealing from Americans.”
She claimed that it was at this point that she realized that the nurse was shaking and crying in rage. The nurse then accused Canadians of stealing from Americans for years and allegedly stated, “All I want is to be just left alone and have a good retirement.”
The interaction left her in shock.
@fern_9221 Nurse raged at me for being Canadian 🇨🇦 stealing her retirement. #canada #tariff ♬ original sound – fern_922
“What I took from that is what she meant was all she wants to be left alone, as in, she doesn’t want foreigners around her,” she explained. “And she thinks that she’s due all this money because Canadians have stolen from her, and not the oligarchs, not the billionaires, not the system — it’s the Canadians.”
The video has over 230,000 views on TikTok and nearly 3,500 comments. The incident appears to be just one example of rising tensions between both countries amid a messy U.S.-Canada trade war
One viewer wrote, “She’s going to be in a world of hurt the second she realizes Trump and Musk stole her retirement.”
Another stated, “I’m a Canadian living in the southern U.S. I’ve been here 15 years, and I’m hated for being ‘from the North.’ Trust me, you are NOT safe as a Canadian here.”
Someone wrote, “I live in Texas. I’m so very sorry you may have heard from an ignorant citizen. I really think the majority of U.S. citizens do NOT believe that Canada took anything from us.”
One commenter simply stated, “Time to come home, girl.”
In a follow-up video, she shared her response to comments that stated that the nurse was “in a cult.” The TikTok user then describes her previous experience studying and infiltrating cults to “gather information.”
She then cites a study in which cult members become increasingly more like their cult readers over time.
“There are many, many people in this country who are starting to exhibit more and more aspects of Donald Trump’s personality, and, of course, Donald Trump is a creation of a small segment of the American culture itself,” she stated.
“But I do feel we’re seeing more selfishness, more greed, more focus on money, more callousness, more cruelty, more dehumanization, these sorts of traits which are really emblematic of Trump.”
We have reached out to the neuroscientist and will update this story when she responds.
