London grassroots movement looks to go national with call to boycott U.S. products
Randy Young says profits made from yard sign sales will go toward national ad space
A London man's campaign is looking to make a big patriotic splash, tapping into the growing discontent of Canadians toward U.S. President Donald Trump.
It's call to action is simple: "Boycott USA, Buy Canadian."
"The only way that we're going to get the attention of the average American is if you strike them in that pocket book," said Randy Young, who launched the effort earlier this month with a few friends.
It's all in response to threats of tariffs and annexation Trump has levelled at America's longtime ally, rattling financial markets and prompting Canada to impose its own levies, including on electricity.
Young set up a website and Facebook page to sell yard signs and other items printed with the message, hoping to raise funds to bring the call to more eyeballs. Any profits will be put toward national advertising space, he said.
"We're going to keep it going for two years time, we figure until the next election in the U.S. We've got to permanently change the attitude of buying American products," he said.
Trump's comments have led to a wave of uncharacteristic vocal patriotism from Canadians. Take, for example, the independent refreshing of Molson's iconic "I Am Canadian" ad, or the recent ubiquity of "elbows up," evoking Canadian hockey legend Gordie Howe.
"Definitely, we're in a moment of crisis of national identity, and it's driving people to think about what is Canadian," said Howard Ramos, a Western University sociology professor.
He said that was especially true in English Canada, whose identity and culture competes with the U.S. It's not common that English Canadians articulate their identity beyond institutions like health care or good governance, he said.
"It's really in moments like this where the identity is challenged, where English Canadians are forced to think about what is their identity and how to articulate it."
I'm doing this as a service to my country- Randy Young
It's not the first time Canadians have had to examine their national identity. Ramos referenced the 1970s, when thousands of American men made their way north to avoid the Vietnam War draft, and the 1980 and 1995 Quebec referendums as examples.
"It's really rare that we've faced something where we're threatened with the very identity of the country. We would have to go back hundreds of years," he said. He stressed that whatever identity Canadians rally around shouldn't be solely in opposition to something.
CBC News found Young and two friends camped out Sunday across the street from RBC Place, where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was holding a rally and positioning his party as the only one capable of taking on Trump.
By mid-afternoon, Young said only three yard signs and some stickers had been sold, but he remained optimistic, saying he had already received a slew of interested phone calls.
A small business owner, Young has raised funds for Canadian causes before. From 2008 to 2012, he says he ran Friends of Veterans Canada, a charity which documented the stories of Canadian veterans on video.
"I'm doing this as a service to my country, and that we all should be buying Canadian products," he said.
Other Canucks from coast to coast to coast have formed or joined grassroots campaigns like Young's.
"Anecdotally, we've had a lot of consumer inquiries at front of stores about which products are Canadian versus which are U.S. manufactured or even international," said Karl Littler, the Retail Council of Canada's senior vice-president of public affairs.
Most focus has been on groceries, partly because it's something consumers interact with frequently, but also because Canadian-made products already make up a majority of store shelves, he said.
"There's some anecdotal evidence that (recent) consumption patterns are actually lifting that," Littler said.
"By the same token, we don't grow bananas, we don't grow avocados … Out of necessity, there are going to be products that simply can't be replaced by a Canadian product."
While it's positive shoppers are prioritizing Canadian-made products, and by extension communities and jobs, Littler cautioned against reflexive anti-Americanism, as U.S. firms hire Canadian workers and contribute to the economy.
At the same time, Canada will need additional trading partners other than the U.S., he said, which means Canadians will have to be open to buying products from other countries.
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