As It Occurs5:48The ‘I am Canadian’ advert is again in an enormous method. Its star has blended emotions
Earlier than he was a staple of CBC Radio, Jeff Douglas was finest generally known as Joe from Molson’s wildly standard “I am Canadian!” tv commercials.
Now, 25 years later — amid a looming commerce warfare with the U.S., threats to Canada’s nationwide sovereignty and a swelling of Canadian patriotism — the beer advert is getting a second life as a social media phenomenon.
Douglas first seen the advert’s burgeoning resurgence a pair weeks in the past.
“Some people were tagging me on socials directly and, you know, saying, ‘Jeff, it’s time to do these again,’ or ‘Hey, we need these back,’” Douglas advised As It Occurs host Nil Koksal.
Since then, it’s blown up, particularly on TikTok, the place Canadian customers are sharing clips from the industrial, or utilizing the audio to file their very own performances of its patriotic script.
Paradoxically, Molson merged with an American firm just a few years after the advert was launched in 2000. However that’s not stopping Canadians from sharing the sentiment behind it in the present day as a commerce warfare looms.
At the moment, Douglas is finest identified on the East Coast as the host of CBC Radio’s Mainstreet Nova Scotia. Earlier than that, he spent practically a decade on the nationwide airwaves as co-host of As It Occurs alongside Carol Off.
However in 2000, he was the flannel-wearing “Joe Canada,” standing alone on a stage, refuting Canadian stereotypes and boasting with patriotic fervour over swelling music, earlier than shouting the slogan, “I am Canadian!” to rousing applause.
Listening to his youthful self boast about toques, beavers and chesterfields all these years later brings up “complex” emotions, Douglas says.
On the one hand, the actor-turned-broadcaster has “fond memories” of the industrial, and is glad to see it resonating with individuals in troublesome occasions. On the identical time, he says he’s discovered much more in current many years concerning the darker features of Canadian historical past, and worries concerning the nation sliding again into the “blind patriotism” of the early aughts.
“I feel that people are needing to feel that love,” he mentioned. “I just hope that they don’t forget that there is still a lot of work to do.”
A advertising and marketing success
The advert, written by Glen Hunt and titled The Rant, was a large success when it launched.
Antonia Mantonakis, a professor of promoting and client psychology at Brock College in St. Catharines, Ont., remembers finding out it in college.
“A lot of business professors were teaching that case, and in talking about the Canadian identity and that influence. But then it seemed to kind of lose its steam and become dated,” Mantonakis advised CBC.
Now, as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens tariffs on Canadian items and suggests Canada develop into the 51st state, Canadians are immediately booing the U.S. anthem at sporting occasions and boycotting American items.
A current Angus Reid ballot discovered that, between December and February, nationwide satisfaction rose throughout the nation by 9 factors, from 58 per cent to 67 per cent.
Regardless of a pause in U.S. tariffs, the push to purchase Canadian merchandise continues throughout the GTA. However as CBC’s Dale Manucdoc explains, there are some gray areas that exist when buying merchandise from house soil.
The advertising and marketing world, Mantonakis says, has taken discover.
“In the last week or so, every professor, every class, no matter what the topic is, this issue of Canadian identity has come up again and again,” Mantonakis mentioned.
However The Rant in all probability gained’t be the identical boon to Molson because it was 25 years in the past, she mentioned. 5 years after it hit the airways, the once-Canadian firm merged with U.S. brewer Coors.
As a substitute, she suspects its newfound recognition will “contribute to the general likelihood for a consumer to be more likely to choose Canadian” merchandise.
Even when the swell of patriotism ultimately dies down, and the tariffs cease making headlines, she says the client shift that occurs now might have long-lasting impacts.
Folks would possibly change to a Canadian wine or ketchup, for instance, due to the information. However then they keep it up as a result of it seems to be actually scrumptious, or as a result of it has a decrease carbon footprint, or just out of behavior.
“You think, well, why haven’t we bought this before? This is great. We’ll definitely have to buy it again,” she mentioned.
The great, the dangerous and ugly
Douglas says the “I am Canadian!” advert struck a chord with younger individuals again in its heydey, just like the response it’s getting now.
“It was fun and it was kind of like, you know, biting the thumb at the States and standing up at a point when national pride was already really high,” he mentioned.
“It was very easy for me to believe in Canada. We weren’t dealing with the totality of what Canada was. And over the past 25 years, we have had to look at that and had to confront it.”
He was about 28 years outdated when he starred within the advert, and says he didn’t know a lot then about Canada’s historical past of colonialism, and the violence and compelled assimilation perpetrated in opposition to Indigenous kids by means of the Sixties Scoop and in residential faculties, the final of which closed in 1997.
The advert copy itself contains strains about not dwelling in an igloo, consuming blubber or proudly owning a canine sled, references to Indigenous individuals in Canada’s North.
What’s extra, Douglas says the patriotism that got here so simply to many in 2000 is way tougher to search out for younger individuals coming of age through the pandemic, the rising value of dwelling and a scarcity of reasonably priced housing.
Now that the winds are altering, Douglas says he’s cautious, however hopeful.
“I think that people are looking around at their communities, at their neighbours, at their families, and, you know, the people in the provinces and territories and going: No, you know what? Canada is them. That’s who this is, and that’s what I stand for. So I think that that’s where we’re coming back to.”
