The 'I am Canadian' ad is back in a big way. Its star has mixed feelings
CBC Radio host Jeff Douglas welcomes the Canadian love, but guards against ‘blind patriotism’
Before he was a staple of CBC Radio, Jeff Douglas was best known as Joe from Molson's wildly popular "I am Canadian!" television commercials.
Now, 25 years later — amid a looming trade war with the U.S., threats to Canada's national sovereignty and a swelling of Canadian patriotism — the beer ad is getting a second life as a social media phenomenon.
Douglas first noticed the ad's burgeoning resurgence a couple weeks ago.
"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 told As It Happens host Nil Koksal.
Since then, it's blown up, especially on TikTok, where Canadian users are sharing clips from the commercial, or using the audio to record their own performances of its patriotic script.
Today, Douglas is best known on the East Coast as the host of CBC Radio's Mainstreet Nova Scotia. Before that, he spent nearly a decade on the national airwaves as co-host of As It Happens alongside Carol Off.
But 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, before shouting the slogan, "I am Canadian!" to rousing applause.
Hearing his younger self boast about toques, beavers and chesterfields all these years later brings up "complex" feelings, Douglas says.
On the one hand, the actor-turned-broadcaster has "fond memories" of the commercial, and is glad to see it resonating with people in difficult times. At the same time, he says he's learned a lot more in recent decades about the darker aspects of Canadian history, and worries about the country sliding back into the "blind patriotism" of the early aughts.
"I feel that people are needing to feel that love," he said. "I just hope that they don't forget that there is still a lot of work to do."
A marketing success
The ad, written by Glen Hunt and titled The Rant, was a massive success when it launched.
Antonia Mantonakis, a professor of marketing and consumer psychology at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., remembers studying it in university.
"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 told CBC.
Now, as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens tariffs on Canadian goods and suggests Canada become the 51st state, Canadians are suddenly booing the U.S. anthem at sporting events and boycotting American goods.
A recent Angus Reid poll found that, between December and February, national pride rose across the country by nine points, from 58 per cent to 67 per cent.
The marketing world, Mantonakis says, has taken notice.
"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 said.
But The Rant probably won't be the same boon to Molson as it was 25 years ago, she said. Five years after it hit the airways, the once-Canadian company merged with U.S. brewer Coors.
Instead, she suspects its newfound popularity will "contribute to the general likelihood for a consumer to be more likely to choose Canadian" products.
Even if the swell of patriotism eventually dies down, and the tariffs stop making headlines, she says the consumer shift that happens now could have long-lasting impacts.
People might switch to a Canadian wine or ketchup, for example, because of the news. But then they stick with it because it turns out to be really delicious, or because it has a lower carbon footprint, or simply out of habit.
"You think, well, why haven't we bought this before? This is great. We'll definitely have to buy it again," she said.
The good, the bad and ugly
Douglas says the "I am Canadian!" ad struck a chord with young people back in its heydey, similar to the reaction 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 said.
"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 old when he starred in the ad, and says he didn't know much then about Canada's history of colonialism, and the violence and forced assimilation perpetrated against Indigenous children through the Sixties Scoop and in residential schools, the last of which closed in 1997.
The ad copy itself includes lines about not living in an igloo, eating blubber or owning a dog sled, references to Indigenous people in Canada's North.
What's more, Douglas says the patriotism that came so easily to many in 2000 is much harder to find for young people coming of age during the pandemic, the rising cost of living and a lack of affordable housing.
Now that the winds are changing, Douglas says he's wary, but 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."
Interview with Jeff Douglas produced by Katie Geleff
