I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If you looks at our major industries that aren’t controlled by Canadian oligopolies, we let the US take over and continue to support them. For example, streaming services (Netflix, Spotify, Paramount, HBO, Disney, YouTube, etc…), fast food (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wendy’s, Five Guys, Timmies, etc…), home improvement (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Rona), retail (Wal-Mart, Amazon, Costco), tech (Google, Apple, Microsoft), credit payments (Visa, Mastercard), food brands (Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, print media (Postmedia Network, which controls over 130 newspapers across the country), social media (Insta, Snap, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp), retail gas (Esso, Ultramar, Chevron, Pioneer) are all US companies. I can keep going on (pharmaceuticals, oil and gas operations in Alberta, and entertainment).
It’s ironic when I see Canadians hating on immigrants for not being “Canadian”, yet those Canadians copy Americans like no tomorrow. And now we have separatists in Alberta simping for the US and politicians that vocally support Trump (Doug Ford, Danielle Smith, and PP). Wtf is going on?
TL:DR; It’s 'cuz we’re close, but Trump is helping us Canadians rediscover a healthy nationalism.
We were pretty well integrated with the USA over the last 30-odd years, to our mutual benefit and detriment. For the last 10 we’ve seen the vocal minority of Maple MAGA say with Maxime Bernier’s People Party, but also the Conservative moment aligning itself (if not merging with) MAGA.
Under the Trudeau government, his government’s foreign affairs philosophy was internationalism. Which generally made Canadians not really attached to their national identity, and our national symbols started to represent some of the colonial skeletons we were in the process of digging up. What made things worse is that the Ottawa Trucker Convoy was awash with Canadian symbols but they were a MAGA-coup-turned-nuisance-occupation. Most Canadians were either disappointed or disgusted at what national pride had come to represent the worst of us.
Though since Trump has been threatening Canada a lot, I think things have turned for the better, and non-MAGA people at-large have taken back the mantle of nationalism to decouple it from racism and bigotry. The !buyCanadian@lemmy.ca and !boycottUS@lemmy.ca movements are still active. I’ve not completely gotten rid of every American thing yet but like for 90% of stuff I have, and I actively look for alternatives every time before I buy, and discovered Canadian small to medium businesses I never would have come across otherwise.
Good points. I agree the Buy Canadian movement is still pretty strong, and it’s not just on Lemmy. You can see it in the maple symbols on grocery shelf price tags (even if that system is flawed), and in the news reports of American cities complaining about fewer Canadian visitors.
I still think the majority of people still use American products and services within Canada (Netflix, Instagram, Starbucks, Amazon), but the boycott is significant and sustained.