Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivered a message to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump Wednesday morning in the form of a hat: “Canada is not for sale.”
Ford wore the navy-blue baseball cap, reminiscent of Trump’s controversial “Make America Great Again” hats, ahead of a premiers’ summit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa to discuss Canada’s response to promised tariffs by the incoming commander-in-chief.
“First of all, I’ll talk about the hat that I’m wearing,” Ford told reporters before the meeting, mentioning that the hat was sent to him by the Ottawa-based company, Jackpine Dynamic Branding. “You don’t see me in the hats too much, but this is about everyday Canadians standing up for the country.”
The hat features a Canadian flag on the right and the year of confederation, 1867, on the left.
Trump has threatened to slap a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods as soon as he’s inaugurated on Jan. 20 and more recently has mused about annexing Canada by way of “economic force” once he’s in the White House.
“This [hat] is an example of how we need to unite and we can not let president Trump divide us. He’ll be sworn in in a week and then he’s going to lay the tariffs on Canada. He’s going to try to devastate our country, he’s going to try and divide our country, and we cannot have division in our country,” Ford said.
On Tuesday, Ford said the tariffs could cost Ontario as many as 500,000 jobs.
The group of 13 premiers, of which Ford serves as chair, is expected to discuss the tariffs and its response to them at length on Wednesday.
As of late, Ford hasn’t said exactly what retaliatory measures he is considering should the tariffs take hold, however he has said the province could potentially shut off Ontario power to the 1.5 million homes south of the border that use it.
“I can tell you one thing: nothing’s more important than the country. And when we’re defending the country, we don’t roll over. You’re in a card game, you don’t show your opposition your cards. If you have some aces, you hold onto those aces,” he said.
Ford met with Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc yesterday, who has also remained tight-lipped on counter measures but stated that “all options are on the table.” Following the meeting, the premier said he had seen the fed’s $1.3 billion border security plan, the specifics of which have yet to be released publicly, and said it was “fabulous.”
Trump has said that the tariffs will remain in place until both Canada and Mexico beef up their borders, however LeBlanc said last month the plan had been in the works for months and was not in response to the incoming president’s threat.
Hat creator ‘sprung into action’ following Ford’s Fox News interview
Liam Mooney is the founder of Jackpine and said Ford’s team called him to get one of the hats on Tuesday.
“Got a buzz early in the morning from a deputy chief of staff and a bunch of other folks on his team and [we] were asked to get a couple of hats for the premier and you know, when the premier asks for something like that…you get up and you move,” he told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday.
Mooney used to be a political fundraiser and said he started his design strategy and brand innovation firm about 12 years ago. He said the inspiration for the hats came after Ford appeared on Fox News last week and host Jesse Watters told the premier that Canada should “consider it a privilege to be taken over by the United States of America” and that he found it “personally offensive” that Canadians seem to find that concept “repellant.”
“Well I’ve got news for those folks, it’s a privilege to be Canadian,” Mooney said. “And it’s an amazing privilege. And so we just sprung into action. From concept onto the premier in one week. It was pretty awesome.”