Elbows Up!

Captain Canuck, rebooted for the 21st century by Comic House. This cover image for Season 0, Issue 1 is by David Finch

Every brand is asleep until it is awakened by human awareness. Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, it makes no sound unless we’re there to hear it.

Take Brand Canada. Under ‘normal’ circumstances, the world doesn’t even know we’re here. Unlike America, which feels the constant need to broadcast its so-called exceptionalism across the planet, we’re content to just quietly get on with our lives.

Until now. Trump’s attacks on Canadian sovereignty have roused our brand from its slumber. With remarkable speed and fury, creatives and brands are leveraging some of our most iconic assets to remind ourselves – and our American friends – that as countries go, this really is one of the best. And it’s not for sale.

An anonymous group of creatives from different agencies teamed up recently to reprise what is considered by many to be the most iconic Canadian ad ever, the Molson’s “I Am Canadian” spot from 25 years ago. It stars the same actor who was in the spot in 2000 and follows the same format, but with updated talking points. The star of the ad, actor-turned-broadcaster Jeff Douglas, reminisces here about the original experience vs how it felt to do the updated version. Though proud of both, he reflects on the sudden surge of patriotism with typical Canadian modesty, urging us not to succumb to blind patriotism but to acknowledge our dark side as well.

Jeff Douglas in a frame from the current version of the ‘I Am Canadian’ spot, 25 years after he did it the first time. 

Feeling the patriotic fire, all kinds of brands are discovering their inner Canuck and encouraging us to buy local. In early February the Globe and Mail published ‘The Big Guide to Canadian Shopping’, essentially an online directory of what Canadian products to buy and where to buy them.  

As Canada is a leader in machine learning, it shouldn’t be surprising that AI is in on the act. Agentiiv, founded by long time marketing and strategy leader Karla Congson calls itself Canada’s first fully hybrid AI consultancy, employing a team of human experts and AI assistants and who are powered by one of the leading frontier models (OpenAl, Anthropic or Gemini). One of those AI assistants is named ‘Maple Scout’ for her ability to help you find product and service brands that are made in Canada.

Dressed to detect: Maple Scout’s all-Canadian smile is accompanied by her profile – written by Maple herself. 

Petro-Canada’s recent retro travel series by McCann Canada promotes in-country travel to places with the same names as their more famous American twins.  

Insta posts from Petro-Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs

Our collective rage would not be complete without a superhero to lead the charge. Enter Captain Canuck, a comic book hero originally created in the 1970s (the last time Canadian nationalism was a thing) by graphic artist Richard Comely. Comely, now 74 years old and still going strong, was very busy shilling copies of a ‘no 51st state’ version of the comic at Toronto’s recent Comicon convention, which features on its cover President Trump getting a finger wag from the Captain. How typically polite that he didn’t give Trump the other finger.

Richard Comely’s timely cover for the rebooted version of Captain Canuck. Thanks to Trump’s terrible tariffs, the Captain has a bright future. Photo: CTV News

Although it’s a shame that it took the rise of a fascist movement with a deranged dictator to wake us up, it is truly heartening to see such an outburst of Canadian creativity in response to such an existential threat.

Sometimes you do your best work with a gun to your head.

Will Novosedlik is a Toronto-based writer, designer and editor. He is known for a critical perspective on the socioeconomic impact of design, advertising and marketing.