Copyright The Boston Globe
“Well, some people in Europe have the impression that America has made some stupid choices in the past, oh, five years,” she says as she lifts her Canada-enhanced backpack off the luggage carousel. “So, for the next week, I’m from Canada.” Americans with travel on the horizon are once again headed online to purchase red maple leaf patches and stickers as the Trump White House proves unpopular on the world stage. They’re worried that Trump’s record on pulling out of international agreements (the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization), his dissolution of the US Agency for International Development, and his regular threats of tariffs may lead to poor treatment in their European or Asian travels. “Did I think people would treat me badly if they knew I’m American? Maybe,’ said Rob McMahon of Cambridge. He put a Canadian flag pin on his backpack on a recent trip to France. ”I decided to play it safe. I wanted to escape political conversations on vacation." In the past, flag-jacking was seen as a harmless charade to escape dirty looks while traveling. But that was when US-Canadian relations were sweeter than a liter of maple syrup, and Canadians felt more of a kinship with the United States. Those days disappeared when Trump started his second term and began insulting Canadians by referring to the country as America’s 51st state and imposing tariffs. Most recently, he threatened to raise tariffs by 10 percent after fuming over a Canadian advertisement that featured audio of Ronald Regan explaining why tariffs were ineffective. The days of flag-jacking as innocent fun are over. Canadians have responded to Trump’s badmouthing and talk of annexation by boycotting American products and eschewing vacations in the United States, and now they’re responding to flag-jacking with similar fury. Former Canadian radio host Tod Maffin ignited the discussion in September with a video calling out flag-jacking as “selfish.” “Every time America breaks something overseas … suddenly you can’t swing a baguette in Europe without hitting a backpack with a fresh Canadian flag sewn on the back,” said Maffin in a video that was shared on TikTok more than 200,000 times. “It’s like clockwork. The world gets mad at America, and Americans go, ‘Oh no, quick! To the maple leaves!’ “ Maffin goes on to tell Americans that those flags aren’t fooling anyone. “The rest of the world? They’re on to you,” Maffin says. “They’ve noticed that you don’t know how to spell neighbour ... It’s like putting a ‘Baby on Board’ sticker on a tank.” He’s not the only one who’s fed up with Americans attempting to hide behind the Canadian flag. Quebec City shopkeeper Patricia Leclerc said she’s tired of Americans hiding behind the Canadian flag whenever international relations sour. “I was in Germany over the summer and saw a couple with Canadian flags on their backpacks,” she said. ”I asked them where in Canada they’re from, and they started stammering and looking embarrassed. Eventually, they admitted that they were from Wisconsin." Isaac Choi of Vancouver also encountered impostors on his summer holiday in Greece. “It’s not just the way they were talking,” Choi said of his brush with the faux Canadians at a bar in Mykonos. “It was the volume. One of them was wearing a Blue Jays hat, and another one had a maple leaf on her backpack, but they sounded like they were from somewhere in the south. It’s like they weren’t even trying.” The satirical news website The Beaverton ran a comedic and cheeky story about Prime Minister Mark Carney issuing a 200 percent tariff on flag patches to reduce the number of Americans attempting to pass as Canadians, thereby saving themselves from being pelted by croissants or getting spit on by Dutch baggage handlers. Online, frustrated Canadians are sharing a slew of ideas about how to suss out the impostors. Quiz them on the capitals of each province, ask them if they like eating beaver tails, see if they can spell Saskatchewan, ask them for their postal code, or ask them to name three Canadian chain restaurants (Tim Horton’s doesn’t count). And perhaps the ultimate slap to the American impostors is that many Canadians say they would never walk around with a maple leaf flag on their backpack. “True Canadians don’t need flags when we travel — that’s for Americans,” said Halifax native Zack Cameron. “You cut us, we bleed maple.”
