Canada’s unlikely trade war influencer fighting for the little guys

I feel that we are at a place now in this country where there is so much doom on our feeds. There is so much negativity, these American platforms especially, are built to amplify division. That is how the engagement, where it's cheap engagement, but it works for them. So what if we could provide a counter to that? What if we could provide content that is meaningful and researched and fact-checked, but speaks Bringing a spirit back to the country that maybe we're losing a little bit. Todd Raffins' corner of the internet is positive, helpful, and shamelessly pro-Canadian. I am the very model of a modern-day Canadian. I watch a CBC debate like I'm their ombudsman. But he's more than a patriotic hype man. So Bob and Doug McKenzie, of course. Where does somebody get something like that? I got this years ago, probably off eBay or something. The former CBC broadcaster and digital marketing strategist is using his skills to promote alternatives to American tech. It's called Unplug America. And elevates small Canadian businesses hit by the tariffs. It's having an impact. After being featured in a Main Street Canada video, we sold more than a thousand cake mixes and we're still counting. To say that I was blown away by how many orders I got, it's not the right description. Maffin has become an unofficial ambassador for its hometown of Nanaimo, B.C. What if we picked a day for all of you to come up here? Inviting Americans to come and visit. If you are an American health care worker and you've been thinking about moving to Canada. And even move north to fill much-needed health care jobs. I spoke to Todd Maffin at his home in Nanaimo, where he works on all of this and more with his wife, Jocelyn. I am fascinated by how you seize this moment. And also the movements that you've created. How did all of this come about? I had a TikTok channel that was maybe 50 people. I did dad jokes on them. Nobody watched. And when the tariffs first started, I went to Country Grocer and I wandered around the aisles and I talked a bit about this is what Buy Canadian is. This is what Made in Canada, Product of Canada is. And we should boycott American products if this is going to happen. Now that the illegal trade war is on, let me teach you how to buy Canadian at the grocery store. It is harder than it looks. And that video went viral. And one of the things I hadn't expected was Americans in the comments saying, this is fine with us. Boycott us. We've got this coming. And so kind of as a bit of a joke, I was waiting for a video game to install or something like that. And so I picked up the phone and I said, listen, if you guys are serious about supporting our economy, let's pick a weekend. You guys come up here, shop in our stores, eat in our restaurants, stay in our campgrounds. And we'll invite you up. And they showed up. It seems like an audacious idea. Like, if you'd pitch that to me right now, I would say, what if nobody showed up? Yes. But people showed up. And we also weren't sure. Because it's not like a conference where they had to register through a place. We had no idea how many. We didn't know until we drove into the park that morning to see whether or not people would actually show up. But there were 350 that first year. Yeah, crazy. So 350 the first year. So April of a year ago. And this past April? 700 American visitors, a lot of them health care. We did sort of a survey of people, of the groups that were coming, and half of the groups that were coming from the U.S. had at least one health care worker in them coming to check out Vancouver Island. And then they had extra time, you know, and so they checked out B.C. as well. As you look around that crowd, the 350 the first year, the 700 the second year, what did you think about what you had launched here? Deeply grateful for those people. You know, they're putting their trust in Canada. It's a terrible situation down there. They're looking for respite. We need their services. If you know Jocelyn and my wife and I even if we could just get one nurse, if we can just get one nurse, that'll make a difference. You know, you think about a town like Port Alberni. Where if a nurse is sick, that ER closes for that night, right? And then it just sort of became more. And what's been really fun to see is that as these health care workers now are coming to Vancouver Island and have moved here, they're telling their friends down south that there's this kind of like second wave of health care workers coming in. Okay, let's talk about buying Canadian. I looked at at least a couple of the videos and you've done what, 17 you said? 17 so far, yeah. So there's something... Quirky and charming and appealing and to me it has the same vibe as a farmer's market. I design and make easy and fun cross-stitch patterns and kits. Before tariffs, 80% of my customers were in the U.S. I make washable coloring pillows that can be colored and washed and colored over and over again. We make award-winning natural skincare, The Potion, right here in British Columbia. Go I just kind of wanted a response to the tariffs and, Canada! you know, we know that tariff stories that get covered a lot of sort of the large industries, automotive, steel, manufacturing, things like that, but all of these things affect the little people. Here are some Canadian small businesses hit hard by the tariffs that you can order from. Hi, I'm Alex and I own Ferdinand. Hey everyone, I'm Josh from Nyko in Burnaby, British Columbia, and we are the creators of the Nyko Jack and Drill. Hi, I'm Priya from Sorry Not Sorry here in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I get emotional a lot about about some of these some of these people you know so it's wonderful to see the this is what we do though in Canada right I mean like we look after each other. What is it that makes you emotional about the video? It's not the videos it's it's just it's the seeing other Canadians Rally around ourselves. Do you have any sense of if it's having an impact in terms of Increasing sales for these people it is absolutely is I get videos every day from from store owners that are basically like here Take a look at this and we see their living room and it's completely full of boxes People saying is one shop owner that had one order in all of July and this past month has been overwhelming for them. So That's Canada, right? I mean, that is people coming together to lift those businesses up. So yeah, it's, from what I've seen anyway, a huge response. Unplug America. I find it a very intriguing project of yours. So one of the things you've done is list a bunch of Canadian tech companies that provide alternate services to the big American tech companies. This week, Canadians are deleting Google Maps from their phones because the giant American tech company decided to side. So like a lot of people, I would like to wean myself off of reliance on big U.S. tech companies. But as I looked at your list, I thought to myself, you know, here's a company that does password protection, I think. You know, here's a company that provides an alternate to Google Docs. Is their security up to snuff? Will they be around in a year and a half? I can't put all my passwords on a site that I don't trust. How much, like, will these be true alternatives to the big American tech companies? But what is trust, Ian, right? Like, is trust that we can trust Google? That's big. That doesn't mean trustworthy. You know, Google and Microsoft have both said that, listen, even if the data's stored in Canada, Because we're an American company, if the American government requires us to hand over the data, it doesn't matter what the Canadian laws are. Where's trust in that, you know? So it's a toss-up. You know, certainly these are smaller developers. C-Dot, for instance, is developed by one guy in Victoria. Hey Cafe, which is an alternative to Facebook, is developed by one guy in Penticton. So, yeah, they're smaller. They're more at risk of closing and having technical problems. But you are also more at risk of having your data just sort of pulled out of American systems, used as AI training, used for the American government. I don't know. There's big, and there's small, and people have to decide for themselves. On your shelf, you have Canadian stuff here, but you've got American stuff as well. Yeah. And I wonder, in this journey you're on right now, what have you learned about Americans? They are also decent. You know, when the Americans came up, a lot of them, for the infusion programs, a lot of them were apologizing. Some wore apology tour shirts. I don't think any of us have any problem with the people across the border, you know, in terms of the actual people. They're doing what we're doing, trying to put food on the table, trying to get their kids through college. The governments have a problem with each other. I have a problem with the U.S. ambassador, but those are political level things, you know. So what I've learned about Americans is they want the same things that we do, and they are also decent people. Canada treats us very badly. They always have, not anymore. It's a whole different ballgame now. Trump is in town. They'll end up being the 51st state because it's the only way it works. This is a terrible time for a lot of Canadians, right? And they'll see the latest Trump comment or somebody, one of his representatives, and kind of just say, look, why are you putting that on TV? In my case, we don't want to watch this. But I've heard some people say that there's a silver lining to all of this, the way that Canadians have rallied together. What's your view of that? I don't look that far ahead. I'm just sort of, I tend to just sort of see where we are right now and think about that. Jocelyn and I do this because we want a Canada. We want a Canada that has a future. And, you know, I think about our nieces and nephews. They will have grandchildren one day. And those grandchildren will be in school and they'll be studying history. And the history that they'll be studying is where you and I are right now today, chronologically, right? We are tomorrow's history. So I think more about what can we do in this moment to change where we are. That's of more interest to me than, you know, figuring out prognosticating.