CANADIANS TURNING THEIR BACKS ON AMERICAN STUFF
BY: DAIMAN TEER for THE SIMPLETON STAR
FADE IN: IT’S DINNER TIME – An average household in Winnipeg.
KID: “Mom, where’s the Chef Boyardee SpaghettiOs?”
MOM: “NO, NO, NO, NO, kids! Not tonight. Tonight we’re having moose jerky and bear-claw soup. There is no American food in THIS house!”
KID: “But Mooooom!”
SISTER: “Quiet! And when you clean your plates, we’ll watch reruns of The Kids in the Hall and an episode of Biography about Monty Hall.”
KID: “But Mom, Monty Hall was on American television! He even converted to American….like Neil Young and William Shatner and…and…and everybody!”
The mother freezes.
The father slowly lowers his fork.
Nobody speaks.
Finally, Dad whispers, “Dear God.”
And that is how I imagine the great Canadian boycott of American products Netflix series might start out if it were taken seriously.
Now, I don’t have a problem with Canadians deciding they don’t want to buy American products. People are free to spend their money however they please. But there is something wonderfully strange about declaring economic war on the United States while living beside the country that supplies Canada with an enormous amount of its food, entertainment, technology, automobiles, clothing, media and practically everything else that makes modern life possible.
So perhaps before Canada closes the border and declares American products morally contaminated, somebody should make a list of everything they are going to have to give up.
And that’s where this gets fun.
Because the question isn’t whether Canadians can boycott American products. Of course they can. The question is how long they can do it before somebody in the household quietly asks where the hell the SpaghettiOs went.
And that is how I imagine the great Canadian boycott of American products might go if it were taken seriously.
Because this isn’t just a joke anymore. The relationship between the United States and Canada has become genuinely ugly. President Trump has imposed new tariffs on Canadian goods, including a 50 percent tariff on roughly $27.6 billion worth of Canadian products that took effect August 22, 2026. Canada has responded with its own tariffs, matching those measures dollar for dollar on a range of American products beginning September 8. The two governments were negotiating right up until the last minute, but those talks broke down.
So now we have two countries that have spent decades building one of the most interconnected economies on earth suddenly trying to convince their citizens that the other guy is the problem. This is particularly amusing when you consider what “the other guy” actually looks like. Canada and the United States exchange roughly $3.6 billion worth of goods and services every day. Canada is America’s second-largest trading partner, and the United States is Canada’s largest. Millions of jobs on both sides depend upon that relationship.
The Canadians have plenty to complain about, particularly when American tariffs raise the price of Canadian exports. But the Americans have plenty to lose too. Canada supplies enormous quantities of oil, aluminum, potash and other materials to the United States. Canadian crude alone accounts for roughly 20 percent of American petroleum consumption. More than 80 percent of America’s imported potash, an important agricultural fertilizer, comes from Canada. The automobile industry is so intertwined that parts can cross the border several times before a vehicle is finished.
In other words, this isn’t two strangers refusing to speak to each other at the grocery store.
It’s a married couple throwing the television out the window because they had an argument over who forgot to buy milk.
And that brings us back to the SpaghettiOs.
If Canadians want to buy Canadian products, fine. If Americans want to buy American products, fine. There is nothing wrong with patriotism, and there is nothing wrong with trying to strengthen your own economy. But when patriotism turns into contempt for the people on the other side of the border, everybody becomes a little dumber.
Canada and the United States have been neighbors for centuries. They share a continent, enormous stretches of wilderness, electricity grids, pipelines, roads, rivers, lakes, families, businesses, sports, entertainment and an almost absurd amount of cultural history. The border is real, but the relationship has never been as simple as drawing a line on a map and pretending that everything on one side has nothing to do with everything on the other.
So before the Canadians throw away the last can of SpaghettiOs, and before Americans start asking whether maple syrup is secretly financing the Canadian military, perhaps everybody should take a breath.
BIBLE VERSE
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
— Psalm 133:1
WHY I CHOSE THIS VERSE
I chose that verse for a simple reason. Canada and the United States are not brothers because politicians say they are. They are brothers because history, geography, commerce and millions of ordinary human relationships have made them so. Governments can impose tariffs. Politicians can insult one another. Newspapers can scream. Television can turn everything into a national emergency. But ordinary Canadians and Americans still have to live beside one another when the politicians have gone home.
A PRAYER FOR THE USA and CANADA
God, please watch over the United States and Canada. Give our leaders enough wisdom to remember that neighbors do not have to become enemies simply because they disagree. Protect the workers, farmers, families and businesses on both sides of the border who have no control over the decisions being made in Washington or Ottawa. Give both countries the good sense to remember what they have in common, and the humility to recognize that neither nation is perfect. Let Americans remain good neighbors to Canadians, and Canadians remain good neighbors to Americans. And if possible, Lord, let the children have their SpaghettiOs back. Amen.
