The weeks that have passed since Liam Mooney and Emma Cochrane imagined a viral hat intended to repel any idea that Canada was taken over by the United States were more an intensive course in the manufacturing sector than in the political field.
The two marketing specialists based in Ottawa causing the hats “Canada is not for sale” made famous by the Prime Minister of Ontario Doug Ford last week say they have achieved how difficult it is to produce A cap entirely made in Canada.
“Imagine that you are a snake and try to consume a giant bowling ball. This is what we have experienced here, “said Mooney, co-founder of the Jackpine Dynamic Branding business consulting firm.
In recent weeks, the duo has approached several players in the clothing sector to help them and has above all heard the same chorus: they do not make hats entirely in Canada because the cost is very high and the demand is Not there.
Mooney and Cochrane have since found hats entirely manufactured in the country, but have not found a long -term solution. They therefore mainly count on caps imported from Vietnam, Bangladesh and China and the States of the United States, which are then embroidered. in Canada.
The difficulty of making clothes or accessories entirely in Canada stems from years of hard blows to the country’s textile industry, which has lost a large part of the capacity for making clothes it had developed in the 19th century when the industrialists emigrated to Canada and took advantage of the introduction of the sewing machine. .
“They launched the clothing industry in Canada in big cities, so in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg … But what happened in the 1980s is that these industries began to export Abroad, “said Henry Navarro Delgado, an associate fashion professor at the Metropolitan University of Toronto.
They were far from Canada in large part because the workforce, the materials and the clothing components such as the zippers, the wire and the pimples were cheaper elsewhere.
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“A t-shirt in China, according to its complexity and if it or not has a print, could be produced for only 1 dollar,” said Navarro Delgado.
“Can you imagine this?” We just can’t afford it.
Today, the data from the World Trade Organization on clothing exporters show that Canada is not even part of the Top 10 while China and the European Union reign supreme. Next come Bangladesh, Vietnam, Turkey, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Pakistan.
But take a look at the back of the medal-importers-and you will find Canada sixth from 2021, behind the EU, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and China.
Much of the manufacture of clothing in Canada is linked to military uniforms or firefighters as well as clothing for extreme environments such as cold, said Navarro Delgado.
Most of the components they use are not fully manufactured in Canada.
“Jeans, for example, have rivets, metal buttons, metallic lightning closures and a special thread for embroidery,” he said.
“When it comes to very complex clothes, it is almost impossible to produce them locally. You just can’t.
However, Jimil Ataman, assistant professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta, says that many small businesses persist, often in importance of equipment and parts assembled by seamstresses in Canada.
“But all this brings the final price in a way that, I think, is frankly very shocked by most consumers,” she said.
“We were all so socialized For years and years, something like a baseball cap should cost $ 15 for purchase, but the fact is that if you wanted to produce this cap in ethical circumstances, entirely in compliance with the laws of labor and standards From Canadian policy, then the price because it will be much higher.
The Mooney and Cochrane caps “Canada is not for sale” are sold between $ 45 and $ 55, while the toques cost $ 40.
The idea of the hat came to them on January 8, while they were looking at Ford on Jesse Watters Primetime Talking about the reflections of US President Donald Trump on social networks on the way he would like to see Canada annexed to the States- United.
“Emma (Cochrane) and I have looked at from the other side of the sofa, we have sort of rise and said,” We have to do something about it. It’s absurd, this kind of lack of respect, “recalls Mooney.
That evening, they had imagined a design and made their first sales.
The hats were made on order, so each time a sale arrived, they finalized the purchase by embroidery.
Orders of around 50,000 hats flocked once Ford brought one of these hats at a meeting on January 15 with the Prime Ministers and the Prime Minister of Canada. About at the same time, Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify Inc., spoke of buying one on social networks and counterfeits began to appear.
Mooney and Cochrane knew they needed a model capable of making massive quantities, but a hat made in Canada was not easy to find – or even often asked.
“A certain number of suppliers have told us that it is not something that people ask them very often because it is much cheaper to make it abroad,” said Cochrane.
While continuing to look for a solution entirely manufactured in Canada, they embroider hats in Toronto, where they are able to produce 1,000 per day.
Although Mooney admits that it was “a trip” to get there, he and Cochrane also find humiliating to see how many people in Canada have mobilized to try to make their product.
“There is common solidarity,” said Mooney. “When the stakes are weak, we remain united.”