Ottawa hat maker sees big sales boost after Ontario Premier dons ‘Canada is not for sale’ cap

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s latest fashion choice has led to a big boost for an Ottawa company.

Ford was seen wearing a dark blue ‘Canada is not for sale’ hat while speaking with reporters before a key meeting with the other premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Wednesday. The hat was sent to him by Ottawa-based Jackpine Dynamic Branding.

The company’s founder, Liam Mooney, told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s The Vassy Kapelos Show that the idea came to him when he watched Ford’s recent appearance on Fox News.

“We were watching Premier Ford on Fox last week with Jesse Watters, and Jesse Watters said something to the effect of, ‘it would be a privilege for Canadians to be American,’” Mooney said. “We thought, ‘it’s actually a privilege to be Canadian.’ We jumped up out of our seats — we run a strategic design and branding firm — and we thought, ‘why don’t we put our skills to work right now and come up with a rebuttal to the MAGA (”Make America Great Again") hat and make our own way forward?’ Within a week, it went from a concept to on the premier’s head."

Mooney says Ford’s team reached out for one of the hats this week.

“We had a call yesterday morning, early in the morning, from a deputy chief of staff in the premier’s office and they said, ‘We’d like the premier to wear this. Can you get a couple?’ and we had to scramble because of the way we’ve set it up with Shopify and their dropship partners.”

That led to an all-day job of trying to get some hats into Ford’s hands, working closely with several Ottawa businesses.

“We worked with a group called the Sam Group on Colonnade Road to get a very special file because you can’t just take the artwork and print it into a hat, it’s not very simple. Then we had to work with Lids Canada at the Rideau Centre — we worked with August and M.J. there — they worked with me all day to produce these hats,” he said. “I’m back and forth with the premier’s staff and kept telling them, ‘It’s going to be another hour. Okay, we’re going to be ready in ten minutes. Actually, I need another hour!” And then, finally, just around 7 p.m. I dropped the hats off in a bag. I went to Paper Papier in the ByWard Market, got a little card for the premier, handwrote it. I had no expectations, had no idea what would happen, but just put that love out into the universe and this is where we are."

The immediate reaction to the hat has been overwhelming, Mooney said.

“We’re working as quickly as we can to catch up with demand. We’re fulfilling orders (on the website) right now as we speak. It’s just running like crazy. Last week, Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, had mentioned on Twitter that he bought one, so we knew early on that we were going to get some traction, we just weren’t sure that it would be like this.”

Mooney told CTV News Ottawa on Thursday that sales exploded in the 24 hours since Ford wore the hat on TV.

“We’ve received thousands of orders from coast to coast to coast. We’re selling into the United States. We’ll be selling internationally later today. We’ve just exceeded over $450,000 in sales in the last 24 hours alone,” he said.

“I am not surprised that people are excited by it. I’m surprised by the scale of it, but I’m not surprised that it resonates because I know as a Canadian how proud I am to be Canadian.”

If you want to order a hat for yourself, they’re available at strongandfreehat.ca.

--With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Dylan Dyson