A local Ontario company responsible for the now-viral hat Doug Ford wore to a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister and premiers to discuss Donald Trump’s tariff threat says the impact of Ford promoting its product has been “totally overwhelming.”
On Wednesday morning, Ford appeared in Ottawa sporting a hat with the caption “Canada is not for sale” after Trump pushed the idea of a merger with the U.S. to make Canada the 51st state.
Ford promoted the hat during a brief news conference and also shared it on his social media, urging people to order the accessory to symbolize Canadian pride.
The patriotic merchandise comes from two Ottawa entrepreneurs, Liam Mooney and Emma Cochrane, who run Jackpine Dynamic Branding.
It was launched last week after the pair watched one of Ford’s recent string of interviews with U.S. networks. In one interview Ford did on Fox News, the host pressed the premier to agree to annexation and said it would be a “privilege” for Canada to merge with the U.S.
Moore said that sparked a response from him and his partner, who immediately got to work using their design brand.
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“It’s a privilege to be Canadian,” he said in an interview with Global News.
“We really saw it as a small act of patriotism to take on potentially one of the biggest challenges we’ve ever faced.”
Orders began to trickle in and, as images of the hat were shared on social media, staff working in the premier’s office reached out to the brand to ask if they could get a hat for the premier to wear to his high-profile Wednesday meeting.
On Tuesday morning, after they received the call, Moore said he and his partner went into overdrive. Because they sell the hats through an online store, they didn’t have any on them and had to rush to collaborate with local Ottawa stores to get a few options put together in hours.
“It was a made in Ottawa, made in Ontario, made in Canada yesterday to pull these hats off,” he said.
By the end of the day, the hats were ready and were dropped off with a staffer from the premier’s office.
The next morning, on Wednesday, Ford promoted the hat early in the day. And, at a news event in the afternoon, he and several other premiers joked about wanting more and asking for them in different, party-specific colours.
The result? An explosion in sales for the Ottawa entrepreneurs.
“It’s totally overwhelming. In between interviews, there’s literally 30, 40 emails of new inquiries, new requests, orders,” Moore said. “Hundreds of orders since just a couple of hours ago — global, international, across Canada… I can’t keep up.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
