Some American vacationers are ‘flag jacking’ and Canadians are furious

Chelsea Metzger didn’t got down to faux she was Canadian.

It was solely after a heated confrontation with Canadians and a shocking alternate with a neighborhood taxi driver throughout her trip within the Dominican Republic earlier this yr that the American vacationer from upstate New York resorted to mendacity about her nationality for the primary time.

Metzger, 33, and her fiancé have been at a French-Canadian bar in El Pueblito in February, which was displaying the ultimate of the 4 Nations Face-Off hockey event between Canada and the US.

When the American workforce scored a purpose, Metzger’s lone, “Woo, USA,” didn’t go down nicely.

“A Canadian couple screamed at me, saying that America is selfish, and ruining everything for Canada and the world,” Metzger advised CNN. “The girl started crying, and said, ‘I don’t think Americans realize that what’s going on is really affecting us here.’”

Metzger tried to defend herself, explaining that she didn’t vote for Trump. But tempers flared inebriated. Eventually, the state of affairs de-escalated and the couple returned to apologize with a flight of pictures.

“I told her I get it. As somebody who didn’t vote for this, it’s affecting everyone. We’re all feeling the effects of it and unfortunately, the only thing we can do right now is ride it out together.”

While making an attempt to flag down a taxi throughout the identical journey, a neighborhood driver mistook them for Canadians till she corrected him. Instead of choosing them up, he provided a curt, “OK, have a good day,” and drove off.

So for a couple of weeks, Metzger launched herself as Canadian.

The maple leaf has lengthy been a robust diplomatic accent for Canadian vacationers who’ve been recognized to stitch the Canadian flag on their luggage to tell apart themselves from Americans.

But over the previous couple of months, some US vacationers have revived a decades-old follow of masquerading as Canadians with a purpose to keep away from anti-American sentiment overseas below the Trump administration. They’re hiding behind the maple leaf, falsely figuring out themselves as Canadians and displaying the Canadian flag on their luggage in a phenomenon generally known as flag jacking.

And Canadians are irate.

“For some reason, Americans think that we are their backup passport. The world’s first dual-action moral absolver. Just apply gently and watch the shame disappear,” says Tod Maffin, a Canadian cultural commentator who eviscerates flag-jacking Americans in a short video rant that has had greater than 100,000 views throughout his social media platforms since being uploaded lower than three months in the past.

Maffin’s barbed message spares nobody — not even the liberal, progressive Americans who protest that they didn’t vote for Trump and are merely making an attempt to move themselves off as Canadian as a result of they really feel ashamed or unsafe.

“And look, we get you. A lot of you have been out in the streets, fighting for something better. Some of you are just trying to travel without getting yelled at at customs. We get it,” Maffin says.

But the Canadian flag is just not a defend or an invisibility cloak, he continues. “Calling yourself Canadian is not a safety move. It’s performance art.”

The days of Canadians providing a sympathetic shoulder as an “emotional support Canadian” to their non-MAGA neighbors — a web based pattern that emerged following Trump’s election in 2024 — look like over.

Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff struggle, threats to annex Canada and make it a 51st state, and his obsessive belittling of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have hardened Canadians in opposition to their neighbor and rekindled a type of Canadian nationalism that hasn’t been seen in many years.

“External threats are what stimulate nationalist responses,” explains Robert Schertzer, an affiliate professor of political science on the University of Toronto. “It’s what sociologists call collective effervescence, a spontaneous bubbling to the surface of sentiment.”

In Canada, this collective effervescence has manifested itself within the booing of the American nationwide anthem at sporting occasions, the boycotting of US journey and American-made merchandise, and the waving of the Canadian flag, messaging that doubles down on what might really feel like an uncomfortable fact for each Canadians and Americans.

“Canadian nationalism at its core has an element of anti-Americanism,” Schertzer says, explaining that feelings related to nationalism may be as highly effective as these linked to faith.

“So when an American pretends to be Canadian, it’s understandable why a person who is feeling this national pride and is stimulated by outside threats would respond emotionally to that.”

Earlier this yr, Trudeau additionally outlined Canada’s nationwide identification by what it’s not.

“Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian,” he advised CNN’s Jake Tapper in January. “One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, ‘Well, we’re not American.”

Which is why Canadians are notably incensed on the notion that any American would hijack the Canadian flag and declare it as theirs. In the web discourse, outraged Canadians supply up an extended listing of why this follow — which some Americans are presenting as a journey hack or laughing off as a innocent joke — is offensive and smug.

It’s cosplaying; cultural theft and appropriation; makes a mockery of the Canadian flag; ruins Canadian goodwill and the nation’s popularity world wide. It’s fraudulent; smug; cowardly and entitled, they are saying.

Some argue the follow is using on the coattails of Canada’s historic ties to international locations such because the Netherlands, which was liberated by Canadian troops throughout World War II and the place Canadians are notably appreciated.

And it’s ironic in gentle of American exceptionalism. If America is the best nation on earth, Canadians ask on-line, why are Americans concealing their nationality and hiding behind one other flag?

“As things continued to devolve in the US, we saw a lot of Americans talking about international travel and this idea of cosplaying a Canadian came up frequently,” Maffin advised CNN from his residence in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

“I tried to give voice to what a lot of Canadians have thought for generations. We are not a cape to put on to disorient people from the fact that you are from a specific nation. Canada is a country. We are not a costume shop.”

Many vacationers who backpacked by means of Europe within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s can vouch for the phenomenon, when some younger Americans posed as Canadians. The act of subterfuge was notably frequent within the 2000s, amidst America’s unpopular international coverage and the nation’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In a 2005 episode of “The Simpsons” set in Italy, Lisa Simpson sews a Canadian flag on her backpack as a result of, “Well, some people in Europe have the impression that America has made some stupid choices in the past, oh, five years. So for the next week, I’m from Canada.”

That’s what Chelsea Metzger did this yr. Making up a backstory wasn’t arduous for her. Over the years, she made a number of Canadian associates throughout her annual month-long journey to the Dominican Republic, together with a pal from the small city of Janetville. Adopting that Ontario city appeared like a plausible cowl story and labored more often than not — besides when a fellow American referred to as her out after listening to her accent.

Another American from Michigan advised CNN that in their travels in Greece, she and her pal lied to their waiter and advised him they have been Canadian after being sneered at for being American one too many instances throughout their Euro vacation this summer season.

When he requested the place in Canada they have been from, her pal blurted out Ontario. What they didn’t count on was that the waiter knew extra in regards to the province than they did, and began excitedly reeling off locations that they knew nothing about. Their plan rapidly unraveled.

“After that we kind of decided not to do it again because it was pretty awkward not being able to back that up. It was just like a silly idea,” mentioned Grace, 22, a Republican who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify for worry of backlash.

But for Canadians like Maffin, the follow of posing as fake Canadians is problematic as a result of it dangers sullying Canada’s world popularity.

“There are almost no places in this world where you can parachute in, say you’re from Canada and not be welcomed,” he mentioned. “The same cannot be said for Americans. The solution is to fix your own house, not to come to ours and put our clothes on.”