U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to turn Canada into the 51st state have hit the virtual shelves of online retail giant Amazon — and fed-up Canadians are calling for the company to shut it down.
A petition is urging Amazon to disable listings of shirts, hats, stickers and other products emblazoned with quotes referring to Canada as the 51st state or otherwise celebrating the idea of Canada being annexed by its southern neighbour.
“This is not a joke to us. It’s a threat to our autonomy and identity as Canadians,” Ontario resident Sue Williams-Dunn, who started the petition in February, wrote in its description.
The petition had more than 57,000 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.
A quick search of “51st state” on Amazon’s website brings up a flood of items, including t-shirts that say “Make Canada Great Again” in a reference to Trump’s slogan, stickers of the map of Canada coloured in with the American flag and hats declaring Canada as “the 51st state of America.”
“This is offensive and foments dissent and war. I will immediately not buy products from Amazon,” one commenter wrote underneath the petition.
The emergence of products cheering for the U.S. to take over Canada is just the latest front in the ongoing trade war between the two countries, a bitter back-and-forth of tariffs and counter-tariffs that has sparked many Canadians to embrace a “buy Canadian” sentiment.
Amazon said in an email to CBC News that the products in question did not breach their policies.
The company directed CBC News to its “Offensive Products Policies” page, which states that the company’s policies “prohibit the sale of products that promote, incite, or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views, as well as listings that graphically portray violence or victims of violence.”
According to the company’s website, a dedicated team monitors complaints and assess potentially offensive products.
“We strive to maximize selection for all customers, even if we don’t agree with the message or sentiment of all of the products,” Amazon’s website states.
Williams-Dunn, a retired registered nurse, told CBC News that she was “so shocked and upset” when she first saw one of the products on Amazon’s website.
“I felt a jolt right through my heart,” she wrote in an email. “Amazon says it does not [contravene] their controversial product policy but I beg to differ!”
Brand blowback?
It’s not a surprise to Daniel Tsai, an adjunct professor of law and business at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University, that Amazon would be selling these kinds of products.
“Amazon loves money,” he told CBC News.
“I’m not surprised that there’s an abundance of controversial and inflammatory type of merchandise because Amazon’s whole profit model is based on trying to carry as much merchandise as…
Read More: Amazon is selling products calling Canada the 51st state, and many
