In this YouTube episode, host Tod Maffin runs a light‑hearted game‑show with his partner (Speaker B) where he reads out the names of various companies, brands, and products and asks her to decide whether each is Canadian. For each item they discuss ownership structure, public‑stock listings, family stakes, and parent‑company nationality. The dialogue covers a range of retailers and food‑related firms – Dollarama, London Drugs, The Brick, Costco Canada, Lush Cosmetics, Roots, Molson Coors, Maple Leaf Foods, and Kraft Dinner – highlighting nuances such as publicly‑traded Canadian firms with foreign shareholders, multinational corporations listed on both the Toronto and New York exchanges, and brands that are merely products rather than companies. The tone is conversational, playful, and occasionally uncertain, with both participants correcting each other and noting when a company’s status is “tricky.” The segment serves both as entertainment and an informal education on what makes a business “Canadian.”
Chapters
Hello and welcome back to Is It Canadian? Wife Edition. Hey, we're doing a game show, play along with us. Something's not right. Hey Siri, change the kitchen lights to red. That's more Canadian. Okay, are you ready? I'm going to list off some company names, you tell me whether they are Canadian or not Canadian. We are starting with Dollarama.
Not Canadian.
Publicly traded in Canada. The founder And the family still holds a significant but non-controlling stake. So it's kind of a little bit— it's probably— we would call it Canadian-owned, but it's a little bit, you know, everything publicly traded.
Unequivocal.
You're not gonna get it.
Unequivocal.
London Drugs.
Canadian.
Unequivocal. There you go. The Brick.
Canadian.
Correct. Owned by Leon's Furniture, actually. Really? Yeah, also publicly traded. Costco Canada.
Well, I'm just gonna take the bait. That's Canadian.
Nope, that's American. Doesn't matter if they say— doesn't matter if they say Canada at the end. It doesn't matter. Lush, like Lush Cosmetics.
It's British.
Correct, it's British. Roots, the clothing brand.
Well, supposedly they're Canadian, but Lean in. I think, I think that they are American now.
They are just American, like 50.98%.
Unequivocal. Am I right or am I wrong?
All right, Molson Canadian.
I don't know anything about beer. Um, uh, there is a Molson bottling plant in my hometown, so I'm gonna say Canadian.
But are they Canadian?
Yeah, I'm guessing.
This one's tricky. They are neither fully Canadian nor American-owned. They are a genuine multinational. They trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. They have headquarters in Montreal and Chicago, so they are— they're both.
But does trading on a particular nation's stock exchange mean that they're that nation?
I don't know any of this stuff, man.
Pharmacy. Uh, it's got to be Canadian. It's too eccentric to be American.
Yeah, it is eccentric. What is with the stuff they sell in those places sometimes?
There's carpet in the pharmacy in our town.
Maple Leaf Foods.
Yeah, that's Canadian. That's Eastern Canadian, I think.
Yeah, it's publicly traded, but the McCain family still owns about 39%. Okay, you ready?
I'm ready. Lay it on me.
Kraft Dinner. Not Kraft Mac and Cheese. Kraft Dinner.
That's a product, not a company. It's a brand.
It can be owned by something.
Um, I'm gonna say that that one is, uh, not Canadian, because that's just a brand of a big multinational.
