In this interview, former CBC host Tod Maffin discusses his evolution from creating "Buy Canada" videos about tariffs and the distinction between "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada" to launching a grassroots initiative that invites American healthcare workers to explore relocation to Vancouver Island and broader British Columbia. After a flippant video offering a weekend visit, hundreds of Americans, many of them healthcare professionals, visited his hometown of Nanaimo, using the trip to assess the island as a potential new home. Maffin and his wife Jocelyne now run a website and Discord server that compile essential information for prospective movers, and they plan to release a template so other Canadian communities can replicate the model. He urges Canadians to provide emotional support by simply listening to Americans’ concerns and offering small acts of kindness. Maffin outlines the values he expects newcomers to adopt—community support, voting, and basic decency—while emphasizing that perfection isn’t required. He notes that provincial governments, especially British Columbia, have stepped up with advertising campaigns and streamlined immigration processes, resulting in a three‑fold increase to about 1,400 American healthcare worker applications in recent months. Finally, he directs listeners to his newsletter, farandwide.news, for updates and ways to help.
Chapters
Tod Maffin is a Canadian commentator, writer, and former national host and producer at CBC Radio, but he has gone out on his own now, and he really is— well, what— how do you describe yourself, Tod, as your Canadian— well, you're a Canadian icon now, for sure.
I don't know. I would think overcaffeinated is mostly how I describe myself.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm one of many people talking about Canadian identity at a time that I think a lot of people are talking about it.
Tell us a little bit right now. I know my co-host stumbled upon you as well with your current passion project, which is brilliant.
So, yeah, so about like when the whole Buy Canada stuff started happening, the tariffs, I was making some videos about, you know, what the difference between made in Canada versus product of Canada is and how we should be boycotting American products. One of the things that surprised me was there were a lot of Americans in the comments of those videos saying, we support this, like boycott us, make it hurt for us. That's fine. We support the Canadian economy. So it's kind of a bit of a joke, actually. One day I was in February just waiting for like an Xbox game to install or something, and I made this somewhat flippant video saying, hey, if Americans really support Canada and our economy, why don't you come up here to Vancouver Island, Nanaimo, where I live, and spend a weekend here? We'll pick a weekend. You guys can come and shop in our stores and eat in our restaurants. And hundreds of them took my wife and I up on that offer and showed up one weekend in late April. And that sort of— one of the things that came out of that was a lot of healthcare workers used it as a chance to look around Vancouver Island to see sort of like what the island was like potentially for them to come move. So that's what Jocelyne and I are doing in our evenings and weekends now is trying to help them get information that they need to move to Canada, and we think Vancouver Island is pretty great. So, but anywhere in BC is, or Canada, we'd be happy with that.
What is your advice to us as Canadians now? How can we help this project if we can't actually go to the island, help you do that sort of stuff? What can we do?
You know, from speaking to a lot of Americans, I think we, the, one of the most important things we can do is to listen. There is, there's a great deal of fear in the US right now for obvious reasons. You only have to sort of be looking at what's happening to see that. We don't have to do big things in Canada. We can listen. We can ask someone how they're doing. If we're in a Facebook group, if you are in a calligraphy art group with someone, if you, you know, are on an email list because your kid did a foreign exchange trip, pick one American, ask them how they're doing, ask them if there's anything we can do to help. I think that goes a long way as well.
I love that because you claim to be an emotional support Canadian. I love that. We can all become somebody's emotional support Canadian. Canadian. And, you know, it is funny when we run into Americans that are travelling here to Vancouver in that they're sheepish to tell us where they're from. And most of us are very understanding. We get it. They're hurting. So I love what you and your wife are doing. It is wonderful. I love that you're on my island. You're over there doing something big. And what do you see for the future for us, Tod?
Well, hopefully more health care workers. More skilled labour. Um, you know, I think that, that we're— it's sort of a unique opportunity in Canada to, um, to offer that support, and I think it's something that we should step up and do. Um, and I think it's also an opportunity for us with the people who will be coming in, newcomers, is to, you know, I don't know whether it's a reset they need or just sort of help them understand the difference between the way that I think a lot of Americans run their day-to-day lives and the way that Canada does. We don't have a lot of expectations from people who come up here and move to Canada, you know, in a healthcare role or whatever, except for a couple of things. We expect that you'll support your community. We expect that when you get citizenship, you'll vote. We expect that you will be relentlessly decent. We don't expect perfection in Canada. We expect decency. And I think if we can just communicate that, support your community, And I think that kind of common sense, just be good to your family and be good to your community, is a message that they need to hear and maybe we all need to hear from time to time as well.
So, Tod, can you tell us what our government is doing right, right now to encourage healthcare workers to move here?
A lot. You know, all the provinces have really stepped up. B.C. especially, if you look at the volume of applications are like triple, 1,400 American healthcare workers wanting to come into B.C. just like in the last couple of months. So like the provinces have stepped up. It's great to see BC putting even slightly kind of cheeky ads in the US. I kind of like that. The provinces are playing the role. I really feel that like the system has stepped up to support it. I'm hoping that other community groups like the one that Jocelyn and I are helping with will also kind of support grassroots things. The website and the Discord server that we set up I'm actually going to be turning into kind of a template in the next couple of days and then releasing it publicly so that other communities can basically just kind of click and it'll populate with the website that we did and they just put their own community name into it so that other communities across Canada can also do this.
So I'm so glad that we could get you on and you're hilarious, you're humble, you're funny, you've written two books. I mean, you've got years and years of marketing experience. You're I'm going to make you blush here. You're a brilliant man and I'm so glad what you're doing. How can people follow and help you?
Sure, my newsletter is probably the easiest way. It's at farandwide.news, like the national anthem, from far and wide. So farandwide.news.
Thanks so much for joining our city tonight. We're thrilled to have you and we'll keep following your progress and keep us informed.
