Review #3

Tim Hortons festive mug loses the maple leaf in Quebec

Tim Hortons has been a part of Canada for over 40 years now and only serving Canadians freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked donuts. The first Tim Hortons franchise opened in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1967, with three stores in operation, Tim Horton (founder of the business) became full partners with former police officer and franchisee of Tim Hortons Store #1, Ron Joyce. Since then, Tim's signature has become a prominent fixture in the Canadian landscape. However, now in 2010, Tim Hortons has released its holiday mugs across Canada, but the Quebec version isn't like the rest. Where a maple leaf appears on mugs in all other provinces, a snowflake appears in Quebec. The Tim Hortons coffee and tim-bits are something that Canadians share and experience the spirit of unity, and by using a maple leaf it represents Canada and not a province. Tim Hortons made a very deliberate decision to cater to two different markets, one for Quebec and one for the rest of Canada.

In the non-Quebec version of the Tim Hortons festive mug, the Rocky Mountains, CN Tower and Maple Leaf can be seen.

In the Quebec version of the Tim Hortons mug, there are snowflakes instead of maple leaves.

This has stirred up a lot of angry customers from other provinces who might consider boycotting Tim Hortons. Questions that might come up are “why is Quebec so special that they get their own mug?” and “Why not make a special mug for every province then?” “Is Time Hortons still a Canadian company and isn’t Quebec a part of Canada?” Tim Horton's has decided to change its marketing strategy for the Quebec market to satisfy the separatist consumer base. This is something that segregates Quebec from the rest of the Canadian traditions. Every society has an ideology that forms the basis of the "public opinion" or common sense, a basis that usually remains invisible to most people within the society. This prevailing ideology appears as "neutral"; all others differ from the norm and are often seen as radical, no matter what the actual vision may be. Organizations that strive for power influence the ideology of a society to make it become what they want. In this situation, we have a marketing company, Tim Hortons, which is seen as a cultural part of Canadian society who strived to reach out for more power. The change in the mugs for a different province shows that the influence of Quebecers resistance against Canadian traditions has been accomplished. Having a sense of being a Canadian citizenship is often identified as sharing values, endorsing to the Canadian cultural codes, and promoting nation unity. Also by addressing historical things about Canada that become traditional. The Quebec citizenship is addressed in a sense that French is the common public language, democratic values and principles, recognition of the Quebec-Anglophone community, etc. This process of bringing sameness brings about conflict towards national identity and belonging. Citizenship in Quebec is known to be a “hard” form of citizenship while the Canadian citizenship is known to be a “soft” citizenship. Canada is politically progressive with a national community; on the other hand Quebec remains to struggle to gain recognition.