Calls Abound for Boycott of Ben & Jerry’s After Canada Day, July 4 Comments

Ice cream shown for sale in a Ben & Jerry's store in Miami, Fla., on Sept. 23, 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company is facing calls for a boycott on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border after its comments about Canada Day, a day to celebrate the founding of Canada, and July 4, Independence Day in the United States.

The development follows the recent large-scale boycotting by conservatives of Bud Light and Target in the United States due to the companies’ transgender-related marketing and product offerings.

Ben & Jerry’s marked Canada Day on July 1 with a post on Twitter that read, “O Canada, our home on stolen land.”

“Another day to talk about #LandBack and how we can support communities defending their land. Take action this Canada Day,” the company said.

Many commented under the post saying they won’t be buying the company’s products.

“Between avoiding Ben & Jerry’s, and Hershey’s, I’m going to save a lot of calories,” tweeted journalist Jonathan Kay. Hershey also ran up against a backlash after it featured a trans activist as part of its International Women’s Day promotion.

“Ben and Jerry’s – where the only thing larger than the chunks is the sanctimony,” wrote conservative media host Andrew Lawton.

“Boycott Ben & Jerry’s #boycottB&J,” Woke Watch Canada wrote in a tweet.

The ice cream company also faced a backlash in the United States after it made similar comments on Independence Day, July 4.

The Vermont-based company put out a statement saying the country was founded on stolen indigenous land. “This Fourth of July let’s commit to returning it,” read the tweet.

The company suggested that Mount Rushmore should be returned to the Sioux, who lived on the South Dakota land before it was turned over to the U.S. government.

Country singer-songwriter John Rich tweeted that Ben & Jerry’s should be made “Bud Light again,” in reference to the beer boycott that slashed the company’s bottom line.

Bud Light’s recent partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney resulted in sales falling by nearly 30 percent compared to a year ago. Another conservative boycott against superstore Target for its partnership during Pride Month with a brand that produces merchandise with Satanist designs led to around a 15 percent fall in its stock price since mid-May.

The Epoch Times reached out to Ben & Jerry’s but did not hear back.

History of Activism

The Ben & Jerry’s tweet also contained a link to a petition calling for the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) to be disbanded. The C-IRG was created in 2017 to provide “strategic oversight addressing energy industry incidents and related public order, national security and crime issues.” Ben & Jerry’s described the organization as working on behalf of resource-extraction companies to “arrest indigenous land defenders, suppress protests, and clear the way for extraction projects to proceed.”

The RCMP’s civilian Review and Complaints Commission had opened a probe into the C-IRG’s operations in March to assess whether the unit’s operations are consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The RCMP did not return a request for comment by publication time.

Ben & Jerry’s has a long history of engaging in left-wing political activism, including not serving two scoops of the same ice cream flavour in Australia in 2017 due to the government’s refusal to legalize gay marriage, introducing a new limited batch flavour called “Pecan Resist” in opposition to U.S President Donald Trump in 2018, and rebranding its cold brew coffee flavour to “Change is Brewing” in 2022 in support of Black Lives Matter.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.