On crisp autumn mornings back in 1989, Brian Naish, BSc’93, would often walk by the Arts Building on McGill’s downtown campus, glancing up at the iconic university flag fluttering overhead.
For a young undergraduate from Vancouver Island, who had recently travelled thousands of miles to be in Montreal, it was a symbol of a new home and a new life.
Fast forward to 36 years later: Naish makes that very flag.
And not just that one: His company Flags Unlimited is the biggest producer of Canadian flags in the country, making around a million every year.
In normal times, it’s the kind of business that’s reliable, though a little unsexy.
In case you didn’t know: These are not normal times.
As U.S. President Donald Trump assumed office earlier this year and began threatening to turn Canada into the 51st state, Canadians reacted in unison: They were not about to be taken over.
Suddenly, typically self-effacing Canadians were patriotic, and loudly so.
That meant flags – lots of them.
“Within seven days, retail sales were going up 400 per cent. We had clients coming to us saying, ‘Uh, we’ve got an issue…’”
Brian Naish, co-owner of Flags Unlimited
Naish knew his world was about to blow up in February, when big retail clients like Costco began to call him in a panic.
“It was almost immediate,” says Naish, whose fond memories of Montreal include everything from downing Schwartz’s smoked meat, to listening to the tam-tams in Mount Royal Park, to being a floor fellow at McConnell Hall.
“Within seven days, retail sales were going up 400 per cent,” says Naish. “We had clients coming to us saying, ‘Uh, we’ve got an issue…’”
Among them, Canadian Tire – which might normally buy 100,000 flags and was now asking whether 700,000 or 800,000 might be possible.
A nice problem to have, perhaps, for a growing business. But one that’s an enormous challenge in the manufacturing world, where you can’t just press a button and multiply your output many times over.
But they did what they could. They essentially doubled their workforce. They stretched to 19-hour days at their Barrie, Ontario facility, as sales leaped.
Call it the ‘Trump bump’. Canadians felt the need to plant a flag on their porch to send a message to the world.
Before he found himself at the epicenter of a geopolitical firestorm, Naish’s career wasn’t always so dramatic.
After finishing his McGill degree in physiology, Naish veered into the accounting world, working for Arthur Andersen. Eventually he moved on to corporate boardrooms, first as chief financial officer at CIBC Mellon, and then in the same position at the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
But Naish had always wanted to try his hand at being an entrepreneur and being his own boss. After a couple of years of scouting around for the right opportunity, he bought Flags Unlimited with business partner Matt Skipp in 2019. The company was churning out around $10 million a year in sales, but they saw potential for even more growth. Naish and Skipp were now at the helm of the country’s biggest supplier of Canadian flags.
(For the record, Flags Unlimited also produces Quebec’s fleur-de-lis, another gigantic seller. And the most popular provincial flag, per capita? Alberta.)
One particular point of pride for Naish and his colleagues: Their products are made in Canada, employing Canadian workers, unlike the cheap knockoffs you might find online.
Especially at this moment in time, that’s important.
“I think Canadians are very patriotic, but they don’t always display it,” says Naish.
“But now, they’re choosing to decorate their homes and cottages, to show unity against that threat south of the border. That’s a good thing.”
