Paper lids on Tim Hortons coffee cups are ‘woke’: London-area MP

A London-area federal MP is drawing ridiculous after publishing an online video slamming the “woke” paper lids now on Tim Hortons coffee cups.

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Lianne Rood, who represents Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, is shown in the video posing outside one of the chain’s ubiquitous coffee shops and ripping the change to coffee cups and, oddly, the addition of pizzas to its menu.

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“Tim’s used to be for the little guy who wanted a quick coffee and a bite,” Rood wrote on a social-media post that included her video remarks. “Now they’re making pizzas and crappy little lids.”

She adds that she won’t go to Tim Hortons again “until they stop trying to push these woke paper lids that dissolve in your mouth.”

After Rood posted the video, a spokesperson for Tim Hortons emailed The London Free Press to say the company isn’t planning to switch to fiber lids.

“We conducted a fiber lid test for a few weeks in downtown Ottawa and PEI that has already ended,” Michael Oliveira said.

Tim Hortons is studying packaging alternatives because governments at all levels have suggested banning single-use plastics, including plastic lids, he said.

The video was posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday afternoon. It drew several responses that ridiculed her reference to wokeness.

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“Wow, you’re really earning your $200,000 a year,” one person wrote in response. “Hope your constituents are happy.”

Added another: “I’m surprised you didn’t blame Trudeau.”

X user August Murphy King suggested Rood’s reaction was outsized for the issue.

“Imagine being triggered by a coffee lid,” she wrote.

Another X user, Shawn Lawlor, wrote that he thought the video was a sketch on a legendary Canadian comedy show. “I legitimately thought this was a 22 Minutes bit.”

“Woke” is a term used to describe a heightened sense of attention to social issues such as racial discrimination. But it’s also become a watch-word for right-of-center politicians who frequently target businesses and corporations for decisions they believe prioritize so-called wokeness over common sense.

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Rood appeared to be equating the recyclable coffee-lid materials as part of an overall environmental push that critics equate to wokeness.

She’s far from the first politician to strike the woke chord. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has called everything from businesses to institutions “woke” as a criticism. When DeSantis was re-elected as governor in 2022, his acceptance speech was ridden with the term.

“We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die,” DeSantis said.

Rood said in the video that she’d be boycotting Tim Hortons until the company “gets rid of this paper lid,” calling it the “last straw, I mean lid.”

Rood, 45, was first elected MP of the largely rural riding in 2019, winning nearly 50 per cent of the vote. She was re-elected in 2021. Per her website, she previously worked as a farmer and entrepreneur.

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@BrianWatLFPress

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

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