By Dave Bolton

June 11, 2022 Newmarket Ontario. It looked a lot like a street party in the vicinity of a local ice cream store. A group of about 200 people came together, formed a vehicle convoy — displaying Canadian flags and various freedom slogans — and made some noise.

Part protest, part rally, part celebration, the crowd was there to support Kawartha Dairy assistant manager Donna Sfetcos, who had been asked by her employer to remove flags from her car after a social media post with a picture of her vehicle started a flood of complaints earlier in the week.

35 year old Sfetcos was amazed to see all the people who came to show their support. “I’m overwhelmed, I didn’t expect this. I expected five to 10 people,” she said. “But never this, not in a million years.”

The crowd, who came in multiple convoys from different areas including Georgina and Barrie, blared and honked their horns, waved their flags and ate lots of ice cream from the dairy outlet. Sfetcos, assistant manager for the last four years at the Newmarket Kawartha Dairy, one of 10 stores in Ontario, said her vehicle had two Canadian flags and two ‘We the Fringe’ flags on it.

Sfetcos told Druthers “The person who originally made the post on both Twitter and Facebook didn’t reach out to speak with me directly, that I know of. On the morning of Tuesday June 7, I received a phone call at the store at approximately 9:15-9:30, stating that the f*** Trudeau flags were offensive. I told the caller that no vehicle in the parking lot has that on a flag. That morning I answered a total of 6 phone calls, all complaining and yelling at me. At approximately 11:15-11:30, my manager, who is amazing, handed me her phone and said the VP wants to speak to me. I took the phone and went outside, I was told to take down my flags. I expressed how I wasn’t okay with removing the Canadian flags, but the ‘We the Fringe’ flag I would take down, as I don’t want families to think they say f*** Trudeau. The phone calls and emails kept coming through to the store that day and still continue to this day.

The next day I arrived at work and decided I’m going to keep my flags up, so I zipped tied the ‘We the Fringe’ flag to the Canadian flag, but within 30 minutes I received a call complaining about the supposed f*** Trudeau flags, so I proceeded to go outside and take down the ‘We The Fringe’ flags.

A few hours later the VP called and asked me to remove the Canadian flags as well. I was heartbroken. I complied to something I didn’t want to comply with, as I love my job and didn’t want to be fired. We have received a lot of feedback to the store as well through info@kawarthadairy.com both negative and positive. Our google reviews have dropped from a 4.7 to a 4.5 due to the company initially not standing behind me.”

Sfetcos described the situation as a rough go for everyone involved. She said the Kawartha Dairy head office has, however, been very supportive. “They respect me,” she said. “It’s a family-run business.”

The company responded: “We understand the flags on one of our employee’s personal vehicles were offensive,” said Dana Somerville, who oversees all of Kawartha Dairy’s owned retail stores. “Although there was no profanity on the flags, we have spoken to the employee, who has removed the flags from their vehicle. Kawartha Dairy does not support and is in no way affiliated with the ‘fringe movement’. Kawartha Dairy prides ourselves on being an inclusive company who treats everyone like family and respects the personal opinions of our employees and our customers,”

In response to the accusations Sfetcos said the flag in question “Says ‘We The Fringe’, and there’s a sticker that says ‘peace, love, unity, freedom’. It’s literally about peace and love; it’s not about discrimination or any hatred toward Trudeau or anybody else whatsoever.”

One June 14, Ms. Sfetcos reported that The Kawartha Dairy CEO and VP have personally apologized to Donna and said that she can continue to fly her flags. She’d like to thank “the fringe” for all their support.