Entrepreneur Samantha Ong seated with some of her Joeydolls at her Toronto home on Tuesday.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
When a rock slide in a remote part of B.C. sent a cargo train off the rails in November, one of the cars that was crushed was carrying a quarter of a million dollars in multicultural dolls.
Samantha Ong, who owns Toronto-based company Joeydolls, said she tried to hold on to hope when she got news that one of her holiday shipments from China was involved in the Canadian National Railway derailment. Maybe the dolls could be salvaged because they’re made from soft material, rather than hard plastic, she thought.
But a few weeks later, she received the devastating news that her goods were a total loss, and her small family business was out $200,000 of expected revenue, $50,000 in prepaid inventory and its entire Canadian stock.
“It’s really difficult to grapple with it because you put in all that work, money and it was gone in an instant,” said Ms. Ong, who said her business insurance didn’t cover goods in transit, and a new order wouldn’t arrive for six months.
The accident has spurred a frenzy of action to save Joeydolls. Ms. Ong and her family drove to the U.S. to pick up hundreds of dolls from their American shipping location in Buffalo to use them for some of her Canadian holiday orders. Meanwhile, an outpouring of support has led to increased new orders and thousands of dollars in donations to help recoup some of the lost money from the railway accident.
Ms. Ong said Joeydolls has experienced more than double the amount of orders this holiday season.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Ong started her business out of her house three years ago to bring more diversity to the doll market. The toys culturally represent people of colour from countries such as China, India, Cambodia and Mexico, and they’re dressed in traditional clothing, such as Korean hanbok and Indian lehengas.
She started the company because she didn’t want her daughter to relive her own experience of growing up as a Malaysian Chinese girl in Australia, where the only dolls she saw were white and blonde-haired.
“I remember looking around my classroom thinking my classmates are so much luckier than me because they look the way they do. … I remember thinking I could never be a princess,” said Ms. Ong.
She said it all came full circle when she was finally able to give her daughter one of her dolls, which was dressed in traditional Korean clothing (Ms. Ong’s husband is Korean).
“That was one of the things my daughter said when she finally got one of her dolls … that she looks like a princess.”
Ms. Ong’s business has dealt with immense headwinds this year. With changes to U.S. trade rules, she suddenly faced a 145-per-cent tariff because her dolls were shipped from China. Customers rushed to support her and made $100,000 in new orders to help her business, and Ms. Ong pivoted to have the goods shipped directly to the U.S. instead of Canada to skirt changes to de minimis tax rules.
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She was able to draw on that U.S. inventory when the train crash derailed her Canadian holiday shipments. Ms. Ong and her husband managed to bring $12,000 worth of goods back to Canada in their Toyota Prius stuffed with hundreds of loose dolls.
Ms. Ong says her customers have consistently let her know how important the representation of their culture is to their families. Classrooms also use the dolls for cultural lessons.
“Our customers appreciate us so much that they don’t want to see us go,” said Ms. Ong, who started a GoFundMe campaign after multiple people reached out asking how to donate after the crash.
As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised more than $6,000 out of its $7,000 goal. The money will help reorder the destroyed dolls and pay operating costs as the company rebuilds.
Ms. Ong said Joeydolls has also experienced more than double the amount of orders this holiday season, and she believes some of that new business was an outpouring of support in light of the company’s loss.
The process of ordering, manufacturing and shipping the dolls takes six months, and much of Joeydolls’ 2026 stock was destroyed in the accident. It will take time for the business to recover, but Ms. Ong is focused on continuing to bring representation to the doll market.
“What really keeps me going is knowing that our customers are there for us,” she said.