Canada Day usually arrives in an explosion of red and white, with citizens and newcomers flying that nation’s flag to celebrate.
But months after the Freedom Convoy brought downtown Ottawa to a standstill, with Canadian flags flying from trucks and prominently displayed among protesting crowds, some Canadians are rethinking what the flag means to them. And since unmarked dormitory graves were discovered that brought to the fore the devastating impact of colonialism in this country, the question of whether the Canadian flag is worth rallying around is more complicated than ever.
Before this Canada Day, Toronto resident Puneet Luthra said he always raised the flag in his home to celebrate the holiday, but this year felt different for him.
“The sad part is, sometimes I wonder what people will think if I put the flag up,” Luthra told The Canadian Press. “People might think I’m a guy with fringe ideas — like anti-vaxxers and stuff like that.”
Another Ontario resident, Megan Ball Rigdon, told CP that she had reservations about the Canadian flag because of the country’s colonial history and didn’t think she would fly one “regardless of the convoy.”
Forrest Pass, a historian and curator at Library and Archives Canada, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview that he’s seeing fewer Canadian flags around Ottawa than usual this week.
“[On] On Canada Day, especially in the nation’s capital, we see flags everywhere. It’s just part of the urban fabric here,” he said. “But they’ve certainly been fewer, and anecdotally I’ve heard that [the convoy is] reason people don’t fly with them.
Still, a recent survey of more than 1,000 Canadians found that 76 percent of them would be proud to fly the Canadian flag, with 14 percent disagreeing with that statement.
The same poll, conducted by Counsel Public Affairs Inc., also asked participants how Canada Day should be celebrated in light of the reliance on racial discrimination and colonial injustice in Canadian society.
Nearly half (47 per cent) of those polled said the day should be spent both celebrating and reflecting, while 41 per cent said it was a day to celebrate – leaving reflection for another day. Twelve per cent of those surveyed said Canada Day should be strictly about reflecting on the country’s shortcomings.
For some who have chosen not to fly the Canadian flag this holiday, the concern is that it could signal allegiance to a particular movement they do not support, such as the Freedom Convoy protests.
During the weeks the convoy occupied Ottawa, supporters decorated their trucks and vehicles with full-size Canadian flags.
“It’s not uncommon in the U.S. to see people from across the political spectrum use the flag to represent what it means to be an American,” Paz explained. “We haven’t had that to the same degree until very recently.”
Paz said some Freedom Convoy supporters used a more American brand of patriotism with the use of the Canadian flag during the protest.
“[The] the intention was to associate theirs [the protesters’] goals and objectives, their values with Canadian patriotism and therefore proclaim that these ideas, their kind of fundamentalist notion of freedom, are uniquely Canadian, uniquely Canadian,” Pass said. “Unlike the positions of their opponents and the vast majority of us who did not always sympathize with their positions.”
THE STORY OF THE FLAG
Although the American flag has been around for almost 250 years and has a dramatic origin story, “supposedly sewn by Betsy Ross on the orders of a general during the Revolutionary War,” Paz said, Canada’s flag is relatively young and came to the world more recently. calm way.
The Canadian flag as we know it today was raised by the Liberal Party in 1964 to replace the Red Ensign, a temporary national flag that was sometimes used as an alternative to the English Union Jack at the time.
When the maple leaf flag was designed, it was far from a national rallying cry, with many associating it purely with the Liberal Party, Paz said.
“It wasn’t until really in the past, I’d say 20, maybe 30 years, that we started to see those on the center right so eagerly embrace the maple leaf flag,” he said.
Other flags have been used in political ways in the past along the Canadian fault lines, he explained, and the maple leaf as part of the iconography had previously been used by white nationalist groups in Canada, such as a pro-Nazi party based in Quebec in the 1930s of the last century.
The Red Ensign, for example, is often adopted by white nationalist organizations, which in the 1960s believed it should not be replaced “because it represents Canada’s place in the empire,” Paz said, adding that those organizations believed , that “part of the greatness of empire came from racial purity.
But in terms of the classic red-and-white flag, it’s so relatively young that it hasn’t had much of a chance to be used as a controversial symbol, Paz said.
“We’re not used to seeing it used in a partisan way,” he said.
The idea behind the national flag is that it represents “all of us,” Heather Nicol, director of Trent University’s School of Canadian Studies, told CTVNews.ca in a video call.
“At the Olympics, people wrap themselves in the flag because it represents Canada, or it flies on Parliament Hill or over the institutions, but when someone co-opts it and says, ‘it only represents this point of view, not another point of view,’ that really has sobering effect, I think,” she said.
Part of the uneasy feeling some Canadians have about the flag this Canada Day may come from the chilling sight of the Canadian flag flown next to Nazi symbols during the protests in Ottawa, she said.
Many associated with the Freedom Convoy have said that those who display symbols of hate are a small, fringe segment that they disapprove of.
THE STAIN OF SCHOOLS
Talk of the Canadian flag and other symbols of patriotism has been going on for years, but it seems to be intensifying.
“It’s not just the Freedom Convoy,” Nicole said.
In 2021, Canada Day looked different in many cities, with people swapping their usual red and white for orange shirts to honor Indigenous lives, following the confirmation of unmarked graves at three former residential schools – a number which grew, with at least 1,800 confirmed or suspected unmarked graves identified since then. Hundreds more schools are still being searched.
For a vast amount of Indigenous people, the Canadian flag has never been a symbol with which they identify.
“The flag was adopted in 1965 and the last residential school closed in 1996,” Paz said. “So for more than 30 years it’s been a flag flying over the schools. It was a flag that for many local people was a symbol of colonialism.
The flag has been used to make gestures of reconciliation before, such as flying flags at half-staff for months in 2021 after the first reports of unmarked graves. But given Canada’s poor record of taking concrete steps toward reconciliation, many indigenous people said the Canadian flag did not convey a sense of belonging.
Last year there were calls to “Cancel Canada Day” and this year several indigenous communities have said they will not recognize the day, such as the Six Nations of Grand River. The community said in a statement this week that “we hope that rather than a day of celebration, July 1 can be a day of somber reflection and renewed commitment to further the reconciliation process.”
The statement called on Canadians to once again wear orange to honor the children lost in the school system as well as the survivors.
THE FLAG IN CONTEXT
Canadians who worry that their flag could be misinterpreted should remember that context plays a big role.
As the sounds of endless honking echoed through Ottawa in February, Paz recalled his neighbor hanging a Canadian flag outside the home along with signs like “vaccine orders save lives” to make that household’s position clear.
Because of the flag’s clear and simple design, it lends itself to many edits that allow people to layer identities and values onto it as well, Paz said, noting that there are LGBTQ2S+ versions of the Canadian flag as well as a new indigenous design. These versions can allow people to express themselves further.
The overall question of whether the flag itself is worth supporting, given its colonial past and Canada’s shortcomings, is less certain, experts say.
Symbols change over time, as do societies, and the question is one that will continue to be asked.
“I think it can only really be tainted or taken over by one political faction if everyone else allows it,” Paz said.
He added that continuing those conversations is important, a sentiment echoed by Nicole.
“I think [the flag] it can be a unifying symbol again, but I think right now it’s a symbol of ‘we have a lot of work to do,’” she said. “I don’t celebrate heritage, I don’t celebrate history. I’m just celebrating the opportunity and the hope that in order to do this, we can do something better.
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