Punit Loutra has always used the Canadian flags that his local MP is handing out so that he can raise one at his home in Toronto.
“I just think it looks great. I think it’s beautiful, “he said.
But this year, he said, it feels different.
“The sad thing is that sometimes I wonder what people will think if I raise the flag,” Loutra said. “People might think I’m someone with extreme ideas – like anti-waxers and things like that.”
The country is usually full of red and white on the national holiday, but this year people in Canada are thinking about their connection to the maple leaf.
The Freedom Convoy demonstrations that blocked Ottawa’s streets in February may look far under the July sun, but the memory of protesters dressed in flags waving them as they sang the national anthem and hung them on trucks whose horns blared during the day and the nights are still fresh for the locals.
Ottawa is preparing for a new round of protests, with police saying this day in Canada will be “unprecedented and unique” with an unprecedented security stance.
“People have made everyone confused about the value, impact and power of the Canadian flag, and that’s pretty sad,” Loutra said.
Blaine Chalk said he felt a change in his feelings about the significance of the flag after the convoy’s protests, during which flags were used for what he called “extreme patriotism.” As he left his son for a recent birthday party, he saw a truck with Canadian flags and stickers attached to the convoys.
“It takes on a connotation: The people who are the strongest are always the ones who wave the flag,” said Chalk, who lives in London, Ont.
But Megan Ball Rigdon said the country’s own complex colonial history made her hesitate to embrace the red and whites.
“I don’t think I would wave one myself, regardless of the convoy, to be honest,” she said.
Ball Rigdon said her mother’s generation had chosen the Canadian flag and it was close to their hearts that they were representative of the “good things we are.”
She said she had a front yard in her hometown of Windsor, Ont., Which was “red and white with hundreds of flags.”
“This man doesn’t just do it with love, but I understand that it can certainly mean a lot more to a lot of people,” she said.
During the flag debate in 1964, the maple leaf was adopted as a symbolic gesture of decolonization with the Francophones in mind to illustrate an equal partnership with English and French Canada, said Paul Leith, a history professor at Carlton University who studies Canadian nationalism and culture.
“Conservative reactionary forces have completely opposed the maple leaf,” Lith said, adding that they wanted to keep the red flag as a national flag because of the symbolism of the Canadian tradition and ties with Britain.
At the time, English and French-Canadians were called “the two founding peoples,” he said. “You don’t do that anymore.”
Almost 60 years later, people in Canada are beginning to see their country and its founding differently.
“The passage of time has really changed our perspective on ourselves,” said Ball Regen.
She believes the flag is representative of a political system that monitors the colonization of indigenous peoples, noting the discovery of unmarked graves in residential schools across the country.
“I think people realize that we’ve really done a good job presenting ourselves in Canada as kind and loving all the time. But like everyone else, we have had our moments to be oppressors, “she said.
It was this reliance on Canada’s past that led Chalk to buy a Canadian Indigenous flag last year designed by Kwakwaka’wakw artist Curtis Wilson.
“I felt weird waving the Canadian flag after all these events,” Chalk said.
“I felt strongly that I preferred to fly like that. I’m still proud to be Canadian, but I think we’ve left the indigenous people aside for a long time.
“It’s not perfect, but you can try.”
The current issue of Maple Leaf reflects a common problem with public discourse, Lit said, where there are “extremist” factions at both ends of the political spectrum.
While people on the right may appear to be appropriating the flag, as seen by convoy protesters, he said those on the left “set themselves up for it” by rejecting many sacred national symbols.
“If they are unpatriotic, then we will be super patriotic,” Lit said of right-wing thinking.
Canada’s national identity has always been controversial, and people can strongly identify with the flag because it is projected onto this imaginary national community, Lit said.
“The reason they love the country so much is because they see that the country represents them,” he said.
“When you start getting these dramatic incidents where there is evidence that maybe Canada means something different from what you imagined it to be – a sequel to yourself – it has great potential for dissonance.
Ball Regen said he understood that the flag could be a hurtful symbol for some and a symbol to be proud of for others.
“Until we as a country analyze it together, I guess we need to have a little ‘Canadian understanding’ of how we all see it,” she said.
“I think there is room for more conversation now. So in that respect, maybe the convoy did something really good for all of us. “
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 30, 2022.
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This story was created with the financial support of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
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