The Meaningless Maple Leaf
January 26, 2015
HENRY McCULLOCH writes:
Thank you for posting my recent comments on Canada. I notice you illustrated it with today’s Canadian national flag. That banner has only been the national flag since 1965. Its adoption was one of the first major steps in stripping Canada of her heritage. The new Canadian flag is the first visual symbol of Canada’s cultural revolutionaries’ determination to uproot Canada from her own history, and most Canadians are unaware of it. The Revolution is nothing if not thorough, and stealthy at times.
The former national ensign of Canada (not officially the national flag, but used as such) that the 1965 maple leaf flag superseded was illustrative of Canada’s history and people. It was a British red ensign with the Union Flag (better known as the Union Jack) as the canton – upper left quadrant – and on the field – the rest of the flag – a shield quartering the ancient banners of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France (royal fleurs-de-lys, not revolutionary tricolor), all above three maple leaves.
The peoples who founded and settled Canada are depicted (the four banners); Canada herself is depicted (the maple leaves); Canada’s status as a Dominion of the Crown is represented by the Union Flag and the red field. That national ensign told Canada’s story and reminded people of Canada’s heritage. It wasn’t bad to look at, either. The flags of Australia and New Zealand today are similar, with a Union Flag canton and national symbols in the field. The Canadian ensign was better, though, as it told the nation’s story, while the Aus. and NZ flags just show variants of the Southern Cross.
Today’s Canadian flag is handsome but depicts nothing, excepting the maple leaf suggesting a northerly nation, of Canada’s heritage and traditions. In the Age of Revolution, we may be sure that was entirely intentional. Ironically, given that Canadians are often eager to distinguish themselves from the far more numerous Americans, the old flag expressed Canada’s distinctiveness far better.
Before 1965 the official flag of Canada was, of course, the Union Jack!
— Comments —
Paul T. writes:
Henry McCulloch makes some good points about Canada’s ‘revolutionary’ flag, which I have always tended to see as the corporate logo of the Liberal Party — though presently out of power, it still tends to see itself as the country’s Natural Governing Party. When the flag overhaul was before Parliament back in 1965, the Liberals took the extraordinary step of invoking closure to cut off debate. That said, the new flag was relatively popular and has become more so with the years; and a continuing attachment to the old national ensign is now one of the badges of aging reactionaries. However, the real problem with the old flag is the very prominent Union Jack in the upper left corner. Given that Great Britain is now very much the “Dead Island” that Lawrence Auster often spoke of, who’d want to be associated with it?
Henry McCulloch writes:
I was a landed immigrant in Ontario for over 10 years and have warm feelings for Canada and most Canadians, although I dislike recent Canadian governments. Americans shouldn’t feel too superior to other nations with bad governments, though, given the evils of today’s U.S. government. In any case, both posts have drawn good comments.
I wasn’t thinking of the association of Canada’s post-1965 maple leaf flag with the Liberal Party, but Paul T. is right about that. The Liberals (a/k/a “Grits”) are Canada’s Democratic Party-equivalent. A little history tells Paul T’s story. At the turn of the 1960s Canada’s prime minister was Conservative John Diefenbaker, a staunch proponent of strong ties, trade and otherwise, within the British Commonwealth and also of a Canada less beholden to the United States. Dief, as he was called, lived for the traditional and British-rooted Canada that old Canadian Red Ensign represents, although he was popular in Quebec as well. It’s a testimony to Dief’s character that he and John Kennedy took an instant dislike to each other when Kennedy moved into the White House; Dief and Eisenhower had got on well from the first.
But in 1963, Lester Pearson – who many now think was an agent of influence of the Soviet Union – led the Grits back to power. Soon the Liberal campaign to change the flag took off. Pearson’s preferred design did not prevail, but that was not so important as the main purpose of the exercise was to excise the Union Flag from Canada’s national flag, which both Pearson’s proposal and the chosen maple leaf did, as one aspect of distancing Canada from the Commonwealth and cutting her off from her British heritage. The Liberals, under Pearson and his more sinister successor Pierre Trudeau, achieved the dubious double-feat of dividing Canada externally from Britain and the Commonwealth while simultaneously dividing Canada internally by aggravating latent friction between mostly French Quebec and mostly British everywhere else; friction largely sublimated since Confederation in 1867.
DISCUSSION ON THIS ENTRY CONTINUES HERE.
